European Union Institute for Security Studies

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Opinion

Union européenne

European Union

Jacques
Rupnik*

June 2009

ThE challEngES Of EU EnlaRgEmEnT In
ThE BalkanS

* Jacques Rupnik, Director of Research at CERI-
Sciences Po, Paris and Visiting Fellow at the
College of Europe, Bruges, is also Associate
Researcher with the EUISS. He is a specialist in
Eastern Europe and the Balkans.

During the wars that broke up the former Yugoslavia

and in their immediate aftermath, the European Union

was often criticised for being inconsistent in its se-

curity policies and for the latent tension between the

emphasis on postwar regional cooperation (set out in

the Stability Pact) and the priority given to the merits

of individual countries as the basis on which their EU

membership prospects were to be assessed (SAA

agreements). Today, the overall thrust of the EU’s

Balkans policy has moved from an agenda dominated

by security issues related to the wars that tore the

region apart to an agenda focused on the Western

Balkans’ EU accession prospects. A formal political

commitment of all EU Member States to accession

has existed since the Thessaloniki summit of June

2003. Kosovo’s independence in February 2008 can

be seen as the turning point between the final stage of

post-Yugoslav fragmentation and the region’s engage-

ment in the European integration process. A coherent

EU approach to the region, it seemed, had been found

at last: the framework was in place, the verbal com-

mitments of the political elites in the region were clear

enough, and the policy tools were supposedly familiar

to all since the previous wave of Eastern enlarge-

ment. After all, what was the difference between en-

largement to Central Europe and enlargement to the

Balkans? Ten years. There are, however, a number

of reasons why this optimistic assessment (as well as

the coherence of EU enlargement policies) should be

questioned.

1. The EU and other major international
actors

US-led NATO

enlargement in Central Europe pre-

ceded the enlargement of the EU and it seemed that

this pattern was at work again in the Western Balkans

with the recent accession of Croatia and Albania to

the Atlantic Alliance. The transatlantic bond and the

emphasis on security appeared as a pre-condition to

a successful integration to the EU. In recent years the

international presence in the Balkans has become

increasingly Europeanised, with US priorities hav-

ing shifted outside of Europe. The list of priorities is

long, encompassing the G2 with China, the ‘reset’

policy towards Russia, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan

and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the Balkans

at the bottom of the list – something that is not always

greatly appreciated in the region. However, the US

has, since Vice-President Biden’s visit to the region in

2009, shown signs of continuing engagement which

is also seen as crucial by several actors in the region

(Bosniaks, Kosovars, Albanians and Croats). There

are occasional transatlantic differences concerning

assessments of the region’s stability, particularly in re-

lation to Bosnia (as voiced by Richard Holbrooke) and

these have significant policy implications: should the

Office of the High Representative (OHR) be retained

or not? Is there a need for a US ‘special envoy’ to the

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region? Although scaling down US engagement in the

Balkans is consistent with the process of European

integration, now seen as ‘the only game in town’, the

EU should encourage the US to maintain an involve-

ment in the region especially as the US professes that

its primary goal is precisely to assist in the region’s

accession into the EU. We have moved from security-

driven containment to politically-driven integration

which can only be helped by a transatlantic ‘insurance

policy’ for the Balkans.

Russia

played virtually no part in Central Europe’s ac-

cession to the EU but it has in recent years acquired a

significant nuisance capacity in a number of countries

in the Balkans, most obviously in relation to energy

supply and the Kosovo question. Serbia now tends to

be considered in Brussels as pivotal to the region and

its current government as the most favorable to the

EU in two decades. Yet it has made a deal with Russia

on both the above-mentioned issues: giving Moscow a

stake in the energy sector while relying on its backing

in the UN over Kosovo. The consistency of the EU’s re-

spective positions on Kosovo and the ‘frozen conflicts’

in the Caucasus has, predictably, been questioned by

Russia. To say that these are self-serving arguments

does not dispense with the need to address the ten-

sion between the legitimacy of Kosovo’s declaration

of independence and the difficult quest for its interna-

tional legal recognition.

