2 hours agoDark Forecast: EU won't have time for Balkans in 2019.
Periskopi(7 years ago)
(7 years ago)The European Union will not have time for the Balkans next year, and therefore a new energy is needed for the fight against stagnation. This was the main outcome of the “European Union and the Western Balkans summit in 2019, organised in Belgrade. University of Graz professor Florian Bieber underlined that 2018 was [...]
The European Union will not have time for the Balkans next year, and therefore a new energy is needed for the fight against stagnation. This was the main outcome of the “European Union and the Western Balkans summit in 2019, organised in Belgrade.
University of Graz professor Florian Bieber underlined that the year 2018 was a year of high expectations, due to the 2025 definition of the potential date for the region's membership in the European bloc, but also some minor successes, such as the Prespa deal.
Meanwhile, as Bieber underlines, the scope for a deal between Pristina and Belgrade is getting tight, and Brussels will have less and less impact on the negotiations process.
On the other hand, the Skopje-Athine Agreement came at a high political cost, he adds, and the lack of a reward on the part of the union would pose a potential risk to the” negotiations.
Vedran Dzihic, a researcher at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs, said that grim predictions for 2019 are already taking over almost every round expert table, and that the three fundamental values; EU accession, democratisation and market economy; they have not been able to eradicate depression, which according to him dominates the region.
