Belgrade, September 2014

Research Team of the Centre for Foreign Policy, Belgrade

EUROPEAN UNION AND WESTERN BALKANS 2020

ABSTRACT

In this analysis, the authors try to forecast the situation in the Western Balkans in 2020, taking into account the evaluation of the European Union (EU) relations to date with the states and entities in the region. Consequently, emphasis is placed on the fact that there has been evident headway in these states’ European integration since the

introduction of the Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP) in 1999. The authors pay particular attention to the analysis of the current achievements in the process of the states in the region. Moreover, they underline the overall complexity of the modern global environment, the effects of the EU transformation on the enlargement process, as well as the potential to deepen the economic crisis in the region, deteriorate inter-ethnic relations and trigger new crises. Finally, they describe three possible scenarios for the development of both the situation in the Western Balkans as well as the potential membership of its states and entities in the EU in 2020.

Key words: European Union, enlargement, Western Balkans, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, Stabilisation and Association Process, 2020.

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INTRODUCTION

Following Croatia’s accession to the EU in mid-2013, the Western

Balkans was again re-defined as a geopolitical concept. Namely, unlike in

1999, when the concept was introduced and included all the states emerging

from the ruins of former Yugoslavia (except for Slovenia) as well as the Republic

of Albania, today it includes six states and entities situated in the central and

northwest part of the Balkan Peninsula.1 These are Albania,

Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo2, Macedonia and Serbia.

One should bear in mind the fact that the region is still somewhat

burdened with the heritage of the disintegration of the former Socialist Federal

Republic of Yugoslavia (1991-1999), so that many of its problems are the result

of the fragmentation of the Balkans into quite a number of smaller states and

entities, as well as the dysfunctionality of some countries and the bad

circumstances which have arisen over the past two and a half decades. A

sudden and non-transparent change in the social system (transition from

socialist self-management to ‘wild’ capitalism) in all states emerging in the

region and their constitutional definition as ethno-national systems have

meant that some minority ethnic or social groups have remained on the

margins of these processes. This has primarily led to significant economic

stratification between a small number of the very rich and larger segments of

society living on the verge of subsistence. At the same time, a large number of

1 The EU used the term ‘Western Balkans’ for the first time in the document entitled Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the

Stabilisation and Association Process for Countries of South-Eastern Europe (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania, COM (1999) 235 final, 25 May 1999.

2 As we know, 23 EU member states have recognised Kosovo, while Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania have failed to do so. As for the countries in the region, in addition to Serbia, Kosovo has not been recognised by Bosnia-Herzegovina, either.

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‘new ethnic minorities’3 have emerged and, as a result, there was a great risk of

new conflicts breaking out due to the definition of their position.

In the past two and a half decades, two parallel processes have taken

place in the region, namely a wave of ethno-national homogenisation (early

1990’s) on the one hand and a turnabout to European and Euro-Atlantic

integration around the year 2000 and in the years that followed, on the other.4

The development of relations in the Western Balkans has been

overshadowed by broader processes on the European continent having to do

primarily with the expansion of European integration to the Central and East

European countries, including gradually Southeast Europe. In the past few

years, a severe financial and economic crisis has marked the economic and

social transformation of Europe, threatening to deepen the old economic

differences, especially between its north and its south, and give rise to new

ones.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE EU AND THE FUTURE OF ITS ENLARGEMENT

The past decade and the start of this decade saw the EU going through

major changes (rise in the number of its member states from 15 to current 28)

and upheavals (financial and economic crisis, the euro crisis, the EU reform

crisis) due to which the European integration project has been partially

reconsidered in new conditions. Responses to the need for the EU’s additional

3 E.g. the Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Macedonians and Slovenes in Croatia; the Bosniaks,

Croats, Macedonians and Montenegrins in Serbia etc. 4 For the above processes, see: Dragan Đukanović, „Izmene etničkih struktura država nastalih od Jugoslavije: putevi nove etničke homogenizacije”, as well as Slobodan Nešković (ur.), Bezbednost u postmodernom ambijentu, Centar za strateška istraživanja nacionalne bezbednosti (CESNA B) i Hanns Seidel Stiftung, Beograd, 2008, str. 418–430, and Dragan Đukanović., „Spoljnopolitičke orijentacije država Zapadnog Balkana: uporedna analiza“, Godišnjak Fakulteta političkih nauka, godina 4, broj 4, Beograd, 2010, str. 295–313.

