To save democracy and European values in the region, the European Union should accept Albania and all states with Yugoslav roots as full EU members for geopolitical reasons — now — before it is too late.
By ANDI BALLA
A decade ago, on the sidelines of a conference in Tirana discussing the enlargement of the European Union in the Balkans, two diplomats — a German and a Croat — were asked about the frustration many Albanians felt about the snail-pace progress the country was making EU membership. Those were the enthusiastic days of EU enlargement, and to the impatient and optimistic it appeared that within a decade or so Albania and all its neighbours would all become full EU members.
The German answer was sober: No, it will take much, much longer as the region is way behind the EU core in all aspects. The Croat, a seasoned diplomat from the Yugoslav era, was more optimistic: Don’t despair, he said, it could happen sooner, but only if the conditions are right.
Those right conditions, for the EU to step up and admit the Western Balkan states immediately as full members have never been more evident. These right conditions are independent of meeting the ever more stringent standards the EU bureaucrats are now imposing to deal with the myriad of negative trends that plague the Western Balkan countries. This week, as they do every December, the region’s governments received an official answer by the EU member states. It’s the same answer they have heard for years: You’ve made some progress, try harder, and there will be years of negotiations ahead, but we do want you to join — at some point. In other terms: Wait, indefinitely.
The Western Balkan countries are not ready by German or French standards. They might not be for decades. But Spain wasn’t when it became an EU member. Neither was Greece. Romania and Bulgaria were arguably in similar position to the Western Balkans when they were admitted. These countries were all admitted for the same reason the Western Balkans should be as soon as possible — geopolitics.
The United States and Great Britain, key countries that have been major investors in the stability and democratic revival of the Western Balkans for more more than two decades, are in the process of withdrawing their focus from the region. The Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump will not mean an overnight withdrawal of focus, but for all intensive purposes, these two countries won’t play as a big role in the region as they have in the past.
The vacuum they leave behind is massive, and unless it is filled with EU membership, as the security vacuum was filled with NATO membership in the case of Albania, and soon Montenegro, the Western Balkan countries become fair game in the geopolitical sphere. Outsiders are ready to fill the vacuum for their own purposes and the ones to lose most will be the residents of the Western Balkans, those that today believe in the power European values and democracy and tomorrow might not.
To save democracy and European values in the region, the European Union should accept Albania and all states with Yugoslav roots as full EU members for geopolitical reasons — now — before it is too late.
EU membership would not solve problems overnight. But it would bring these countries into the fold, providing a clear European identity they so much crave. It will also give a massive economic boost to the region through the free flow of people and capital. One only needs to look at the increase in GDP for Romania and Bulgaria in the past decade to see the immediate economic benefits of membership.
But more than about economic benefits, this is about politically legitimizing a geographic fact: The Western Balkans are already surrounded by the European Union, and the bloc needs the region to be healthy to avoid further crisis.
Many point out to the fact that the very future of the European Union is no longer secure, and as such the point of Western Balkan membership becomes mute. But there is also a debate about what the European Union, if it survives, will look like in the future, and those who support Western Balkan membership, especially in Central Europe, want to see a European Union that slows down its race to become a federal union and speeds up the enlargement under the current model of a union of independent states. For the Western Balkans, the second option is beneficial, because it allows for immediate membership and provides a clear European identity, if not Western European prosperity.
It is a shame that in 2017, the old western border of the Ottoman Empire, under the yoke of which the people of the Western Balkans lived for centuries, still survives on the map to leave the Western Balkans surrounded by the EU but excluded by it. The six countries that now make up the region also suffered under a different oppression for decades — that of communism, inspired by the Soviet Union. As such, membership in the European Union for the region’s peoples is about correcting the historical injustices that tried to destroy their European identity. That’s why the Western Balkans have no stronger proponents than Central European countries like Poland and Hungary that themselves know what it is like having outside powers trying to alter their identity.
But what about corruption, poverty and bad governance? Yes, they are all real. But the current path Brussels has set for the region — of indefinite postponement of membership until the pie in the sky ideal conditions are met — is disingenuous to both the region and to those in Western Europe that oppose EU enlargement as a concept. Brussels is telling one side that they will be members at some point in the future if they keep up the good work, while telling the other that there is no enlargement in the foreseeable future, so they don’t need to worry. You can’t have it both ways.
True supporters of EU membership in the Western Balkans need to be told the bitter truth: Unless they take massive action now to lobby for immediate admission, they are headed the way of Turkey — never to be good enough. Unlike Turkey, the Western Balkan states have not yet turned their backs on the EU project, but with the proper outside influence and growing domestic irritation with the pace of integration, those that until know have been supporters of integration could seek alternative solutions.
Left to their own devices, the political and oligarchic classes now firmly in power across the Western Balkans, which in many cases benefit from lack of firm rule of law and a full European identity, will only pay lip service to wanting to join the European Union while benefiting from the delays at the expense of democracy and well-being of the people of the region.
As the recent elections in Macedonia showed, a Western Balkan government proven to be corrupt and working against the best interests of its people can still win elections through a combination of political patronage, pay-to-play jobs and vote buying. Macedonia is not alone. This and other trends are happening across the region. Organized crime in Albania has returned with a vengeance as the country’s EU prospects stall. In Serbia, Russian troops have conducted military exercises near the border with Kosovo. Ethnic tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina are rising. Economic growth has been virtually nonexistent in the region for years, at time when the economy should be growing at a high rate to help them catch up. The region is clearly moving backward, not forward.
Unless the EU steps in to fill the void, there could be some very dark days ahead. The EU has ran out stick. The region’s people now need the ultimate carrot.
ab(at)andiballa.com
