Photo: Ellion Brown/Flickr

Balkan EU states would prefer more EU integration and common policies and fear that they could be left at the periphery of the European bloc if a more fragmented, multi-speed Europe becomes a reality, politicians and MEPs in Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia have said.

Their comments were made after France and Germany expressed support for a ‘two-speed’ EU – meaning that different parts of the union should integrate at different levels and pace, depending on the political and economic situation in each individual country.

The foreign ministers of France and Germany, the countries which are seen as the EU’s driving force, expressed their views in a joint statement on Thursday.

They were reacting to the white paper on the future of Europe presented by the head of the European executive, Jean Claude Juncker, on Wednesday.

Juncker put forward five scenarios for how a future EU with 27 members could act – carrying on in the same way; focusing solely on the single market; doing more but in groups of countries and not necessarily as an entire bloc; doing less but more efficiently, and doing much more as a bloc.

Bulgaria’s interim Prime Minister Ognyan Gerdjikov said on Thursday he believed that the future of Europe is in federalisation, as otherwise the EU cannot withstand competition from the world’s other great economies.

He told journalists that Bulgaria does not want to be in the EU’s “backyard” and therefore his cabinet has taken steps for the country’s accession into the so-called “Eurozone waiting room”, the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, ERM II.

Bulgaria’s interim Deputy Prime Minister Denitsa Zlateva, who is in charge of preparing the Bulgarian EU presidency for 2018, also said on Wednesday that Bulgaria was staunchly against the notion of Europe divided into two tiers or multiple tiers.

“We categorically declare ourselves against the creation of the so-called core of Europe and the rest, the periphery,” she said.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said in a government meeting on Thursday that the EU needs to maintain its status quo, strengthen the democratic legitimacy of institutions and prevent demagogy and populism.

Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said on Wednesday meanwhile that Bucharest will also support a more integrated EU at the European Council meeting in Rome at the end of the month.

Romanian MEPs said they were against differentiating between member countries, with MEP Renate Weber calling on the Romanian parliament to debate the possibility of a multi-speed Europe.

MEP Iuliu Winkler said that people should be motivated to strengthen the EU after Brexit.

“In order to have a future, the EU needs to regain the trust of its citizens, the European project needs to generate solidarity, hope and even love. Out of [Juncker’s] five scenarios, I believe in a sixth: a Europe that belongs to its citizens,” Winkler added.

Juncker has said that his white paper on the EU’s future is meant to launch a Europe-wide debate so that by the 2019 European Parliament elections, the bloc should have a viable vision of where it is going.