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transformation vary, ranging from the positions held by Eurosceptics, who urge

‘less Europe’ or even the withdrawal of some countries from the Union, to those

of ‘Euro-enthusiasts’, who, on the contrary, believe that there is a need for

‘more Europe’, i.e. who back the thesis that a standstill in the European

integration process and a rise in nationalism in the member states are chiefly

responsible for the difficulties experienced by the European project. Despite the

euro crisis, the eurozone countries can be defined as the main core of further

integration5.

At the same time, the EU is faced with changes and serious geostrategic

challenges on its eastern and southern borders, ranging from the turbulent

events in Ukraine and the straining of relations with Russia to severe

destabilisation in the vast area of the Southern Mediterranean and the Near

and Middle East. New threats and uncertainties call for new responses which

will shape the EU at the end of this decade. Proposals and forecasts as to what

the Union should look like by the end of this or next decade are numerous,

ranging from the futuristic document of the ‘Gonzalez group’ on Europe 20306,

and the European Commission’s far more formal operational strategy for

boosting Europe’s economy Europe 20207, to the European Council’s recent

5 The two main options for the Union’s future are best illustrated, on the one hand, by the stance taken by Great Britain, whose government has announced a referendum on the country’s withdrawal (or not) from the EU (see T. Oliver, Europe without Britain, SWP Research Paper, September 2013) and, on the other hand, by the position of the Federal Republic of Germany, which in the 2012-2014 period played the key role in the institutional consolidation of the eurozone by developing the so-called ‘banking union’, see European Commission, Banking Union: restoring the Financial stability in the Eurozone, http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/finances/docs/banking-union/banking-union-memo_en.pdf

6 Project Europe 2030, Challenges and Opportunities, A Report to the European Council by the Reflection Group, http://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/people/knicolaidis/finalreport.pdf.

7 See the European Commission’s website http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/index_en.htm containing the relevant documents.

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document on the EU’s Strategic Agenda for the next few years8, adopted in a

meeting held in June 2014.

The EU member states’ internal circumstances and international

evolution will also have a bearing on the Union’s positions on the further scope

and pace of its enlargement. Over a period of one decade, the enlargement

policy has gone from almost undivided support to the EU enlargement to the

Central and East European countries9 to far more reserved positions resulting

from the Eurosceptics’ anti-integration offensive and the ‘enlargement fatigue’

of both the public as well as political circles in the ‘old’ EU member states.

Despite the undivided positions on the successful results of the enlargement

policy from the historical perspective, the Union’s enlargement has been

pushed to the background as an issue. This is best illustrated by the fact that

the above Strategic Agenda, which the European Council passed in June,

mentions the issue in one sentence only10, while all newly-elected European

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had to say on the matter was that

“no further enlargement will take place over the next five years”11, adding,

however, that the technical negotiations on the EU enlargement to the Western

Balkans and Turkey would continue12.

8 Strategic Agenda for the Union in Times of Change, European Council, conclusions, 26/27 June 2014, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/ec/143477.pdf. 9 European Commission, 10th Anniversary of the 2004 Enlargement, Brussels, 30 April 2014, europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-14-325_en.pdf.

10 The Agenda only laconically comments on the enlargement policy, stating that, „Our

enlargement policy continues to foster democracy and prosperity“, see footnote 7. 11

„Junker za proširenje, ali prvo stabilizacija EU”, Blic, Beograd, 26. jun 2014, Internet, http://www.blic.rs/Vesti/Svet/476331/Junker-za-prosirenje-ali-prvo-stabilizacija-EU, 7/8/2014.

12http://juncker.epp.eu/my-priorities.

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Even though the above facts do not indicate that the EU enlargement to

the Western Balkan countries will not continue, it is evident that the process

will take place in the political circumstances quite different and far less

favourable than those existing in the previous enlargement stage13.