Turkey

opened enlargement negotiations with the EU

before the countries of the Western Balkans which,

from their perspective, was, for historical reasons, dif-

ficult to understand. The question of the consistency

of the EU’s future approach to enlargement could be

summed up as follows: is the EU aiming, given the ge-

ographic proximity of the region, for a ‘post-Ottoman’

enlargement to the South East? Or in the context of

the enlargement debate should the EU, for the sake of

political feasibility, keep the two issues of Turkey and

the Balkans separate? There have been interesting

and on the whole positive developments in the rela-

tions between the countries of the region (particularly

Greece, Bulgaria and most recently Serbia) that might

favour such an approach. However, the strong reluc-

tance among public opinion with regard to the EU en-

largement to Turkey (particularly among the founding

members of the EU) and Turkey’s new assertiveness

as an international player suggest that, if the EU is

serious about extending enlargement to the Western

Balkans, it might be best to dissociate their specific

case from that of Turkey.

2. coherence between regional and indi-
vidual approaches to EU integration

This brings to the fore the question of coherence be-

tween regional and individual approaches to EU in-

tegration, highly topical since the debates about the

regional priorities of the Stability Pact for the Balkans

and the competition among individual countries en-

couraged by the SAA process. The current assumption

is that the ‘regatta’ approach works fine for the EU as

it makes the enlargement process ‘discreet’ enough to

meet with acceptance among Western public opinion

and the political elites of the countries concerned. All

of them support the swift accession of Croatia which

they see as opening the door to the EU for the rest

of the Western Balkans. The logic of emulation may

work for some such as the former Yugoslav Republic

of Macedonia (FYROM) or Montenegro, both of which

have already submitted their applications for EU mem-

bership. But for ‘unfinished’ states such as Bosnia,

Kosovo and Serbia there may be a case for a ‘paral-

lel track’ accession to the EU. The shared European

roof was meant to help defuse and overcome conten-

tious territorial and institutional issues. To be sure, no

country’s accession should in principle be held hos-

tage to the intransigence of its neighbour(s). But given

the possible repercussions of different aspects of the

‘Serbian question’ it also seems prudent to make sure

that unfinished statehood issues are settled simulta-

neously during the accession process when leverage

is strongest. This is a case for a regional approach

on a smaller scale, at least for a limited number of

countries.

All of this also helps to address concern regarding the

solution of unresolved conflicts during the EU accession

process. There is no shortage of bilateral tensions and

contentious issues in the region. Croatia, to take the ex-

ample of the frontrunner for EU accession, has pending

border issues with all its neighbours. The one that ap-

peared easiest to solve, because it involved Slovenia,

recently became a very sensitive matter that risked

blocking Croatia’s EU accession (going all the way to

a referendum which took place on 6 June, although

the result boosted Croatia’s accession prospects). The

most difficult one obviously concerns relations between

Serbia and Kosovo, as even the most pro-European

Serbian politicians keep repeating that recognition

is out of the question. Foreign minister Vuk Jeremic

formulated Serbia’s three ‘no’s: no to recognition of

Kosovo, no to NATO accession and no to changing the

status quo in Bosnia Herzegovina (i.e. not challenging

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Republika Srpska’s Prime Minister Dodik’s quest for a

state-within-a-state). The third bilateral difficulty on the

road to the EU concerns the former Yugoslav Republic

of Macedonia’s quest for a post-FYROM identity ac-

ceptable to its Greek neighbour.

3. coherence between EU policies

The other question concerns the coherence between

EU policies and those of its individual Member States.

Some of them have, for historical and geographic rea-

sons, been more involved (Greece, Austria, Italy) from

the outset. Others, who are new members of the EU

(Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania), have a direct stake in

the region’s stability and accession prospects. The

proximity and involvement of an EU Member State is

usually considered to be a powerful vector of EU influ-

ence in the region. But it can sometimes become an

impediment. Athens’s unresolved conflict with Skopje

over the name of the Macedonian state has blocked

the latter’s joining NATO (which was supported by all

other EU members). Croatia’s difficulty or reluctance

in settling the border issue with Slovenia has led the

latter to remind Zagreb that its consent is necessary

to ratify Croatia’s membership of NATO. Perhaps the

clearest warning for the EU in the region comes from

the case of Cyprus: it was included to the Eastern

enlargement of 2004 at the insistence of Greece and

the assumption in the EU was that accession to the

Union would be conditional on ending the partition of

the island in accordance with the UN plan. We know

what happened to that assumption and this is now

considered in the EU as a major lesson for the future

in dealing with the Western Balkans.

