21–23 April 2026, Tirana

The Event served as a strategic hub for the Western Balkans’ most senior public officials and experts. Against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving European landscape, the Executive Training Programme on Regional Cooperation and Gradual Integration into the EU Single Market, jointly hosted by ReSPA and Europe+, provided a critical platform for turning high-level policy into regional reality.

The program opened with a powerful call for unity and reform - Ms Jorida Shytaj (Executive Director of Europe +) and Mr Klodjan Seferaj (Programme Manager at OSF-WB) emphasized the necessity of strategic alignment, while Ms Rozalija Karchicka-Vasilevska, Programme Manager at ReSPA, underlined the essence of the region's current momentum. Highlighting the shift from theory to action, she noted: “By advancing gradual integration into the EU Single Market, the Western Balkans are taking concrete, step-by-step progress toward EU membership. Supported through partnerships such as the one between the ReSPA and Europe Plus, this process helps turn EU reforms into practical results on the ground.”

Mastering the Mechanics of Integration, which has been introduced by a faculty of distinguished experts, tackled the complexities of the WB6’s journey. Prof. Dr. Tanja Miščević, drawing on her deep experience as a former Minister for European Integration of Serbia. She set up the tone of the forum by unpacking the "new generation" of enlargement policy. She guided participants through the vital mechanisms of conditionality and reversibility, ensuring that the path toward the Single Market remains both credible and transparent. As she stated, “low hanging fruits” such as Green corridors, CEPA and Rom as Home, are extremely important for keeping the EU motivation in the accessing countries.

As the focus shifted to implementation, Ms Elda Kalaja led a deep dive into the engines of regional growth. Her sessions explored the transformative potential of the Berlin Process, its roots and purposes and the Common Regional Market (CRM). In the context of the EU’s New Growth Plan and the Reform & Growth Facility, she emphasized that regional mobility and the free movement of people are the essential " tests" for the region’s readiness to join the Single Market.

Economic Convergence and the Rule of Law, were rooted in economic reality, PhD Branimir Jovanović from the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies presented pivotal findings from the converge2eu project. His analysis of economic convergence trends provided participants with the data needed to bridge the gap between regional performance and EU standards.

The final day connected these technical efforts to the broader strategic vision. PhD Majlinda Bregu, former Secretary General of the RCC, addressed how regional initiatives act as a force multiplier for EU accession, reinforcing the entire integration process. This was complemented by PhD Gentian Elezi from the College of Europe (Tirana Campus), who returned to the foundational pillar of the entire project: the Rule of Law. He reminded the delegation that legal integrity is the fundamental enabler that allows both regional cooperation and Single Market integration to flourish, and that backslidings that actually occur has to be timely prevented.

A Roadmap for the Future must be a blend of high-level expertise with a focus on "results on the ground." This Executive Training Programme reaffirmed that the Western Balkans’ path to the EU is paved through collective action. As ReSPA continues to foster these essential peer exchanges, the commitment seen in Tirana serves as a roadmap for a more prosperous, integrated, and European future for the entire region.