THE WESTERN BALKANS 2014

– BETWEEN THE WEST AND THE EAST

Despite the official commitment of all political elites of the Western

Balkan states to membership in the EU and NATO (with the exception of

Serbia, which is militarily neutral), the region is faced today with different

influences not exerted by the so-called West (the EU and the US) due to the

speedy transformation of the world policy centres of power. This primarily

refers to the influence of the Russian Federation, which thanks to some power

supply deals and investments in specific segments of the economy is trying to

restore or preserve its influence in this part of Europe.

The Russian Federation’s intensified impact on the situation in Serbia

and the Republika Srpska, Bosnia-Herzegovina’s entity, is evident.14 Its

investments in the Montenegrin economy, including the Podgorica Aluminium

Plant (KAP), have not yielded any significant results in the past decade. At the

13 V. J. Brennan, Enlargement Fatigue and its Impact on the Enlargement Process in the Western Balkans, http://www.lse.ac.uk/IDEAS/publications/reports/pdf/SR018/OBrennan.pdf. The title of a recent publication by L. Macek, L'élargissement, met-il en péril le projet européen? (Is enlargement a threat to the European project?), La Documentation française, Paris, 2011, which gives an overview of the enlargement process, eloquently speaks of the current attitude towards the process. 14 Dragan Štavljanin, „Mnogo nedoumica oko “Južnog toka”: Ekonomija i ruski uticaj na Balkan“, Radio Slobodna Evropa – Balkanski servis, Prag, 30. novembar 2013, Internet, http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/mnogo-nedoumica-oko-juznog-toka-ekonomija-i-ruski-uticaj-na-balkan/25185267.html, 15/07/2014.

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same time, Russian nationals have bought real estate and land at the

Montenegrin seaside on a large scale.15

The Russian Federation’s influence in this part of the Western Balkans

became manifest also after the outbreak of the crisis in Ukraine, when only

Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo condemned Moscow’s conduct after its

annexation of Crimea and its support to the pro-Russian separatists in the east

of the country.16 On the other hand, the Belgrade, Sarajevo and Skopje

authorities’ failure to take a clear and unequivocal stance on the issue was

more than evident.

At the same time, when we speak of the positioning of the Western

Balkans in the global context, we should point out the strengthening of China’s

role and a gradual rise in its investments in the countries in the region (e.g. the

railway line linking Budapest and Belgrade, the bridge between Zemun and

Borca etc.).17 However, China’s influence is much smaller than that exerted by

the Russian Federation.

Even though all Western Balkan countries (except for Serbia) have in

particular underlined their ‘strategic partnership’ with the US in their foreign

15 On legal problems concerning the Podgorica Aluminium Plant, see: „Deripaskina blokada prodaje KAP-a bez posljedica“, Radio Slobodna Evropa – Balkanski servis, Prag, 8. juli 2014, Internet, http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/deripaskina-blokada-prodaje-kap-bez-posljedica/25449577.html, 15/07/2014.; „Crna Gora upozorava Rusiju: uzdrži se na Krimu!“, Vesti online, 14. mart 2014, Internet, http://www.vesti-online.com/Vesti/Ex-YU/388890/Crna-Gora-upozorava-Rusiju-Uzdrzi-se-na-Krimu, 15/07/2014.

16 See: Amra Zajneli, „Kosovo se još nije pridružilo Zapadu protiv Rusije“, Radio Slobodna

Evropa – Balkanski servis, Prag, 24. mart 2014, Internet, http://www.slobodnaevropa.org/content/kosovo-se-jo%C5%A1-nije-pridruzilo-zapadu-protiv-rusije/25308075.html, 15/07/2014.

17 „Kina hoće prugu Beograd–Budimpešta“, TANJUG, RTV B92, Beograd, 5. mart 2013, Internet, http://www.b92.net/biz/vesti/srbija.php?yyyy=2013&mm=03&dd=05&nav_id=692348, 17/07/2014.