These developments should suffice to qualify the wide-

spread assumption that a Member State is the best

‘advocate’ of its neighbour as a prospective candidate

member and the best force for stabilisation. The inclu-

sion of Croatia in the EU would certainly contribute

to the stabilisation of democracy there. However, the

impact on neighbouring Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) re-

mains debatable as Croats from Bosnia-Herzegovina,

the majority of whom own Croatian passports, are

losing interest in the future of their state (there are

more voters registered in Croatia than there are ac-

tual citizens). Romania is the most vocal advocate of

Moldova’s future membership in the EU. Its influence

over its Eastern neighbour has, during the 2009 politi-

cal crisis in Chisinau, been alternately depicted in terms

of ‘attraction’ and ‘destabilisation’ by opposing sides in

the political struggle. In short, a coherent enlargement

policy should also entail a careful consideration of its

impact on neighbours and thus its relationship to the

EU’s neighbourhood policy or its ‘Eastern Partnership’.

4. from protectorates to integration
through nation-state building

In the light of the above, the EU’s two main successive

strategic approaches in the region can be summed

up as follows: (i) moving from crisis management to

Europeanised protectorates; (ii) overseeing the tran-

sition from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo from in-

ternational protectorates to EU candidate states. The

difficulty (and this is where consistency is most imme-

diately tested) is that the EU is for the first time in its

history directly involved in assisting in the creation of

its future Member States. There are three ‘unfinished’

states in the Western Balkans: Bosnia, Kosovo and

Serbia. EU Commissioner for enlargement Olli Rehn

has rightly pointed out that protectorates cannot be in-

tegrated in the EU. Nor can unfinished states. This is

why two (hopefully) vanishing protectorates should be

examined as test cases.

Bosnia-Herzegovina:

Is Bosnia a stable state? The

answer depends on which High Representative you

listen to: former HR Paddy Ashdown fears disintegra-

tion while, in the view of one his most recent succes-

sors, Miroslav Lajcak of Slovakia, the Bonn powers

have become irrelevant as well as the HR’s office

itself. Is Bosnia a functional state? Clearly the an-

swer has to be negative. Fifteen years after Dayton

it is a country with a constitution that segregates its

ethnic communities to ensure peace but prevents the

emergence of an integrated polity. The country has no

Supreme Court, no independent judiciary, and oper-

ates under three legal systems and four penal codes.

The European Court of Human Rights has recently

condemned BiH for preventing one of its citizens from

running for president on grounds of ethnicity (the Finci

case). In short: the country needs to move from the

Dayton constitution to a Brussels-oriented constitu-

tion. No amount of external pressure by European and

American (Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg

has visited Sarajevo five times in the past year) has so

far, as the Butmir process in October 2009 showed,

been able to achieve substantial progress on this key

issue for the future viability of the state.

The protectorate ensured stability but reinforced dys-

functionality. Can the transition from the protectorate

and a shift to a pre-accession agenda generate a pow-

erful enough leverage to push through the institutional

reform that is vital to develop a sense of ownership and

make BiH a viable polity? This is where one man’s plea

for the credibility of the European leverage borders on

another man’s act of faith. The one major positive de-

velopment to report is that Belgrade and Zagreb have,

for reasons associated with their European accession

prospects, abandoned the divisive policies of the past.

This in turn could help the process of reconciliation

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without which the trust necessary for overcoming the

prevailing logic of ethnic exclusion cannot be built.

