The EU integration path for Western Balkans countries
Historically, the Balkans were a puzzle of diverse ethnicities, religions, cultures and languages. Powerful neighbours has constantly tried to project power and gain control over this part of Europe. Nowadays, we can say that things has changed, but we can also argue that things has remained the same. Nobody was able to solve the puzzle so far.
With Slovenia and, later, Croatia joining the EU, the balance of power changed in the region. Although the countries in the Balkans aligned on the path towards EU integration, a lot of challenges are still present, generated by internal politics and foreign influences as well.
Serbia is, without question, the bigger piece in this puzzle. Since Vucic took control over the steer of internal and foreign politics, Belgrade is the equilibrist of the region. The country maintains a fragile balance between its path towards EU, and preserving traditional relations with strong allies like Russia and China. Without any serious internal challenge against the rule of SNS and its allies, Vucic looks outside Serbia, trying to maximize the benefits gained form every major player interested in the region.
The pandemic, despite being a great challenge from the economic point of view, has offered Serbia the chance to project, again, its power in the entire region. Thanking Russia and China for the logistical support in fighting the sanitary challenge, Belgrade used the benefits gained form traditional partners to help less fortunate neighbours and to gain the upper hand in regional talks.
On the other hand, EU provided strong support, both in fighting the pandemic and also in developing the entire region. But the help form Brussels is linked to the requirements to join sacred European values. And not everybody in Balkans is comfortable to change their view over the way how politics and administration should be done. The most recent elections in Montenegro highlighted that Russian influence is still strong and the EU is far from winning over the region.
The Balkan puzzle is not an easy one. Small and challenging pieces are hard to fit perfectly in the bigger picture. Bosnia and Herzegovina remains a small puzzle itself, a smaller scale Balkans in a single country. Centrifugal political forces are strong in BiH, and internal politics are always complicated. The wounds of the past are not healed yet, and even if everybody knows that joining the EU and implementing EU values is the only way to heal, not everybody is ready to admit it loud and clear.
Kosovo is another hard-to-fit piece. The edges of this piece simply do not fit with the ones of Serbia. Negotiations were in place since the Unilateral Declaration of Independence, but with the current pace of solving the issues between the two sides is unlikely that the reader of this article will see it solved. Various factors influenced the process, internal political instability in Pristina office being one of them. With an unreformed political class, the menace of early elections is always present. The agreements signed by one government are difficult to be accepted by the next one, and the will to find a compromise solution is not always there. The EU involvement in mediation is the solution, but both sides have to put their will to join the greater European family before the resentments of the past.
Beside governments and European bodies, there are strong efforts to make the puzzle pieces fit in various parts of the society. The will of the people in the region is to live better and to be part of the dream that the EU represents for the current and future generations. Even if political interests collide sometimes with this, strong voices in civil society are in the rise. Well established and new NGOs work together with the politicians to maintain the steer towards European values and to counter other illiberal and authoritarian influences in the region.
There is no doubt that the EU has the cleverness to solve the puzzle and to bring the Balkans together in the family. In order to do this faster, every player involved has to make efforts to adjust the edges, to embrace the values and to contribute in steering towards the right direction.