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policy documents as a specific guarantee for their speedy road to their full

membership in NATO and the EU, it is evident that, from time to time, foreign

policy goals are reconsidered to some extent in some of these countries, i.e.

they seek to establish closer contacts with other centres of power.18 The

international position of some states in the region is primarily affected by the

prospects of their relations with NATO or the EU. Albania became a NATO

member state in 2009, while Macedonia is waiting for its talks with Greece to

be unblocked in order to join the Alliance. After NATO’s summit in Wales,

Montenegro will open talks on its membership in the Alliance late this year,

while the final decision on the issue will be probably taken by the end of

2015.19 In this way, the Western Balkans would be additionally ‘linked’ to the

Western sphere of influence via its states’ membership in NATO and would

continue the reforms leading to the strengthening of the principles of liberal

democracy, market economy and the rule of law.

On the other hand, NATO would geostrategically reinforce its position in

the Adriatic region where, with the exception of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which

cannot speed up its efforts to join the Alliance due to its internal problems, and

Serbia (‘militarily neutral state’ since 2007), all countries would be

incorporated into this collective security system.20

18 Dragan Đukanović., „Spoljnopolitičke orijentacije država Zapadnog Balkana: uporedna analiza“, op. cit., str. 295–313.

19 Ratko Živković, „Crnoj Gori rampa za NATO“, Akter magazin, Novi Sad, 29. jun 2014, Internet, http://akter.co.rs/weekly/34-bezbednost/94575-crnoj-gori-rampa-za-nato.html, 17/07/2014.

20 See Dragan Djukanovic, NATO’s New Strategic Concept and Its Influence on the Stability of the

Western Balkans, Croatian International Relations Review, Zagreb, July-December 2010, pp. 105–110.

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THE EU AND THE WESTERN BALKANS –

FIFTEEN YEARS OF THE STABILISATION AND ASSOCIATION PROCESS

Over the past 15 years or so, the Western Balkan countries have

managed to step up the process of their European integration, although one

can hardly say that its pace has been remarkable. The process of stabilisation

and association with the EU, introduced for the countries in the region in

1999, has proved to be successful and effective.21 Following the EU-Western

Balkans summit, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in 2003 and considered to be a

turning point and encouragement for the countries in this part of Europe,

significant headway could be noticed:

1. On 1 July 2013, Croatia became an EU member state.

2. Montenegro and Serbia opened EU membership talks in the 2012-2014

period, becoming in a way leading countries in the process. Still, both

countries are faced with the problems which could in future drag out the

process. The EU expects Montenegro to intensify its fight against

corruption and organised crime, while Serbia is expected to end

successfully talks with the Pristina authorities on all open issues

resulting from Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence in 2008.

3. Despite the fact that it was granted EU candidate status as far back as

late 2005, Macedonia has not yet opened talks with the Brussels

administration. Due to its two-decade-old dispute with its neighbour

Greece over the use of its constitutional name of the Republic of

21 Duško Lopandić, Jasminka Kronja, Regionalne inicijative i multilateralna saradnja na Balkanu, Evropski pokret u Srbiji, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Beograd, 2010, str. 21–117.

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Macedonia, the country has for years been ‘frozen’ in a stage of an

(unsuccessful) candidate for EU membership.

4. In late June 2014, Albania was granted EU candidate status following

the speeding up of its reforms in the sphere of the political system, the

fight against corruption and organised crime etc.

5. After 2008, Kosovo managed to speed up the process of its European

integration parallel to the development of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue

and is now about to sign the Stabilisation and Association Agreement

(SAA). However, it is evident that the mood of its public is not fully in

tune with the political elites’ aspirations regarding its accession to the

EU, which is also reflected in the strengthening of the Self-Determination

Movement in the parliamentary elections held in Kosovo in June 2014.

The Kosovo public primarily wishes to see the recognition of the entity by

as many international factors as possible and its joining international

organisations (UN, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Security

and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) etc.).

