EU — Western Balkans: so close and so far away
The new EU Strategy for Western Balkans brings new momentum, but are WB ready for real reform?
By Ivana Boštjančič Pulko
Head of Peace and Security Programme, Centre for European Perspective

- This article was originally published as part of the 2018 edition of Bled Strategic Times, the official gazzette of the Bled Strategic Forum (BSF) international conference. You can access the full version of this and other BSF publications by visiting our official website.
This year’s BSF is entitled Bridging the Divide, properly implying there are many divisions to be bridged worldwide, in Europe, regionally and within countries. The region of the Western Balkans (WB) is certainly facing countless divisions, most prominent one is undoubtedly between the region of six countries (WB6) and the EU.
The good news is that there is a new momentum in the EU-WB relations with some important milestones achieved since last year. Whether this momentum will persist and have a meaningful impact remains to be seen, also because divisions within the EU over the region persist. The burning question, however, is whether the political elites in the WB are finally ready to fully commit to the implementation of democratic and free-market reforms, which might cost them privileges and functions in their countries.
New EU Strategy for the Western Balkans
European Commission’s new Strategy for the Western Balkans from 6th February undoubtedly is the main game-changer in the last twelve months. Alarmed by the rising influence of Russia, Turkey, China and others on its southern flank, stemming directly from the crisis in the EU’s enlargement policy, the EC put together a Strategy, which proposes some courageous measures, especially the progressive opening of the EU funds, inclusion of the WB6 governments in EU policy-making processes before membership and lifting barriers for trade and travel. It also points out that “countries show clear elements of state capture, including links with organised crime and corruption at all levels of government and administration, as well as a strong entanglement of public and private interests.” It goes on to say that “none of the Western Balkans can currently be considered a functioning market economy.” To ensure that a new strategy can deliver, it will need robust monitoring and enforcement systems. Legal reforms are meaningful only if they are implemented in a reliable and sustainable way.
The role of civil society is and will be more important than ever in order to act as a watchdog and promoter of changes. While EU’s progress reports, linked formalistically to the ‘Copenhagen’ accession criteria, have been asserting that progress is being made, the reports from non-governmental organizations continued to shed a light on a more disturbing reality. EU should certainly be bolder in identifying the fake reformers in the Balkans since ‘stabilitocracy’ in the name of preserving stability only benefits small circles of political elites and their allies in the region.
Is the EU really committed?
European Commission President JeanClaude Juncker surprised everyone last year, suggesting that Serbia and Montenegro, which have both begun membership talks, could join the bloc by 2025. This date was not endorsed by many EU leaders and even Angela Merkel, the frontrunner friend of the WB, said that membership must be based on factual progress and what has been achieved on rule of law, on fighting corruption and other conditions such as border disputes. The 2025 was primarily ‘advertised’ by the EC to revive the reform efforts in the WB and the EC should now track its strategy document with its instruments to monitor the progress
in the region in order to avoid preferring speed over quality of reforms. New strategy foresees new instruments to monitor progress, such as the Reinhard Priebe report on corruption and one-party takeover of state institutions in Macedonia in 2015.
At the EU-Western Balkans summit held 17 May in Sofia, which was the first such event since 2003 and thus has a huge symbolical value, the EU leaders reaffirmed their unequivocal support to strengthen the region’s political, economic, and social transformation. They stressed the importance of good neighbourly relations, regional stability, and mutual cooperation. This includes in particular finding solutions to bilateral disputes and dedicating additional efforts to reconciliation. The next EU-Western Balkans summit would take place during the Croatian presidency of the Council in 2020 but three other on-going or upcoming presidencies, namely Austria in 2018, Romania in 2019 and Croatia in 2019 plan to keep Western Balkans high on the agenda.
In addition, the Berlin Process, which was launched in 2014 to revitalize dynamic of the enlargement policy, contributes to keeping the momentum alive. As part of the process the London Summit was held in July and the next will be held in Poznan in 2019. Despite the fact that many stress limitations of the Berlin Process since it only involves limited number of EU member states and the six Balkan countries, the process was certainly one of the first tools initiated to put the region and enlargement back on the EU’s agenda and many proposals which have been developed as part of the Berlin process ended up in the new EC’s Strategy. The Berlin Process is also complementary to the more technical enlargement process, dedicating the civil society a more prominent role. Poland, which will host the next summit, believes that enlargement should be continued also due to security reasons weak states on the EU’s flank pose a threat in the areas of smuggling of human beings, weapons and drugs into the EU.
