In the wake of the financial crisis, the EU has become rather inward-looking – rather to the detriment of the accession process for the states of the Western Balkans. Yet these states badly need a future perspective they can rely on.
By Josip Juratovic
The integration of the Western Balkans was declared a goal of the EU at its 2003 summit in Thessaloniki and since then some progress has been made. The accession negotiations with Croatia have been successfully concluded, Serbia has officially been declared an accession candidate, and accession negotiations with Montenegro have begun. Yet this picture is misleading. Since the beginning of the financial crisis the EU has focused primarily on itself, and doubts are growing about whether accession for the states of the Western Balkans will continue to be a realistic prospect. Yet without a clear prospect of EU membership the reform efforts in many countries of the Western Balkans are liable to stagnate.
We pay attention to the Western Balkans only when there are military conflicts, and this could soon be the case again. Ethnic tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia as well as between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians makes a renewed outbreak of civil war seem conceivable. More dangerous still are the social tensions, for the teenagers and young adults who have grown up in the wake of the civil war regard themselves as a “lost generation”. These young people know that prosperity is to be had in Europe but see no prospect of achieving it in their own countries. Youth unemployment in the Western Balkans is more than 50 percent. Many young graduates have been unable to find work in their fields and instead must make do with casual work. This means that the most talented people leave as soon as they find an opportunity to do so.
The crisis should not be used as an excuse: the EU must put the Western Balkans back on its agenda and help to bring about lasting peace there. The integration of the Western Balkans in the EU will only function if it is supported by the population – on both sides. All too often, however, the promises made in the accession talks are later called into question again. The trust of people in the Western Balkans in what EU membership might bring has fallen again in recent years. We need to win back this trust through fair negotiations and by clearly stating our case!
In its programme for the European elections in 2009 the CDU declared its commitment to “a phase of consolidation, in which strengthening the identity and the institutions of the European Union should take priority over the accession of further EU members”. The Christian Democrats thus fought an election campaign at the cost of European solidarity and thereby cast doubt on the reliability of the EU. The message it sent was that even if a state fulfils the accession criteria laid down by the EU for accession, it still cannot be sure whether it will really be allowed to join. Fortunately, the CDU’s policy looks different in reality to how it was presented in its election programme. In December 2009 Chancellor Angela Merkel advocated beginning negotiations with Macedonia and agreed to grant accession candidate status to Montenegro (2010) and Serbia (2012). Nevertheless, many people in the Western Balkans are asking themselves: How secure is our European perspective? This uncertainty means that in many states reforms are not being pursued with sufficient vigour. We are thus endangering the modernisation process in the Western Balkans.
This is not what a reliable accession process should look like
The decision to admit ten new members to the EU simultaneously in 2004 and a good two years later Romania and Bulgaria as well – even though at that point they did not fulfil the accession criteria – was a political one. Today, the EU regrets having taken this step, because the post-accession negotiations have proven to be difficult. In future, states will only be admitted to the EU if they are considered ready to receive this status, which in the case of Croatia has led to protracted negotiations. Political motivation that once worked to accession candidates’ advantage is now putting them at a disadvantage. Thus certain members of the EU are reserving the right to impose special conditions. The first to do this was Greece, which vetoed accession negotiations with Macedonia in 2009 on the grounds of a dispute over the name of the country. In December 2011 Angela Merkel delayed granting accession status to Serbia. Romania and Bulgaria then declared the legal status of their minorities in Serbia a condition for their voting for Serbian accession. This is not what a reliable accession process should look like.
An other factor which has led to some irritation is that the accession states are being asked to meet standards with which the member states themselves do not comply: French President Nicolas Sarkozy, for example, contravened EU law by deporting groups of Roma from France. The EU propagated good governance at a time when Silvio Berlusconi was able to govern Italy almost without criticism. Other examples include budgetary policy in Greece; media censorship in Hungary; and the participation of right-wing populists in government in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Italy. This, too, has undermined the credibility of the EU in recent years. The positive impact of rapprochement on democracy and stabilisation, once a highly effective “soft power”, has faded considerably. The approval rates for EU integration in public opinion surveys in the Western Balkans have fallen.
For these reasons the European Council needs to prove that it still has the will to accept new members and must declare its clear commitment to the states’ of the Western Balkans eventually becoming members. Germany could boost its image by taking the initiative here, since our government was the trigger for many of these irritations.
In addition, the accession process needs to become more transparently structured. European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan F