6. Bosnia-Herzegovina is the only Western Balkan country that still does

not hold EU candidate status. It is still faced with the blockade of its

Dayton-Accords-based constitutional system and the impossibility of

meeting specific international obligations as regards both its relations

with the EU and NATO as well as the rulings of the European Court of

Human Rights in the case of Sejdic and Finci v. Bosnia-Herzegovina,

passed in late 2009, and the case of Zornic v. Bosnia-Herzegovina,

passed in 2014.22 Both rulings underline that the Constitution of

22 „Sud u Strazburu: Manjine mogu u izvršnu vlast BiH“, Al Jazeera Balkans, Sarajevo, 15. jul 2014, Internet, http://balkans.aljazeera.net/vijesti/sud-u-strazburu-manjine-mogu-u-izvrsnu-vlast-bih, 17/07/2014.

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Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995) discriminates against members of

non-constituent peoples (ethnic minorities and the people refusing to

declare themselves ethnically) when it comes to their eligibility to stand

for election to become members of the Presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina

or deputies/MPs to the House of Peoples of its Parliamentary Assembly.

It remains to be seen in the coming period whether the pace of accession to

the EU of all Western Balkan countries and entities will speed up and ‘even

up’.23 In this context, we can talk about the countries making speedier

progress (Montenegro and Serbia), the countries that are in a way stagnating

(Macedonia as well as Albania to a smaller extent) and Bosnia-Herzegovina as a

country bringing up the rear, together with Kosovo due to economic and social

reasons, as well as reasons related to international law. In view of the

postulates of the process of stabilisation and association with the EU of the

Western Balkan countries, primarily implying an individual approach to these

countries and the evaluation of their progress, specific groups of countries,

which could join the Union together, could still be formed in an ad hoc manner

in the coming period. A similar thing happened in 2004 when ten new

countries joined the Union in a large enlargement wave and in 2007 when

Bulgaria and Romania became its member states.24

23 For a more thorough analysis, see: Dragan Đukanović, „Evropska unija i Zapadni Balkan – isčekivanja i očekivanja“, Kultura polisa, br. 25, Novi Sad, 2014.

24 The countries in question include Slovenia, Cyprus, Slovakia, Malta, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Hungary, which joined the EU in 2004. Before that, Sweden, Finland and Austria formed such one ‘group’ in 1995, and Portugal and Spain yet another one in 1986.

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MAIN FACTORS VITAL FOR FURTHER RELATIONS AND THE EU’S

ENLARGEMENT TO THE WESTERN BALKANS BY 2020

Although the ‘appetite’ for EU enlargement has considerably decreased in

most of the Union’s member states in this decade, this process continues,

while its pace will primarily depend on the future internal as well as

international evolution in Europe, the region included. Different political and

economic factors will have a bearing on it. In particular, the economic and

social situation in the Western Balkan countries and the headway made in

implementing reforms in the region will be a prerequisite for boosting the EU

enlargement prospects in the medium term.

The EU can also be expected to continue gradually implementing its

internal institutional reforms, based on strengthening integration in the

eurozone and stepping up by degrees the development of its political union and

further efforts to build its common foreign and security policy, defence policy

included. The fact that the new EU president was designated in the process in

which European political groups and the European Parliament stole initiative

from the European Council (heads of state or government of the EU member

states)25, which is formally in charge of the process, signals that we are

witnessing the gradual emergence of a European political identity along the

lines of the real political union. Divisions in the Union will probably be

institutionally verified in the future in a process leading to an EU of ‘concentric

circles’, built around a core comprising the eurozone countries rallied around

Germany. The ‘next circle’ will include Great Britain and a number of other

25 In the elections for the European Parliament, Juncker was the so-called ‘leading candidate’ (spietzenkandidat) of the People’s (Demochristian) Party, which won the majority of votes across the EU; his opponents included Schulz, the candidate of the European Social Democrats, and the Liberal and Green Party candidates.

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countries, such as monetary union candidates. As for its economic situation,

the EU can be expected to overcome the difficulties arising from the ‘euro crisis’

in the next five years, although with a low growth rate and in the

circumstances in which the economic division between the ‘north’ and the

‘south’ of the eurozone will not be wiped out. Still, the process will primarily

cause the EU, burdened with its problems, to be above all ‘inward looking’,

having no particular wish to include the enlargement issue among its top

priorities again.

