The draft declaration prepared for the coming European Council organized by Croatia does not mention enlargement. Despite high expectations from Macedonia and Albania, who were given the green light to begin accession talks, albeit at an undisclosed date, the declaration only has one vague sentence about the European perspectives of candidate countries.

This was reported today by the Croatian “Vecernji List” paper, which had insight into the preparations of the summit, that was planned for Zagreb but will be held online because of the coronavirus epidemic.

Nowhere in the text is there any mention of enlargement, membership of EU integration. You could say that the declaration has less content that those 20 years ago, “Vecernji List” reports, attributing the text to opposition from France, the Netherlands and even to some degree – Germany – to pushing too strongly on enlargement.