The EU will soon have its first Enlargement commissioner coming from a country of the former Yugoslavia. Marta Kos, a Slovenian, will have the task of overseeing one of the more important portfolios for Ursula von der Leyen’s upcoming EU Commission. She says she will do so with “an energy equal to that born of the historic momentum” of the great enlargement of the Union, twenty years ago. “I feel the same motivation and commitment”, Kos confirmed in her hearing before the foreign-affairs committee of the European Parliament on November 7.

With the exception of the Slovenian Janez Potočnik’s brief six-month stint in the Prodi Commission (he flanked Germany’s Günter Verheugen from May to November 2004, following Slovenia’s accession to the EU), the enlargement portfolio has never gone to a commissioner from a Balkan country. The challenge for Slovenia’s former ambassador to Germany and Switzerland is thus clear: to take her personal experience of EU integration and transfer the lessons to other EU candidates, both Balkan and non-Balkan ones.

Commissioner Kos’s priorities

Kos’s job title will revert to that of Commissioner for “merely” Enlargement, without the additional dossier of EU neighbourhood policy as has been the case for the past 14 years. “Further completing our Union is a strategic, economic and moral imperative”, reads President von der Leyen’s letter of appointment to the new commissioner.

The process will be “merit-based” and Kos will need to be “very strict”, said the new commissioner, since the EU “can only welcome countries that close all negotiating chapters and respect European values”. For Kos the concrete goals will revolve around the “opportunity to close the chapters with Montenegro by the end of 2026 and with Albania by the end of 2027”.

Another pillar will be the gradual integration of the candidate countries in order to “demonstrate not only to [their] governments but above all to [their] citizens that they can benefit even before entry”. In her hearing, the future commissioner said she was ready to expand this concept, but repeatedly pointed to the necessity of a communication campaign (in both candidate countries and current EU states) so as to “disseminate reliable information, also involving influencers”.

Kos was explicit in her commitment to civil society: “I will hold meetings on every visit, and I want to double the funding”. The same is true for questions of rule of law, democracy, freedom, equality and human rights: “Article 2 of the EU Treaty must be the guiding star”.

Then there is the big matter of Ukraine, both in terms of the future rebuilding effort and the accession negotiations. Von der Leyen made it clear that it will be Kos’s task to “lead the Commission’s continued and sustained support” in Kyiv. For her part, Kos says that, via the EU’s so-called Ukraine Instrument, “we are already working on internal reforms, reconstruction with international partners, and support for private investment.” Ukraine’s EU membership “will depend on the duration of the war. The hope is to start negotiations on key areas in early 2025”.

The Kos hearing then touched on some sensitive issues for her mandate. On the subject of the stalled talks on North Macedonia’s candidature, caused by Skopje’s reluctance to amend the constitution on minority issues, Kos was forthright: “The Macedonian government must do this. The dispute with Bulgaria must be resolved according to EU values.”

On the hot topic of the political crisis in Georgia, which has effectively frozen Tbilisi’s candidature, Kos was explicit that a “precondition” for reopening dialogue is the repeal of the two laws (on foreign agents and against the LGBTQI+ community) which, she said, “trample on European values”.

On the Serbia-Kosovo issue, it will be for Kaja Kallas, the future EU foreign-affairs chief, to “find new ways if things do not work out”. In any case, said Kos, “we will never consider an exchange of territories”.

The last topic broached was migration, which is part of the Slovenian commissioner’s portfolio (in coordination with Magnus Brunner, responsible for home affairs). “Enlargement and migration are two sides of the same coin, because the future members will also have to be ready to manage it”, Kos said. A particular concern will be the Italy-Albania pact for processing asylum applications, which “right now leaves a lot to be desired”.

The mood in Brussels

The appointment of Marta Kos as Enlargement commissioner has not stirred up any particular controversy in Brussels (an exception being the members of the Slovenian Democratic Party within the European People’s Party). At any rate, “the EPP is satisfied with her answers” during the audition, reported MEP Matej Tonin, emphasising that they had “paid attention to her opaque past”. The reference is to Kos’s alleged collaboration with the Yugoslav secret services before the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Kos has repeatedly protested against these “inferences”.

