Almost twenty years ago, the Balkan countries were promised that one day they would be EU members.
What has happened since then is not an accession process, but its farce: accession negotiations are being conducted with two of the six countries in which nothing has happened for years.
After a grotesque back-and-forth, two others have only just become candidate countries, but are not yet negotiating.
And two have not even cleared this first hurdle on the way to the EU.
The reasons for this lie not only in the EU, where many members tired of joining have been secretly quite content with this state of affairs, but also in the region.
geopolitical importance
But it is the EU that for many years has stuck to a meaningless bureaucratic process, instead of being honest and opening up other perspectives to the countries instead of an illusory membership - ones with achievable goals and clearly recognizable benefits.
The agreements now reached in Berlin point in this direction.
They bring tangible relief to the people in the Balkans and can become the basis for further steps.
This also has geopolitical significance.
The policies of the EU to date have encouraged powers such as Russia, China and Turkey to seek influence in an area entirely surrounded by their members.