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In Strasbourg,

today is the 6th of October and we welcome the Commissioner Kos for the college readout today.

You will by now see all the press materials published on,

on the different college items that will be that will adopted today by the college and without any further ado,

I will give the floor to Commissioner.

Thank you so much, Guillaume, and good afternoon to All of you, today, with the strong support of the entire College,

we adopted the communication on preparing for a wider Union,

and the communication is complemented by an in depth sectoral analysis of the impact of enlargement on our Union.

It assesses to what extent our Union is ready for enlargement and what adjustments we need to do to accommodate for a larger membership. So why does this matter? Enlargement is in our interest.

It is about protecting our interests and defending our values.

A larger union is a long term investment in Europe's peace, security and prosperity,

and these are the reasons why the European Union has been established.

It is also an opportunity to make Europe stronger.

An enlarged Union increases our political and economic weight in a world of fierce geopolitical competition.

It also brings clear benefits to our citizens.

It brings stronger democracy, safety, security and solidarity, and it is good for Europe's economy,

it strengthens the single market, brings more jobs and more opportunities for people and businesses.

In this communication,

we focus on what is needed for both candidate countries on one side and the EU Member States on the other side to take the next steps on enlargement.

I want to emphasize five sets of steps we propose 1,

practical solutions on governance, rule of law, and policies.

Enlargement is an opportunity to become stronger, more flexible and more effective as a Union.

We can optimize the use of pastoral or bridging clauses and extend qualified majority voting where the Treaties provide for it.

It is possible to reduce the number of areas where one country alone can veto decisions everyone else supports.

For instance, on sanctions or in the fight against tax fraud, or in the accession process,

where the intermediate steps between the opening and closing negotiations,

when we negotiate and conclude international agreements.

To recourse to mixed agreements should be avoided.

We also have to look at all our institutions.

They should be leaner and allow us to act faster.

A bigger Union needs to be a more flexible union. We could use more enhanced cooperation.

This means that a group of countries is going ahead with the possibility of others joining later.

This is how the European Public Prosecutor's Office was created or how we adopted the Ukrainian support alone.

We will also extend the rule of law reports to other candidate countries.

0.2 a more ambitious framework for gradual integration.

If you remember, months back we were suggesting possible changes in the enlargement methodology,

and we presented three possibilities first, status quo.

Second, enhanced gradual integration and the third has been reversed membership.

The Member States said they do not want reversed membership,

so what I'm telling you now about the gradual integration has to do with this how can we deepen the possibilities of gradual integration.

So we want to be much more ambitious to integrate our candidate countries in selected parts of the Union. Ahead of membership.

Gradual integration is not a substitute for full membership. It is the accelerator for the enlargement.

It is a breach between the geopolitical need to stabilize our continent while pursuing merit-based enlargement.

Gradual integration will require two key ingredients progress on reforms for the candidate countries,

and strategic alignment. And this is the novelty.

Once candidates meet the standards, they should be able to participate in strategic sectors where there are clear win-win for current and future Member States,

like in energy, transport, artificial intelligence, security, or defense.

This means that we will Looking much more into what this gradual integration could bring more to us.

This is good for EU companies and their partners in future Member States.

Working with the same standards makes it easier to do business, and this is particularly important for Ukraine's reconstruction. Participation in EU policies should be reversible.

I'm speaking about still gradual,

conditional on reforms and only open to those candidates that share our Union's values and our strategic interests.

0.3 we propose a common framework for accession safeguards for all future enlargement.

This is important for the Member States, but also for our citizens.

All Member States, and I'm stressing this very much will enjoy equal rights.

Also newcomers, we do not want a two-tier membership.

To join our Union, countries need to meet very high standards on the rule of law.

We need to be sure that after joining, they never fall below those standards again,

and this is what we have learned from experiences in the past.

It's about Protecting ourselves, and whatever we will do in this regard,

of course, we will follow the clear procedures.

We are proposing stronger safeguards for any new Member State against serious backsliding on commitments undertaken during the negotiations,

particularly on the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights.

I'm speaking about Article 2 and also important and new,

and against serious breaches of the principle of sincere cooperation Article 4.

We want to make it easier to cut financial support or restrict voting rights.

This is an insurance policy, so we can react if needed, and important,

those safeguards will only be in place if there will be breaches.

We also propose for new Member States not to oppose decisions concerning future enlargements relating to bilateral disputes,

also something new.

Point number 4, the impact of accession on the Union's policies.

Our assessment shows that in most policy areas, the EU can accommodate for enlargement.

But there are areas where we will need adjustments.

For Ukraine, the scale,

structure and very high productivity of the agricultural sector calls for the examination of we call them targeted arrangements for sensitive agricultural products only.

While Ukraine's membership must not have a negative effect on EU farmers,

we want to support Ukraine in regaining access to its historic third country export markets.

Point number 5 roadmaps for the four most advanced candidate countries.

We identified four frontrunners Montenegro, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine.

These countries have shown significant progress in terms of readiness over the past years.

In the enlargement reports published at the end of October 28 October,

we intend to present indicative roadmaps for these countries. We want to help them sustain.

Reform progress, and those road maps will set out the next steps.

They will contain tentative timelines and clear deliverables.

This will provide us with more predictability on the accession path.

Important, this path will continue to be based on the individual achievements of the candidates. There will be no shortcuts. So what now? We have this analysis, what now?

This communication we hope will be the start of a discussion about how to prepare.

Today, for the stronger Europe, we want to be tomorrow.

The Commission invites the European Council and the European Parliament to advance discussions on institutional preparations and policy measures.

At the European Commission, the operational follow up is fourfold.

When I say operational, meaning we will do it now.

First, we intend to present the roadmaps for the most advanced candidate countries to be published together with enlargement reports,

as I said before, at the end of October.

We will prepare the next steps for the enhanced gradual integration.

The Commission will map existing gradual integration instruments and put forward an ambitious new approach,

also at the end of October.

3, we will draw up detailed common framework for the safeguards in the next day.

We will apply them for the first time.

With Montenegro, as you know, we are or the working group is already preparing the accession treaty, and 4th,

we will take our assessment of Ukraine's agricultural sector into consideration when discussing the opening of Cluster 5 for Ukraine.

We are hopeful this debate can start in a few weeks from now.

To conclude Our assessment is clear enlargement today is possible,

but there are areas where we see challenges we need to address.

One is leaner institutions and more flexible and effective decision making.

On the rule of law and sincere cooperation,

we are proposing tools to react more forcefully to serious breaches.

It can mean, as I said, cutting funding or restricting voting rights.

On agriculture, we are proposing to consider targeted arrangements for Ukraine.

We will now take these ideas forward with our Member States and act to make a larger European Union.

Also a stronger Union which will be able and capable to shape its own future.