The EU must keep its promise to the Western Balkans By Tim Judah ★ The year 2006 is critical for the Western Balkans. Montenegro has voted in favour of independence, Kosovo negotiates its final status and Bosnia is struggling to push through radical reforms. ★ The objective of joining the EU helps these countries to find solutions to their many problems. But growing ‘enlargement fatigue’ in the EU could leave them disorientated and angry. If the perspective of EU accession receded, the risk of renewed instability would gro w. ★ The EU has a good strategy for the Western Balkans. But EU leaders should not mix the question of Balkan accession with that of Turkey, or with economic concerns at home. They need to reconfirm their promise to bring these countries into the EU as quickly as re f o rms in the region allow.
Enlargement has been one of the EU’s most successful policies. In the case of the Central and East European countries, the wish to join the Union has helped to foster stability, democratisation and economic reform. The Western Balkans emerged from terrible wars only a decade ago and has since seen bouts of instability and bloodshed. The region’s countries need the ‘EU anchor’ even more than states such as Poland or Hungary did during their transition. Already, the EU has played a positive role in the Balkans. It has helped to broker and implement peace deals, it has sent soldiers and policemen, and it has given aid to rebuild the region’s devastated economies. But most importantly, the EU has given the people of the Western Balkans hope – the hope that one day they too will become members of the club. During 2005, the countries of the Western Balkans all made some progress on their path towards the EU. In 2006, however, the momentum seems to have stalled. EU politicians are openly questioning whether the Union’s ‘absorption capacity’ has been exhausted. Some are already calling for a halt to enlargement once Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia have joined. However, such talk is dangerous at a time when the Western Balkans needs the European perspective to get through a very difficult year.
2006 – a key year for the Western Balkans There are two main reasons why 2006 is critical. The first is that a question mark now hangs over the relationship between the European Union and the region referred to as the Western Balkans, namely Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Macedonia, Croatia and Albania. Over the last few years, strategic planning for the future of the region has relied on the assumption that it is moving slowly but surely towards EU membership. EU leaders accepted these countries as candidates in principle at the EU-Balkans summit in Thessaloniki in 2003. However, since then the EU has shown increasing signs of ‘enlargement fatigue’. At another EU-Balkans meeting in Salzburg in March 2006, the EU reiterated its pledge of keeping the door open. However, this time it added a reference to the Union’s ‘absorption capacity’ as a potential barrier to future accessions. Some prominent politicians in Germany and France have suggested the EU should offer the Balkan countries a ‘privileged partnership’ instead of full membership.
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