Address of Hon. Lukas Mandl M.E.P. to the European Leadership Conference on the Western Balkans at the European Parliament in Brussels on 19 November 2025.
(After welecoming everyone as the conference host, Hon. Lukas Mandl M.E.P. first gave the floor to his colleague, H.E. Davor Ivo Stier MEP, who had to leave early, before continuing his address.)
N.B. This transcription has been prepared with as much accuracy as possible, but please note that it may contain minor discrepancies.
Thank you very much, Davor, for this deep dive and also for this holistic approach to all the enlargement endeavor. The title of today's conference is Balkan Stability and European Security. We will catch up with time because I will only make one strong remark, and I will have the honor and privilege to hand over the floor to His Excellency Alfred Moisiu, and then Jacques Marion, I very much thank you for the excellent cooperation in organizing this, and we have had a very good cooperation over many years. I will hand over to him to moderate the first panel.
The point I want to make, kind of complementary to what my colleague Davor Ivo Stier has stated, is what I am searching for, what I seek for, is leadership. If you look back in European history, when it came to the fall of the Iron Curtain, it was leadership by people like Václav Havel or Lech Walesa. When it came to the German reunification, it was leadership by personalities like Hemut Kohl or François Mitterrand. It was states responsible actors who have taken decisions which might not have been easy to take, but they have taken decisions. without looking too much into bureaucratic processes or into what could hinder the positive process, rather looking into the question of how history can be shaped positively for generations to come, generations of Europeans, meaning the Western Europeans of that time, as well as the Eastern Europeans, as well as Southeast and all parts of Europe, and making also Europe capable of contributing to the world better.
These kinds of leadership are missing. Even in this room, six years ago, I was part of negotiating the new methodology for enlargement on the request, politically speaking, on the request of the President of Western Europe to be a large country there. And these six years ago, we made a new methodology. You know what happened after that? Still not any progress which we could mention too positively. I'm very well aware of the problems Davor Ivo Stier has mentioned, and that they should be mentioned, especially when governments treat their own people badly. This must not happen within the EU. This must not happen outside of the EU in Europe. It must not happen at all. And we can't take countries on board with the risk of such circumstances, but we can contribute by the process, as Davor Ivo Stier has said, to a positive development.
But we also need the leadership decisions to do it, or as the late Erhard Busek, already passed away, statesman of my own country, also stated in his very last book, the six Western Balkan countries should be taken on board jointly, all at once. This was his leadership approach, his visionary approach. Even the book was named “Balkans to Europe Immediately”. That's the title of the book in English language, “Balkan nach Europa - sofort!” in German language. So, of course, we have to discuss, we have to negotiate, we have to figure out how to solve different problems, but not only within these six countries, especially one of them, I have to say, today, but also within Europe, when it comes to the structures of the European Union to make Europe capable to get involved in its own destiny.
And that destiny must be enlargement, that destiny must be a Europe with more strength to the outside and more freedom to the inside, by the way. And that means not only to the Western Balkans, but also to the Eastern Partnership, and also to achieve one day a European Union consisting of all European states. And this visionary approach must not get abandoned.
I do not want to miss, before Jacques Marion introduces all the panelists for the first panel, to mention my fellow Austrian, and I can say my mentor, Othmar Karas (MEP, Head of the Austrian Delegation of the EPP Group), who just joined the room, he was the longest standing member of European Parliament from Austria, from my home country. I've learned a lot from him. I'm still learning a lot from him. He also always had the Western Balkans high on his agenda, and it's an honor for me that you are not only in Brussels today, but you just took the time to join this conference, Othmar. Thanks again to Jacques Marion for organizing this together with us and for the good cooperation, and now it's my privilege and my honor, Your Excellency President Alfred Moisiu to hand over the floor to you. Sorry for that. We met last time more than a year ago in Pristina, so I'm really sorry for not recognizing everybody directly. But I hand over to Alfred Moisiu, and I'm really grateful, thank you very much for joining, and the floor is yours.