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FOUR EASTERN STATES today backed the accession of Western Balkan countries to the EU, saying North Macedonia and Albania should start talks this year.
Visegrad-Four (V4) group leaders from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia made the statement at a summit with counterparts from five western Balkan states in Prague.
“The Visegrad-Four group wants to welcome new EU members and it fully endorses the opening of accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania this year,” Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini told reporters.
In a joint statement, the V4 leaders called on the EU to accelerate ongoing accession talks with Montenegro and Serbia.
The V4 also said reforms adopted by Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo would bolster the two countries’ hopes of joining the EU.
“The re-unification of Europe cannot be complete unless the entire Western Balkans region joins the European integration process,” said Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, whose country currently presides over the V4.
“The EU enlargement policy is the most efficient tool to support stability, security, democracy and prosperity in Western Balkans,” he added.
“Security in the Balkans also means security in Europe,” Babis said.
Polish leader Mateusz Morawiecki warned that if the EU fails to “come up with an offer for southern European countries or the Western Balkans, countries like Russia, Turkey or China will be very active there”.
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia attended the Prague summit.
“If the EU hadn’t slept on accepting North Macedonia and Serbia as members, there would be fewer illegal migrants in Europe,” Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban said at the meeting.
V4 countries have clashed with western EU members over migration policy, among other issues, with several of them refusing to accept migrants and asylum seekers during Europe’s 2015 migrant crisis.
A former Serbian province, Kosovo only sent its ambassador to the summit after Czech President Milos Zeman accused its leaders of being “war criminals”.
The pro-Russian, pro-Chinese Zeman also said he would ask the Czech government to reconsider its 2008 recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty.
Babis has ruled this out, saying there was “no reason for the Czech government to change its standpoint”.
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A suspended sentence? He should be locked up for years along with all the others guilty of cover ups. Like the majority of Irish people I was born and grew up Catholic but haven’t practised for years, if any other organisation behaved in the way this does it would be shut down years ago. What has come to light about this organisation over the last number of years should surely be enough to destroy whatever bit of credibility they were seen as having in the past.
@Mary Cullinane: Nobody is born Catholic, It was forced on you before you had the sense to realise it was a lie. Thankfully it’s dying off now. Good riddance to it.
@Mary Cullinane: I agree with you about the sentence, but at least he was charged with the offence. Over here, there was widespread systematic covering up done by senior and junior clerics. How many bishops here have been charged?
@Mary Cullinane: really he should share the cell and sentence of whoever he was protecting.
Nonetheless the conviction itself is a major step forward , even in a secular state like France.
I read a theory once that in the turmoil of the first world financial meltdown, some aristocrats were prosecuted as normal subjects. And that that shift, a fall from grace, was one of the early seeds leading to the French Revolution.
@Rob Cahill: I am 64 now and Ireland was such a different place back then and indeed for many years after I was born. I would be the first to admit that we were brainwashed by the Church’s teaching as regards so many things we all accept as being part of life now like contraception, divorce, the stigma of being an unmarried mother etc etc. I don’t blame my parents for bringing me up Catholic, they didn’t know any different themselves, they lived in a time when there was no television, very little radio, no internet & so on and it wasn’t until television became common in households and people began to see life outside of our own little bubble that we began to question things and see that maybe everything the Church said wasn’t always right. What really made me stop practising was when the whole abuse thing started to come to light & I realised that here were these Priests & Bishops telling me what I could & couldn’t do in my life & then realising the horrors of what was actually going on in their own organisation. I still consider myself Christian and I like to think that there is something else after this life but no more organised man made religion for me.
This article is up 2 hours and still no sign of Greg Kelly to remind us that abuse happens ousid the church too so it’s all ok.
@Rob Cahill: or the bould Seamus. (either the same person or they’re romantic lovers)
@Rob Cahill: Well said. Spread the word!!!!
@Mary Cullinane: Lovely reply.
@Rob Cahill: I have never seen Greg or anyone else condone child abuse on here.
@Bruce van der Gutschmitzer: I can’t believe that you are teaching young people. God help them.
This goes right to the top; Pope Francis himself is known to have moved abusers around so I don’t see why he can’t go to trial, unless there’s a Vatican City law that would prevent it.
Would Italian law take precedence?
@bopter: the Vatican is a state in itself
@bopter: what a loada b0ll0x all this perceived cleaning up of the church is. Nothing but lip service which at least should have been paid a decade ago or when he came into power. There isn’t one person in the hierarchy that genuinely wants to clean up the church. They’re only now putting in concrete safeguards and procedures for protecting children. No one in their right mind would leave their child in the care of the church now and they know it. It’s all smoke.
@bopter: Italian laws are for Italy not France. The said holy see being a free state has its own laws. This bishop appeared before a French Court of justice and the French law allied. Now nobody believed that he would be condemned because there was no direct proof.
@bopter: Went to the top Ratzenberger was made pope so he wouldn’t be charged in USA then he resigned and it of scot free like the rest of them
Recently watched an episode of Codes and Conspiracies “The Vatican” some of the stuff the church got up to and still is doing would make your toes curl…it’s shocking but not surprising…
@Robin Basstard: Some of the stuff the church got up to with my family alone is ridiculous.. I assume most people have the same stories somewhere in their history.
This is disgraceful, 68 is not too old to prosecute..the statue of limitations in law should NOT apply to child rape or complicity in child rape. This is not an ordinary crime, it is vile and pure evil and needs to be properly punished.
Suspended? Where is the deterrence when THIS is the message being sent to the next cardinal who wants to cover up child rape?
Honestly as a practicing Catholic, I am shocked by this sentence. If as stated this was a normal individual they would be locked up for a long time put on the Sex offenders list and forgotten about.
This case is about covering up the offence which if it was murder you would be sentenced according to the crime who h is a long time in jail..
@Sportmad: So stop practising it. Why do you need any organisation nevermind one so corrupt inbetween you and your deity??
Different rules for certain people
Does the church never learn. Shame on them
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