Furthermore the EU leaders agreed to open membership talks with Macedonia and Albania by the end of 2019, if both Balkan aspirants show enough progress in judicial and anti-corruption reforms. This is the result of a compromise among EU governments to keep alive the WB membership hopes but seek further reforms before talks can formally start. EC also announced in July that Kosovo has met the remaining benchmarks to win visa liberalisation with the EU that other Western Balkan countries already enjoy. Proposal still needs to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of all 28 member states, of which some remain sceptical about Kosovo’s rule of law and fight against crime. EC stressed it would “continue to monitor the implementation of all requirements set out in the visa liberalisation roadmap”. It is impossible to predict the length of this process.
Yet, despite these positive developments, deep divisions within the EU over the region persist. President of the European Council Donald Tusk said “when it comes to troubles per capita, the Western Balkans are much bigger than, for example, Germany and France together.” French President Emmanuel Macron insisted the EU should first focus on reforming itself before any new enlargement adventures. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy boycotted the summit due to the presence of Kosovo, which Madrid and four other EU capitals do not recognize.
Based on those divisions, the final Sofia EU-WB Summit declaration expressed “unequivocal support” for the “European perspective” of the WB, whereas the Thessaloniki text from 2003 stressed that the “future of the Balkans is within the EU”.
It is clear that a number of EU governments are currently not convinced whether the WB6 belong in their club, fearing also a backlash from voters, since the opposition to enlargement has grown substantially over the past 15 years. The EU abandoned the pursuit of an active policy towards this region after 2008 and the critical assessment of the EU’s expansions in 2004 and 2007 has strengthened disapproval to the admission of new members.
Some good news and some more challenges
Resolution of the Macedonia name dispute with Greece was the news the Balkans badly needed. The compromise, hopefully to be confirmed in a referendum in Macedonia in September proves that solving bilateral disputes is possible even after many years of deadlock. In June both Prime Ministers declared they had struck a deal and NATO invited “Northern Macedonia” to become a member at the Brussels summit in July, a full decade after a membership proposal was blocked. Athens should ratify the accession protocol in autumn, together with the agreement on the name issue. Optimistically this episode will provide a happy ending, assuring a special place in the history of both countries.
It seems that solving of bilateral disputes will be high on the agenda in the near future as well. Witnessing the unresolved border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia, the new EC’s Strategy clearly emphasizes the significance of not importing bilateral disputes into the EU and calls upon responsible parties to solve them as a matter of urgency. Accession process should be utilised in that sense. The fact that five EU countries do not recognize Kosovo as an independent state makes international gatherings tense e.g. referring to the six Western Balkan states as ‘partners’. The other main actors having influence in the region might not be necessarily in favour of the resolution of the bilateral disputes and the EU should be able to counter the negative effects of these other actors’ actions.
The topic of reconciliation deserves more attention. It might present a priority for some of the EU countries and civil society organisations but not for the WB governments. They never agreed over interpretations of recent
history and many of them still aim to rewrite it. If civil society was not in the picture, there would be nobody really left insisting on reconciliation or resolution of bilateral disputes.
What does the future hold?
While there is no doubt that the EU countries would like to see WB become a stable and democratic region intrinsically linked to the EU, the EU should also be careful to avoid the integration process, benefiting only the political elites in bringing them ‘closer to the EU’ without true reform processes. Legitimising undemocratic regimes and fake advancement in order to assure regional stability, instead of promoting the implementation of pro-democratic reforms will have a boomerang effect. It is understandable that EU needs a lot of joggling to keep the countries within the Euro-Atlantic sphere of influence but strongest EU political groups also sometimes have a (negative) role in defending corrupt regimes. EU should not be tolerating these practices. It should also not accept Balkans’ officially pro-European governments regularly employing nationalist and anti-EU rhetoric to provoke tensions in relations with their neighbours in order to mobilise society, particularly before elections.
The Balkans’ relative socio-political stability, present in the WB since 2008, paradoxically, contributed to weakening EU’s involvement in the region, which resulted in rising euroscepticism and disillusion with the EU. EU’s member states and institutions were increasingly perceived as the allies of the local regimes and this trend should be overturned. With the current favourable climate and good winds coming from the EU, the opportunity for the countries of the Western Balkans is truly historic. It would be beneficial if a separate directorate-general dealing only with the countries having a credible membership perspective was established, which would go beyond merely the monitoring of the adoption of laws but also assess the real impact of reforms.
Hopefully this transition of the Western Balkans becoming a truly stable and rights-respecting democratic society, is underway. As the new Strategy stresses “the Western Balkan countries now have a historic window of opportunity to firmly and unequivocally bind their future to the EU. They will have to act with determination.” With complexity of issues and actors, it will not be simple. Enlargement policy is the EU’s main policy tool in the Western Balkans. There are not many other options left.

