The Western Balkans: In a group together or in a race towards the EU?

The promise has been made since 2003, when the EU extended its hand to the Western Balkans and invited him for membership. But then the leap has fallen. The brightness is dim. Who, when and how it should enter the EU, is unclear and seems to belong to a distant future. The 2003 confirmation in Thessaloniki was long since no longer reliable”, says of DW Gernot Erler, former state minister and president of the Southeast European Association.

According to Erler, this lack of confidence had made these states more sensitive to external influences. In this strategy race, “has in the past had serious efforts by China, Russia, Turkey and Arab countries to influence the Western Balkans” says Erler, who as well as other experts was located on 9./10. February in Berlin, at the annual conference of the Southeast European Association. He welcomes the fact that the commission's new strategy also has a concrete action plan in which everyone can participate.

The most critical is the judgment of Forian Bieber, the leader of the Southeast European Centre in Graz. Good “on diagnosis, but weak on proposals”, the professor of Southeast Europe provides assessment. The strategy is good because the commission first identified problems in the region. It's about the impact of private interests in the public sector (states of medicine), organised crime, corruption, problems with the rule of law. But weak, because the proposals are a little raw, Bieber thinks. “seems to refuse to confront those who cause problems”.

Problem Elite

And according to Bieber, the problems causing problems are often the ruling elites. Bieber warns that in realising this EU strategy not only focus on them and bypass the democratic opposition. ” must be careful that the opposition does not slip into an anti-European nationalist discurs”, Bieber says. This applies to both Kosovo and Serbia: “and will be a huge danger, if the European Union wants to see itself an ally of the Ottomans, while the opposition, which tries to make democratic criticism, will emerge and lose”.

Even Social Democrat deputy Josip Juratovic sees a major problem with the elites who govern the Balkans. There are many politicians that “don't want to go towards the EU at all, because in the EU they will find a regulated system, a legal state, a fair society, and in this society they have no chance”, says Juratovic, who prefers to pass responsibility to citizens themselves: “both people, as well as politics”, expresses regret and points out that, by law, it is citizens who need to save the situation: “

Membership Only When Conditions Are Fulfilled

For Bundestag deputies, it is clear that only who meets the conditions enters the EU. So even Manuel Sarrazin, deputy Green in Germany's federal parliament, looks at 2025, for the membership of Serbia and Montenegro, not as a fixed promise, but as an obligation, for local politicians to testify that they must have achieved something by then: “if by the year 2025 political elites do not bring the required results, then they should account for their electives and yokes why they haven't done it, although it had been”

Peter Beyer, deputy of the Christianian and Christian Christian Christian Union parliamentary group (CDU/CSU) is for the principle of constitutionalisation, as the sole criteria of membership: “This means that concrete reforms must be implemented in the public sector, in the judicial sector, fighting organised crime, corruption and not only passing laws, but putting them to life”.

Critics of the Race principle

Michael Schmunk thinks it is not good for Serbia and Montenegro to enter the EU in front of others. The German diplomat has been the representative of Germany in Sarajevo and Pristina, and is today an expert on Southeast Europe in several advisory institutions. Because then the four behind, especially Kosovo and Bosnia, will find it more difficult to enter the EU”, Schmuk says, even in view of the lack of enthusiasm for further rounds of enlargement within the EU. It even proposes that the six Western Balkan countries get together and develop a strategy against scepticisation: „I believe that then yes, which one day have the chance to join the EU in the group together. ”