Andreja Bogdanovski
As of 2013 Croatia will officially abandon the “Western Balkans” refer-ence and will replace it with “the new EU member state”. This notion has a powerful significance and basically confirms that the EU integra-tion strategy for the Western Balkans is working.
By slowly dismantling the Western Balkans (in its conceptual under-standing) we witness that the region is slowly heading towards full inte-gration with the EU. However, if it took ten years for only one country to remove the Western Balkans sticker, the question that remains is whether there is maybe a need for a readjustment of the accession proc-esses?
Apparently the keyword of this conference panel is “crisis”. By doing a simple Google search of this term, the results from the last ten years suggest that the EU went through three crises in such a short period of time.
First there was the so called “enlargement crisis” back in 2004 when the EU feared that embracing so many new member states might block its institutions. In 2007 the European newspapers were reporting heavily on the “Constitutional Crisis” and ever since 2008 it is the European finan-cial crisis that keeps the public alert. Thus, what makes the current EU crisis exceptional for the Western Balkans?
Luckily, compared to the other two crises when some EU officials heav-ily commented that there might not be any further enlargement after the big bang, the current crisis seems to produce more synced response by reaffirming the open door policy for the region.
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On the more negative side one first has to consider how the EU crisis affects the EU internally and whether those internal developments pro-duce spill-over effects towards the Western Balkans. The nation-centric discourse prevailing in some EU member states is on the rise while at the same time some of the core EU values, such as the freedom of movement, are constantly under a threat. For those familiar with the Balkans, when some EU leaders declare “multiculturalism as dead” it is only a matter of time that such statements produce counter effects in a region where multiculturalism is in the process of rebuilding after years of war and conflicts.
In such developments the question arises, whether the EU has the capac-ity to foster its own soft power towards the Western Balkans or simply creates a fertile ground for domestic democratic slide backs? Even after 20 years of heavy EU engagement in the region there are still some secu-rity related concerns which might slow down the overall process and harm the region’s prospects:
The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo still remains to be considered as tricky while recently Macedonia has joined this club too. Namely, the unresolved name dispute with Greece pushed Macedonia towards populism and ethnocentric politics which ulti-mately led to creating a fruitful ground for inter-ethnic tensions, re-sulting in the sporadic inter-ethnic incidents.
The increasing calls for secession of the Kosovo North and the arrests play between Belgrade and Priština display the fragile secu-rity environment in Kosovo.
While in Bosnia the required reforms for fostering the EU integra-tion processes show at least little progress, it is still not fully in compliance with what the EU is hoping for. To give an example:
the Stabilisation and Association Agreement which was concluded in 2008 and has never been put into force.
Not considered to be a security issue but still relevant for discus-sion: the political deadlock in Albania regarding the involvement of the opposition parties in the country’s political life still blocks Albania from acquiring EU candidate status, which Tirana was hoping to achieve ever since 2009.
It is evident that not all of the countries from the region move towards Brussels in the same pace and determination. Is it that political leaders from the region cannot deliver in terms of reforms or might it be that the EU is pushing too hard in this early phase of integration and some of the reforms required are simply not possible to be delivered and more “car-rots” are required?
With an overwhelming support for EU accession, the Western Balkans clearly stay in EU’s gravitation field. The current crisis though brought a new question on the horizon and that is whether the EU still possesses the strength to act as the gravitation pull?
Without any doubts the economic crisis has undermined the magical role of the EU across the region. With the skyrocketing unemployment rates across the EU and cut backs on spending, is the EU still attractive for the Western Balkans? When the enlargement of 2004 took place the news-papers in the region were overloaded with stories and figures about the benefits and support the new member states will get from the member-ship. However, with Croatia’s accession that does not seem to be the case.
Still, promising EU membership is what the countries from the region want to hear, making the EU integration process the core security policy in the Western Balkans. Without it the region is left to itself and it might not take long until the shadows from the past revive.