This declaration comes as the EU continues to praise the steady progress made by Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine, and Moldova, countries that are showing strong commitment to democratic values, governance reforms, and European integration.

Marta Kos, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, expressed confidence in the future of a broader European community.

She emphasized that the Union must prepare itself for new members by strengthening institutions, improving administrative capacity, and fostering deeper unity among existing member states.

Her statement reflects growing enthusiasm in Brussels about building a stronger and more resilient Europe.

Montenegro, with its population of around 600,000, was highlighted as the leading candidate among current applicants.

The country’s dedication to judicial reform, transparency, and rule of law has earned widespread praise from EU officials and observers.
Its consistent efforts show that small nations can play a major role in shaping Europe’s collective future.

Albania also received special recognition for what the commissioner called “unprecedented progress.”
The country has advanced rapidly in governance reforms, anti-corruption measures, and alignment with EU economic standards.Albania’s journey demonstrates that consistent reform, citizen engagement, and visionary leadership can transform nations and bring them closer to European ideals.

Moldova was applauded for its determination and speed in implementing reforms despite facing external pressures and economic challenges.

Its accelerated progress, even under difficult regional circumstances, highlights the country’s commitment to democracy and European cooperation.

Observers say that Moldova’s experience serves as a beacon for other nations seeking to align with the EU.

Ukraine’s progress was described as exceptional, given its ongoing struggle against Russian aggression.

Despite conflict, the nation has continued to move forward on key reforms related to governance, transparency, and anti-corruption efforts

EU leaders commended Ukraine’s resilience and dedication, calling its progress a symbol of courage and hope for all of Europe.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed the encouraging assessment, noting that Ukraine remains steadfast in its European journey.

He called on the EU to take decisive action to overcome political barriers, emphasizing that unity and solidarity are the foundations of a peaceful and prosperous Europe. His message resonated across the continent as a reminder of Europe’s shared destiny.

The commissioner also acknowledged that Serbia and Georgia face challenges that have slowed their reform pace.

However, she reaffirmed that the door to EU membership remains open to all nations committed to democratic transformation and the rule of law.

This balanced approach underscores the EU’s commitment to fairness, inclusivity, and long-term partnership.

As Europe looks ahead, the spirit of expansion carries broader meaning beyond borders and treaties. It represents a renewed belief in cooperation, shared prosperity, and the values that unite rather than divide.

A larger EU would enhance stability, strengthen the single market, and amplify Europe’s voice on the global stage.

Experts say that enlargement will also boost innovation, energy cooperation, and cross-border trade.

New members bring cultural diversity, fresh perspectives, and economic vitality, contributing to Europe’s growth and global competitiveness.

For millions across the continent, EU expansion is not just a policy goal — it is a vision of hope and shared progress.

The European Union’s commitment to enlargement reflects its core values of democracy, inclusivity, and solidarity. By welcoming new members, the EU continues its mission to create a continent of peace, prosperity, and partnership.

With Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine, and Moldova leading the way, the dream of a united Europe has never felt closer or more attainable.

“The last thing I saw were the mountains around Kabul and the dreary sunset as the Qatar Airways took off,” he said.

Today, thousands of miles from his homeland, the 35-year-old photojournalist and former employee of the Afghan soccer federation, is languishing in warm and sunny Albania. With each passing day, his anxiety grows over the delay in the promised U.S. visa, casting a shadow on his dreams of a new beginning in America.

For hundreds of others like him, it’s an emotional roller coaster. Some try to find work and live with a semblance of normalcy but the concern and fear for families back home permeates their days — even in welcoming Albania.

They are hopeful, despite the prolonged bureaucracy, and look to a new life.

In Shengjin, a town on the Adriatic coast some 70 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of the Albanian capital of Tirana where hundreds of Afghans were given temporary shelter, Mashoof often goes for long walks by the sea. He has found work at a mall, an hour’s bus ride away.

The walks stave off panic attacks that he has been forgotten — or the “crazy fear” for his family back in western Herat province.

“I was saved, … and now I am to start my new life in America,” he said, “But when?”

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of war and as the U.S.-backed Afghan government and military crumbled.

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule, they soon started to enforce restrictions on women and girls, barring them from public spaces and most jobs, and banning education for girls beyond the sixth grade.

The measures harked back to the previous Taliban rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, when they also imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. The harsh edicts prompted an international outcry against the already ostracized Taliban, whose administration has not been officially recognized by the United Nations or the international community.

As the Taliban pursued an ever more hard-line path, a severe economic downturn followed, despite efforts by aid agencies to help large swaths of the impoverished nation.

