By ALBA CELA
Last week, the Foreign Affairs ministers of Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo launched the “Western Balkans Quad – 100% alignment with EU Common Foreign Security Policy” as a platform to address CFSP in the sensitive geopolitical context brought about by Russian aggression in Ukraine. All countries are on the path to accession into the European Union, although at different specific points.
The focus of the first meeting of Quad was reported to be “the full alignment of the four countries from the Quad group with the EU’s foreign and security policy in light of the new geopolitical reality, hybrid threats, energy crisis, and economic consequences caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.” These issues have repeatedly been the focus of almost every meeting, regional or European, since February 2022.
This new informal platform is the latest addition to an overwhelming myriad of regional constellations, mechanisms, initiatives, annual forums, and so on. Alignment with the EU’s common foreign security policy is a non-negotiable condition embedded in the integration process. It is a separate dedicated chapter in the negotiations plan with all the homework and commitments that that entails.
The four countries have numerous opportunities, almost monthly ones, to meet and discuss issues of common interest and coordination in the field of foreign policy and security and subsequently agree on common positions or actions. Additionally, we haven’t explored all the possibilities of integrating this issue into the Berlin Process, the only one that actually gathers all six of them and could address the real issues: the countries that differ from EU CFSP and pressure them to change course.
It is unclear what the concrete purpose of this initiative is and, more specifically, what its added value can be. It is no secret that the modest administrations of the foreign policy sector in the region’s countries are already struggling under the weight of managing a juggernaut of meetings, reports, action plans, and keeping track of their participation and contribution.
Quantity is not the only problem. With so many regional constellations in place, controversy is almost inevitable. Recently, competing narratives, such as the case of Open Balkans, have sown divisions among countries in the region when it comes to the modalities and vision of cooperation and ways of moving forward.
In this light, the Quad seems like a cheerful club of the like-minded, positive but not convincingly necessary.
The focus for the Ministries should be instead in increasing human resources capabilities and even expanding the directories in charge of the existing regional mechanisms in order to ensure better impact, coordination, monitoring and outreach. In addition, they should enhance and re-calibrate their openness towards civil society cooperation. The integration process will take care of the CSFP on its own just fine.
