The prime ministers of Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Albania were upbeat about the prospect of Western Balkan countries joining the EU at a Bled Strategic Forum debate on 2 September that followed a pledge by the EU Commission president that enlargement efforts will be stepped up.

Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob described it as "the right response to the times we live in" and labelled Ursula von der Leyen's announcement that there will be a dedicated enlargement portfolio as "the right approach".

Combined with the €500 million growth plan for the region, a concrete mechanism backed with money, this could do "miracles in the future," he said.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković described these developments as logical and "the result of lessons learned," noting that Slovenia and Croatia had helped push enlargement closer to the top of the EU agenda, although Russian President Vladimir Putin was "the largest promoter of enlargement".

A similar point was raised by Edi Rama, the prime minister of Albania, who said Putin "had to attack a country to help the EU understand it is living in a parallel world." He was hopeful about the growth plan and said that candidate countries now had to do "the neurotic work to be considered to be ready for the EU".

Mostly due to its strong ties with Russia, Serbia is often considered as being sceptical of enlargement, but Serbia's Prime Minister Miloš Vučević said EU membership remained the main goal for Serbia and its core geostrategic position.

He said von der Leyen's announcement of a dedicated enlargement portfolio was "good news for the Western Balkans". "Without Western Balkans Europe cannot round off economic, political or security issues. There is an empty hole without this territory, you cannot speak about a completed Europe [without Western Balkans]," he said.

The panel participants were also quizzed about Ukraine, in particular whether there wss war fatigue in Europe.

Golob said fatigue was visible everywhere, which had to do with pervasive Russian propaganda. He said this had to be taken into account, whereby European countries needed to work diligently to counter it.

But Plenković dismissed talk of fatigue as an "imposed narrative" that only worked in Russia's favour. He insists that support for Ukraine remains strong despite the fatigue narrative. Rama said Albania remained fully behind Ukraine as well.

The Serbian prime minister, meanwhile, acknowledged that Serbia had its own foreign policy and did not support sanctions against Russia, but noted that it nevertheless supported Ukraine's territorial integrity. He described Ukrainians as Slavic bothers just like Russians.