In the days of the chaotic pullout, Washington had decided to take in all those who had worked for the U.S. government and American troops or for U.S.-based media organizations and nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan. But over time, the complicated visa process for Afghans who demonstrate they are at risk of persecution became protracted.

More than 3,200 Afghans have stayed in Albania’s tourist resorts along the Adriatic Sea. A NATO member, Albania first agreed to house fleeing Afghans for one year before they move for final settlement in the United States, then pledged to keep them for longer if their visas were delayed.

There are about 76,000 Afghans already in the U.S., where congressional efforts meant to permanently resolve their immigration status have also stalled.

A top Albanian government official told The Associated Press that the authorities in Tirana would not be against keeping Afghans more long-term in the Balkan country, if they can find jobs. The official did not elaborate and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the subject.

Last year, a small group of Afghans in Shengjin staged a protest, calling on Washington to speed up the process of their transfer. Some women and children held posters reading, “We are forgotten.”

“I don’t have the heart to protest because of the delay,” Mashoof said. “There is nothing I can do.”

Fazil Mohammad Shahab, a senior soccer federation official in Afghanistan, came to Albania in November 2021. Unlike many of the thousands of tourists who visit Shengjin and other Albanian resorts, he doesn’t see the pristine coastline as an unspoiled paradise.

“For me, it’s a place of waiting,” he said.

On a sunny day earlier this month in Shengjin, Afghan women holding scarves clustered in small groups as their children played on the grass. Afghan couples walked along the beach or sat at a nearby café.

Farishta Oustovar, a television news reporter and a former player on Afghanistan’s national volleyball team, arrived in Albania in September 2021. Within two months she found work — first at a hotel, then at a shoe factory and finally at a childcare center.

“I need to feel that I can have a normal life,” said the 23-year-old, despite worries for her family in Herat.

A popular TV presenter and comedian, 30-year-old Qasim Taban resumed producing funny YouTube clips from Shengjin. He says he finds strength in humor and is hopeful friends and fans back home can see the videos.

“We, here in Albania, and also Afghans back in Afghanistan need to laugh,” he said.

They are hopeful, despite the prolonged bureaucracy, and look to a new life.

Almost two years since he fled Afghanistan to escape the Taliban takeover, Firooz Mashoof is still haunted by the memory of his last day in Kabul — the bus that took him to the airport, getting on a packed plane and taking off as gunfire echoed across the city.

“The last thing I saw were the mountains around Kabul and the dreary sunset as the Qatar Airways took off,” he said.

Today, thousands of miles from his homeland, the 35-year-old photojournalist and former employee of the Afghan soccer federation, is languishing in warm and sunny Albania. With each passing day, his anxiety grows over the delay in the promised U.S. visa, casting a shadow on his dreams of a new beginning in America.

For hundreds of others like him, it’s an emotional roller coaster. Some try to find work and live with a semblance of normalcy but the concern and fear for families back home permeates their days — even in welcoming Albania.

They are hopeful, despite the prolonged bureaucracy, and look to a new life.

In Shengjin, a town on the Adriatic coast some 70 kilometers (45 miles) northwest of the Albanian capital of Tirana where hundreds of Afghans were given temporary shelter, Mashoof often goes for long walks by the sea. He has found work at a mall, an hour’s bus ride away.

The walks stave off panic attacks that he has been forgotten — or the “crazy fear” for his family back in western Herat province.

“I was saved, … and now I am to start my new life in America,” he said, “But when?”

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of war and as the U.S.-backed Afghan government and military crumbled.

Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule, they soon started to enforce restrictions on women and girls, barring them from public spaces and most jobs, and banning education for girls beyond the sixth grade.

The measures harked back to the previous Taliban rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, when they also imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. The harsh edicts prompted an international outcry against the already ostracized Taliban, whose administration has not been officially recognized by the United Nations or the international community.

As the Taliban pursued an ever more hard-line path, a severe economic downturn followed, despite efforts by aid agencies to help large swaths of the impoverished nation.

In the days of the chaotic pullout, Washington had decided to take in all those who had worked for the U.S. government and American troops or for U.S.-based media organizations and nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan. But over time, the complicated visa process for Afghans who demonstrate they are at risk of persecution became protracted.

More than 3,200 Afghans have stayed in Albania’s tourist resorts along the Adriatic Sea. A NATO member, Albania first agreed to house fleeing Afghans for one year before they move for final settlement in the United States, then pledged to keep them for longer if their visas were delayed.

There are about 76,000 Afghans already in the U.S., where congressional efforts meant to permanently resolve their immigration status have also stalled.

A top Albanian government official told The Associated Press that the authorities in Tirana would not be against keeping Afghans more long-term in the Balkan country, if they can find jobs. The official did not elaborate and spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the subject.

