The long drawn-out accession process of the Western Balkan countries is back on the EU agenda. This episode of The Grassroots View is focuses on EU enlargement and the Western Balkans, as not all of these countries are equally far along on the journey towards EU membership. 

Our guests discuss the principle of gradual integration, the prospects of the region joining the EU family and whether the EU's increased focus on Ukraine will affect the negotiations with the Western Balkans.

Ionuţ Sibian, EESC member and president of the Western Balkans Follow-up Committee, whose country (Romania) joined the EU in 2007, voices civil society's take on the state of play in the region. 

Jarosław Pietras, a former senior European Union and Polish government official who was involved in the Polish accession to the EU, shares his experience on the negotiating table, talking about the similarities and differences between the great enlargement of 2004 and today.

Dafina Peci, secretary-general of the National Youth Congress of Albania, expresses Albania's youth aspirations to a European future for their country. 

Camille-Cerise Gessant, journalist from Agence Europe, and Erisa Zykaj, EU correspondent for Western Balkan media in Brussels, provide their perspective on the press situation in the region and the recently mooted idea of a European political community. (at)