On the other hand, the enlargement circumstances and the status of the

Western Balkan countries will be especially affected by the future relations

between the EU and Russia in conditions of their deepened long-term

confrontation. In 2014, the situation in Ukraine and the EU’s primary

commitment to the ‘Eastern Partnership’ policy have somewhat overshadowed

the Union’s relations with its ‘rear’ in the Western Balkans. Despite the fact

that none of the Western Balkan countries are likely to join the EU by 2020,

the Union should send them much more proactive messages, creating a basis

for their further encouragement to work on internal reforms and regional

stability, instead of opting for ‘technocratic’ messages that there will be no

further enlargement any time soon. Confronted with Russia’s efforts to preserve

its influence in the Western Balkans, the EU will have to influence additionally

the political and economic stabilisation of the region in the coming period by

innovating the ‘Stabilisation and Association Process’ and diversifying its

Thessaloniki Agenda and measures contributing to enlargement negotiations.

The innovation programme for the Thessaloniki Agenda should among other

things include the following:

• a clearer and more energetic accession negotiations process for

Montenegro and Serbia and, subsequently, Albania, with more

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specific conditions that depend less on political issues and set

deadlines for specific stages of the negotiations;

• ‘unblocking’ of the situation in order to open negotiations with

Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina;

• strengthening of top-level ‘political dialogue’ with the SAA

countries and greater involvement of the Western Balkan countries

in the European ‘political’ family through specific informal forms of

cooperation and integration (European political groups,

parliamentary cooperation, informal meetings of governments etc.);

• economic measures to set in motion a new investment cycle in the

Western Balkans. In this context, the Southeast Europe 2020

strategy should also play a major role.

THE EU AND THE WESTERN BALKANS 2020 –

DIFFERENT PROJECTIONS

One should bear in mind the fact that no long-term prognosis in the

Balkans can be reliable. What we can expect in the days to come is a period of

greater uncertainty, new political tensions, potential social destabilisation and

political turbulence. Burdened with traditional historical, ethnic, cultural and

other latent or outstanding difficulties, the Western Balkans is not suitable for

any long-term prognoses or projections. Such a state of affairs is compounded

by the bad economic situation in the region, characterised by a high

unemployment rate, low growth, excessive indebtedness, failures of transition,

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the lack of an adequate foreign investment environment, unfavourable

conditions for the development of private initiative etc.26

The evaluation of future developments in the Western Balkans will largely

depend on several factors. Firstly, it will depend on the relations among

dominant world policy players and the overlapping of their interests; secondly,

it will depend on the region’s potential for economic development through the

implementation of different joint regional projects; the prospects of this part of

Europe will also depend on the continuation of resolution of open issues among

the countries and entities in the region. Naturally, in this context, the fact that

the speeding up of European integration, parallel to the development and new

pace of regional cooperation, can help consolidate relations in this, potentially

turbulent part of Europe should be taken into account.27 In the process, one

should bear in mind the fact that the Western Balkans includes smaller

countries, which are by no means as interesting to the EU member states in

the geopolitical sense as the Central and East European countries have been.

From the Brussels’ perspective, the EU enlargement to the Western Balkans is

an inevitable task but not a priority, it is a task that can be ‘put on hold’, i.e.

slowed down or postponed as long as the internal or external conditions are not

absolutely favourable. However, such an approach carries the risk of new

disruptions and potential destabilisation.

In view of the above comments, we reach the conclusion that, in 2020, the

relations between the EU and the Western Balkans could follow one of the

following three scenarios:

26 Panagiotis Kouparanis, Andrea Jung-Grimm, EU Exports its Crisis to the Balkans, Deutsche Welle, Berlin, 3 December 2013, Internet, http://www.dw.de/eu-izvezla-krizu-na-balkan/a-17267644, 22/07/2014.

27 Jelica Minić, Dragan Đukanović, Jasminka Kronja, Regionalna saradnja na Zapadnom Balkanu – kako dalje?, Istraživački forum Evropskog pokreta u Srbiji, maj 2014, str. 2–20.

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a) A moderately negative scenario: ‘business as usual’ - This scenario

would be the continuation of the EU’s current policy, which is

primarily the result of ‘enlargement fatigue’ and a practical slowdown

in the Union’s enlargement process.

