FRANCE'S BALKANS FREEZE

FRANCE wants EU expansion freeze amid Balkans war warning.

BRUSSELS : French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday rules out any any expansion of the European Union until the block is reformed, as top EU official warned that the-

Balkans could face a return to war if countries in the region have no hope of joining.

Macron's insistence on a Freeze came as the EU's executive arm, the European Commission, recommended that the world's biggest trade block launch membership talks with Albania and Macedonia.

The Balkans spiraled into conflict in the 1990s as former Yugoslavia broke apart, but ethnic and nationalist tensions continue to simmer more than 20 years on.

The 28 EU member states must agree unanimously for any country to become a member.

Accession to the block has been a powerful driver of political and democratic reform in countries  like AIbania and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia Montenegro which recently joined Nato Serbia and its former territory of Kosovo.

But with Britain set to become the first country to leave the block next year, Macron told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France that '' I will only support an enlargement when there is first a deepening and a reform of our Europe.'' [AP]