Kosovo

’s independence, proclaimed in February

2008, has gradually led to a scaling down of UNMIK

and launched EULEX as the largest civilian mission

ever launched under CSDP. The challenge is to as-

sist in Kosovo’s transition from protectorate status and

build up a new state in a process where the EU pres-

ence would be transformed into a pre-accession moni-

toring role. The rationale sounds coherent enough on

the surface; however it must be remembered that:

The EU still coexists with UNMIK and the International

Civilian Office (ICO). EULEX is supposed to as-

sist the rule of law in the new state, but it officially

remains ‘status-neutral’ given that five EU Member

States have not recognised Kosovo independence.

Meanwhile it remains unclear what legislation applies

when in Kosovo: is it the international regulations

adopted in the past decade under UNMIK? Is it the

new laws voted by the democratically elected Kosovo

parliament? Or is it (in the Northern enclave around

Mitrovica) Serbian/ex-Yugoslav law? Depending on

where you are and when you get different answers to

this question. And this, in turn leads to other related

questions: which state, which international agency,

which law? This surely is the most formidable ‘consist-

ency challenge’ for EU representative Peter Feith and

more generally for the EU mission in Kosovo. Hence

also the question: is Kosovo really an independent

state on the road to the EU or does the presence of

the EULEX mission simply mark a new phase in its

existence as a protectorate? Will Kosovo be able to

establish a new relationship with its Serbian minority

and with Serbia on their parallel tracks into the EU? Or

is partition, Belgrade’s hidden agenda, an acceptable

one for the EU exit strategy?

w w w

These are some of the main dilemmas raised in ex-

amining the coherence of the EU’s approaches to the

Western Balkans. There is a stark contrast between

stated goals and their actual implementation. No won-

der ‘Europeanisation’ looks different when seen from

Brussels and from the countries at the receiving end.

This is also where enlargement fatigue within the EU

meets ‘accession fatigue’ in the Balkans. The latter

has two aspects: the political elites in the region some-

times using verbal commitments to EU accession as

a smokescreen for business as usual. Equally, there

is the erosion of popular support for EU accession

(strongest where it is least advanced, in Albania; weak-

est where it is most advanced, in Croatia) According to

a Gallup Balkan Monitor poll from November 2009 the

majority of citizens in each of the candidate countries

for joining the EU believe their country is ‘heading in

the wrong direction’. Hence the importance of check-

ing such premature doubts about a process which has

hardly started. This points to the limited usefulness of

a ‘summit to commemorate a summit’ (Sarajevo 2010

celebrates Zagreb 2000) and to the need for tangible

measures that would facilitate citizens’ directly identi-

fication with Europe. Visa liberalization has obviously

been the most important both symbolically and politi-

cally. But it is equally important to recognise that EU

accession does not concern just governments and

institutions and must involve societies concerned.

Money spent by the EU on assistance to civil soci-

ety actors is the best investment in the success of the

process.

The agenda for both the countries of the Western

Balkans and for the EU seems clear enough. For the

former the priority must be to respond to the doubts

raised about the rule of law after the accession of

Romania and Bulgaria by tackling the question of cor-

ruption and clientelism and by addressing its main

sources: the legacies of the war economy (getting

around international trade embargoes through the

black market and the development of a shadow econ-

omy), the privatisation process and the use of public

sector employment for patronage and state capture.

These countries must show that nationalisms can be

made ‘eurocompatible’ along the Croatian model with

a binding commitment to resolve the aforementioned

border disputes which could become a serious im-

pediment to EU accession. The lesson from Cyprus is:

there will be no EU enlargement unless the bilateral

conflicts are resolved first.

For the EU, the Balkans requires it to a rethink its con-

cept of enlargement which cannot , for the reasons out-

lined above, be simply a replica of the pattern success-

fully implemented in Central Europe. The EU should

strengthen the regional approach by granting candidate

status to all countries of the region and setting a date

to open negotiations. The pace and completion of the

process will then depend on the capacity to deliver of

the political elites of each country, thus making their

respective responsibilities clear and the political risks

and costs of failure more acceptable. Such a tangible

and assertive European commitment to the Balkans,

which is not challenged within the EU, is all the more

important as it remains, for the foreseeable future, the

only convincing scenario for EU enlargement. It would

also be the best way for the EU to downplay its divi-

sions (over Kosovo), overcome its hesitations between

containment and integration, and restore its credibility

in the region and as an international actor.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the EUISS