The scenario comprises the following elements: fluctuations in the

pace of European integration of all countries and entities in the region,

ranging from the status quo situation to the ‘stop and go’ strategy, a

cautious and slow process of enlargement negotiations, the stalling of

negotiations with the EU and the uncertainty of how they will end, the

continuation of the economic and social crisis in the region and the

expected standstill in the resolution of outstanding bilateral issues.

b) A pessimistic/negative scenario: ‘a geopolitical and economic chaos’

due to the escalation of confrontation between the EU and Russia to

the Western Balkans, the renewal of clashes and further deepening of

the economic and social crisis in the region.

The scenario would include the following elements: disregarding

enlargement i.e. stalling further talks with some candidate countries

for various reasons such as unrealistic requests placed before them,

general economic, political and security-related instability,

disregarding the economic situation in the region, a potential

economic and/or political collapse in some Western Balkan countries,

growing tensions between countries and nations in the region and new

clashes (due to Albanian-Slav divisions and/or inter-religious/ethnic

clashes in Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina), the emergence

of authoritarian regimes in the region, attempts to change the foreign

policy orientation of some Western Balkan countries, a partial switch

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of some states in the region to the ‘Eurasian Union’ and setting up

strategic partnerships with the countries of the global ‘East’.

c) An optimistic scenario: ‘2020 – the year of the EU enlargement to the

Western Balkan countries’. This scenario would be the result of the

EU’s greater shift to the Western Balkans, based on its treating the

enlargement issue as a real political priority, and of more serious

innovation of the Thessaloniki Agenda/Stabilisation and Association

Process.

The scenario would include the following elements: speeding up of the

EU’s enlargement process and a change in attitude (under the

influence of new threats and dangers in the east and the south) of the

general public and political elites of the leading Union member states

towards the Western Balkan countries’ integration, a new pace of the

economic development (infrastructure, foreign investment, regional

development), consolidation of the socio-economic situation in the

Western Balkans, successful resolution of open bilateral issues in the

region and strengthened multilateral cooperation. Under the optimistic

scenario, a number of Western Balkan countries (Serbia, Montenegro)

would join the EU by the end of the decade, whereas other countries

(Albania, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina) would make great headway

in the negotiations with a view to becoming EU member states in the

first half of the next decade.

CONCLUSION

As can be seen from the above sections of the paper, it is really hard to

predict what the Western Balkans will look like in 2020. Reserved and

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sceptical messages about the enlargement issue, such as the newly-elected

European Commission President Juncker’s statement to this effect, do not

help consolidate the situation or boost pro-European tendencies in the

region.

At the same time, the current crisis in Ukraine is deepening, showing no

signs of ending any time soon. As a result, some countries in the region,

Serbia in particular, will be placed in an additionally unfavourable situation

in terms of foreign policy due to the need to back one of the sides in the new

global ‘cold war’ (the Russian Federation and/or the EU and the US). One

should not rule out the fact that a potential socio-economic collapse in some

Western Balkan countries or the rekindling of ethnic clashes in some

countries or entities, coupled with the strengthening of authoritarian

political tendencies, could also have an impact on the leading political elites’

shift of focus from the ‘European path’ to closer contacts with the ‘Eurasian

Union’.

Consequently, an alternative to such developments should be

unequivocal support to the process of the EU’s enlargement to the Western

Balkans, i.e. directing the attention of the Brussels administration to all

states in the region, which in more recent history very often proved to be

problematic. In this respect, the Union’s support to Montenegro, Serbia,

Macedonia and Albania, as candidate countries, is vital so that they could

continue the European reform process despite their numerous internal

problems. Also, the Union should focus on those in the region that have not

been granted candidate status, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina (as well as

Kosovo), due to their dominant internal problems and potential for

instability (coexistence of three ethnic groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the

Serbs’ status in Kosovo). In this context, it would be extremely important for

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Brussels to encourage efforts to review measures for the innovation of the

‘Stabilisation and Association Process’ by strengthening top-level political

dialogue, innovating pre-accession instruments of support to enlargement

talks and boosting economic mechanisms of cooperation.

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