Comments by "Paul Aiello" (@paul1979uk2000) on "Will the Western Balkans Ever Join the EU?" video.

  1. It's called the veto rules, until that is reformed so no one country can block the majority, I don't see any country joining and for good reason, as we've seen with Hungary and Turkey. There is little to no chance the EU or many of its members will want other countries to join, only for them to have a veto vote that can hold everyone else to ransom, as Hungary is doing lately, and we are even seeing that with Turkey with NATO, it's a flaw in both organization that's needs to change, after all, the more members that join, the more these ransom games will happen. The irony is about all this with the EU, the eastern EU members are the ones that want the EU to expand the most and yet it's some of them are the reason why the EU won't expand, clearly, treaty change is needed with reforming or getting rid of veto rules before I can see the EU expanding and this really needs to happen this decade, because countries that want to join are not going to wait forever, if they see the door not opening to EU membership, some of those countries could look towards Russia or China, in other words, the EU and it's members needs to get its act together on this and likely once things settle down on the energy and inflation crisis, some either next year or the year after. I do agree that the single market and/or custom union could be used as a stepping stone for EU members, it might, as you say, create stability and reforms in those countries, which will help bring them closer to EU membership and the main thing the EU needs to show is a message of hope to these countries that they can join, many are probably losing hope in thinking they will never join, and that makes it much harder to do the reforms needed to join. It's the same for Ukraine, there are talks about granting them membership talks this year, I think the EU should offer that, any message of hope will be helpful for them, but clearly, Ukraine can't join until the war is over and a lot of reforms are done, but there is no reason why the EU and Ukraine can't get the ball rolling this year and I know it will take many years, but what many of these eastern countries needs is a sign of hope that progress is being made that they can join, so it's the EU side that has to make the move on that whiles also pushing hard for reforms of the EU, especially on veto rules.
    2