Last year, a small group of Afghans in Shengjin staged a protest, calling on Washington to speed up the process of their transfer. Some women and children held posters reading, “We are forgotten.”

“I don’t have the heart to protest because of the delay,” Mashoof said. “There is nothing I can do.”

Fazil Mohammad Shahab, a senior soccer federation official in Afghanistan, came to Albania in November 2021. Unlike many of the thousands of tourists who visit Shengjin and other Albanian resorts, he doesn’t see the pristine coastline as an unspoiled paradise.

“For me, it’s a place of waiting,” he said.

On a sunny day earlier this month in Shengjin, Afghan women holding scarves clustered in small groups as their children played on the grass. Afghan couples walked along the beach or sat at a nearby café.

Farishta Oustovar, a television news reporter and a former player on Afghanistan’s national volleyball team, arrived in Albania in September 2021. Within two months she found work — first at a hotel, then at a shoe factory and finally at a childcare center.

“I need to feel that I can have a normal life,” said the 23-year-old, despite worries for her family in Herat.

A popular TV presenter and comedian, 30-year-old Qasim Taban resumed producing funny YouTube clips from Shengjin. He says he finds strength in humor and is hopeful friends and fans back home can see the videos.

“We, here in Albania, and also Afghans back in Afghanistan need to laugh,” he said.

Richard Roberts has so far supported the Mojahedin 22 times in various attacks and headlines in order to liberate their captive homeland of Iran.

According to the Iranian opposition group The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran),

Visit of Professor Richard Roberts, a prominent scientist and one of the most important contemporary scientific figures from Ashraf-3, and meeting and conversation with Ms. Maryam Rajavi.

Professor Roberts, the pioneer of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Medicine in Physiology or Pharmacology, is the discoverer of the mosaic structure of genes.

After the criminal attack of Qassem Soleimani and Maliki on the Ashraf Mujahideen on August 27 and 28, 2009 with 13 martyrs and more than 500 wounded, Professor Roberts was one of the first international scientific figures to rush to the aid of the Ashraf Mujahideen.

Richard Roberts has so far supported the Mojahedin 22 times in various attacks and headlines in order to liberate their captive homeland of Iran.

Professor Roberts is a signatory to the Joint Statement of 43 Nobel Laureates in 2009, initiated by the late Holocaust survivor and UN Ambassador for Peace, in condemnation of the Mullahs regime and in support of the Iranian uprising.

Born in 1943 in the United Kingdom, Richard Roberts went to the United States after graduating from high school and spent 20 years doing extensive research in genetics before receiving the Nobel Prize in Medicine. He is a pioneer in the science of genetics and has discovered more than 100 types of directing enzymes in this field.

Ms. Rajavi and the Mojahedin welcomed one of the most prominent humanistic, freedom-loving, and freedom-loving scientists of the contemporary world in Ashraf-3 with the appreciation of Professor Roberts for his distinguished scientific and humanitarian position and his continuous and unequivocal defense of the Mojahedin and the Iranian Resistance.

Professor Richard Roberts, Nobel Prize, Medicine 1993, visit Ashraf-3, home to thousands of members of Iran’s principal opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (PMOI/MEK), and his meeting with Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), on June 26, following the visit by Former US Vice President Mike Pence terrified the ruling theocracy in Iran.

Professor Richard Roberts, who has signed a letter, after the announcement of Ebrahim Raisi as the new President of the Iranian regime, expressed his deep concern. 

Professor Richard Roberts was among Nine Nobel laureates who wrote a joint letter to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights calling for the release of two elite Iranian students. They warned that the Iranian regime’s arrest and detainment of the students, Amir Hossein Moradi and Ali Younesi, will only allow for further repression against students and dissidents.

They are both supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) – the main opposition to the Iranian regime. The PMOI / MEK is working towards freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, and equality for all in Iran and it has a wide network of supporters both inside and outside of Iran.

The Iranian regime, as highlighted by Professor Richard Roberts, is extremely concerned about the likelihood of another major uprising in Iran. The last major uprising was in November last year and it rocked the foundations of the regime, making it realize that it is not invincible and bringing home the fact that the people are the main force behind the regime’s inevitable collapse.

It is for this reason that the regime is resorting to suppressing the people – arresting those that present a great threat to the regime’s power and using violence against protesters and demonstrators. During the November 2019 uprising, thousands of people were arrested, imprisoned, and even killed. Yet this has only served to make the people of Iran more determined to see the regime collapse.

Saeed Abed is an expert on Iran and the Middle East. He is a Human Rights Activist, belonging to the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Foreign Affairs Committee.