The three-hour Q&A session in the European Parliament was enough for Kos to obtain approval by more than a two-thirds vote of the foreign affairs committee (including representatives of the People’s Party, Socialists, Greens, Liberals and Conservatives). The Europe of Sovereign Nations group was divided, while the far-right Patriots for Europe and the Left voted against her approval.

“We were convinced by the fact that we share the same values and priorities”, explained Nacho Sánchez Amor, a Spanish S&D MEP. His colleague Ilhan Kyuchyuk, a Bulgarian with Renew, agreed: “[Kos] will have the task of rebuilding the trust of the candidate countries and convincing the member states to trust those on the Union’s doorstep”. Austrian Green MEP Thomas Waitz was similarly positive, stressing that she “is in favour of an enlargement process based on values and the rule of law.”

The mood in the Western Balkans

In the Balkan candidate countries, the appointment of Kos was greeted with cautious optimism. The new commissioner is familiar with the Western Balkans and their languages, so her very background gives hope that the Commission will not only focus on Ukraine. One of Kos’s main advisors will be Marko Makovec, a Commission official who knows the Balkan candidate countries well.

But the best thing about Kos is that he is not Olivér Várhelyi. Over the past five years, the soon-to-be former Hungarian commissioner has undermined the EU’s credibility in the Western Balkans with his unilateral stances in support of autocratic forces and Hungarian influence in the region.

Kos is not, however, a political heavyweight. It will not be easy for her to make great strides on enlargement. “Like most EU leaders, Kos will spend a lot of words when talking about enlargement and Ukraine, but will probably not deliver the many necessary steps forward”, says Marko Lovec, a political scientist at the University of Ljubljana. He believes that the best that the Western Balkans can realistically expect is so-called “differentiated enlargement”: In other words: no full EU membership, but rather participation in certain areas such as the common market, without full voting rights.

Indeed, in all six Western Balkan states, the hope of actually joining the EU has receded sharply in recent years. Nowhere is Kos’s appointment seen as any kind of breakthrough.

In the next five years, Montenegro is the only state in the region that might make real progress and come closer to membership. In the Montenegrin capital Podgorica, people expect that Kos will focus on the country.

Hopes are much lower in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This despite the fact that Kos enjoys a certain amount of credit here, as Slovenia is one of the few member states with a track record of wholehearted support for enlargement. However, as has been the case for decades, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina is not carrying out any reforms, so much so that not even the first instalment of the recent EU relief plan (€75 million) could be disbursed. The main problem is that its constituent Republika Srpska, and in particular its leader Milorad Dodik, is not at all interested in joining the EU.

For its part, Serbia has gone backwards over the past ten years in terms of media freedom, freedom of expression, democracy and transparency. The government, manipulated by President Vučić, has autocratic tendencies and there are no signs that this is about to change. Serbia is naturally keen to receive funds from the EU and is getting them, but membership remains off the table if only because of the government’s political proximity to Russia.

Kosovo does not have candidate status either: it has not yet even been recognised by all EU countries. At the heart of European policy towards Kosovo is the attempt to mediate and defuse tensions with the Serbian minority and Serbia itself. But Kos will have no responsibility here, so her appointment has not attracted much attention in Pristina. It is nonetheless considered positive that she comes from a state that at least recognises Kosovo – unlike Várhelyi’s Hungary, which had a habit of taking Serbia’s side unilaterally.

The most important assertion made by Kos during her hearing in the European Parliament was her opposition to any territorial exchange between Kosovo and Serbia. Following an apparent opening to the idea on the part of the first Trump administration, in recent years European politicians and diplomats (such as the former Enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn or the former High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina Wolfgang Petritsch) have also indicated a willingness to think about border shifts along ethnic lines.

The issue is of crucial importance for both the region and Europe as a whole: any such ethnically based border changes in the Balkans could be the trigger for wider upheaval. The new Trump administration may also revive the previous one’s close ties to Vučić, an outcome that is much feared in the Western Balkans. For this reason the firmness shown by Kos on the Serbia-Kosovo border issue is significant.

This article was produced in cooperation with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard in the framework of PULSE, a European initiative coordinated by OBCT that supports transnational journalistic collaborations.