The Western Balkans’ drive toward the EU has been slow, but geopolitical realities are forcing a reassessment of the bloc’s strictly merit-based accession policy.
With conflicts raging over Ukraine and around Israel and an increasing spotlight turned on China, the Balkans have slipped out of the limelight of international attention. The countries of the Western Balkans – three of them NATO members themselves – are believed to be safely surrounded by European Union and NATO member states, and hence considered under control. Talk of them being a dangerously unsettled “inner courtyard” or “soft underbelly” of the EU has receded or been eclipsed by other challenges. It is, in fact, encouraging to see the economic growth figures of the six Western Balkans countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Serbia and North Macedonia – averaging a steady 3.4 percent in 2024, outdoing the rest of the wider Central and Eastern Europe region, with the exception of Turkey (3.4 percent) and Russia (3.8 percent).
Yet, 21 years since EU members solemnly promised membership for the group of five or six (depending on different EU members’ attitudes toward Kosovo) in Thessaloniki in 2003, the pledge is far from being fulfilled. The EU accession process is only slowly advancing despite the countries’ progress in standardization on technical and regulatory levels and notwithstanding a number of EU-funded projects, including a recent 6 billion-euro “growth-plan” promise. Progress was palpable at a recent summit in Berlin with interested EU countries and the six Western Balkan states. This comes 10 years after the initiation of these annual summits, known as the Berlin Process. These events are meant to help ensure candidates’ progress in developing a joint regional market, facilitate tertiary education within the region, realize dozens of transport projects and reduce regional roaming fees.
In fact, there was a remarkable breakthrough: the unprecedented, experimental and seemingly successful total overhaul of Albania’s judicial system. The entire body of magistrates, judges and attorneys had to undergo a vetting process. To avoid this, several resigned, and those who were suspected of possible entanglement with corruption were evicted. That left a temporary void of almost 60 percent, but those remaining were credible.
In contrast to Albania’s progress, North Macedonia, while being a good EU reformer that resolved political issues with its southern neighbor Greece by agreeing to constitutionally change its name, is now continually held back from accession mostly by the political demands of its eastern EU neighbor, Bulgaria.
Serbia and Kosovo – Belgrade and Pristina according to the EU countries that do not recognize the independence of Kosovo (Spain, Slovakia, Romania, Greece and Cyprus) – have achieved modest progress on the pivotal issue of reconciliation and normalization, if not mutual recognition.
Disappointed by Brussels, Belgrade can hardly be blamed for still pursuing a multi-vector foreign policy inherited from Yugoslavia’s role in the global Non-Aligned Movement. This policy includes carefully balanced ties with the EU and Germany, in particular, as well as with China, Turkey and – of course – Russia. Serbia’s foreign minister Marko Duric, formerly ambassador in the United States, has helped Belgrade’s relationship with Washington thrive against all odds despite the country’s warm ties with Moscow and Beijing.
The Kosovars, in turn, are heavily reliant on their special bonds with the U.S., which have been somewhat strained due to the very principled, but often seemingly stubborn and abrasive position of their Prime Minister Albin Kurti vis-a-vis the remaining Serbian minority holding out in Kosovo.
Brussels welcoming a country like Montenegro is a low-hanging fruit to signal that stagnation can be overcome.
Sunny Montenegro, with a bit of help from its friends, has respectably weathered a domestic change of guard (the end of the era of long-term President and Prime Minister Milo Dukanovic) and seems to be genuinely advancing in the process of aligning with the EU both politically and technically. It is on the way to possibly becoming the first of the Western Balkans group to be seriously considered for accession.
Montenegro’s 617,000 citizens (only slightly more than Malta) could easily be absorbed into the bloc as its fast-growing economy can rely on tourism, with electricity being a top export item. Brussels welcoming a country like Montenegro is a low-hanging fruit to signal that stagnation can be overcome and that the EU is not just words, but can deliver if it so chooses.
Negotiations with Albania opened politically at the first Intergovernmental Conference (ICG) in July 2022. Cluster 1-Fundamentals, the EU’s set of goals which includes the foundations of the rule of law and democracy, was finally opened for negotiations a short time ago. According to Tirana’s former chief negotiator for EU accession, Zef Mazi, it is thanks to the current Hungarian EU Council presidency that the latest, overdue ICG was held to determine the next negotiating chapters to be opened. A further ICG for Montenegro is planned for this month. However, EU members might stress the need for a preliminary EU reform (to accommodate extra members), which would again hold up the accession of any state.
East of the Balkans
Continuing accession of candidates may well move in parallel with internal EU reform, as the two need not be mutually exclusive. In that context, the Western Balkans countries, which started on the integration path almost 30 years ago, consider it detrimental that Ukraine, an agricultural giant, was granted candidate status in June 2022 due to political motivations. The politics of integrating Ukraine into the bloc could trigger a lengthy debate in the EU on how to adapt the rules to accommodate further candidates while still barring the progress of relatively small Balkans states like Montenegro, Albania or North Macedonia.
In 2022, the EU started to co-fund the entire functioning of Ukraine’s state and army, while fast-tracking an immediate preferential EU accession process for Kyiv. This exemption from its own hitherto proclaimed principles of merit is justified by the overriding geopolitical importance of Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Yet the consequences of this move on the EU’s overall enlargement strategy remain uncertain. The question is how the burdening of the “old” accession processes for the Western Balkans (plus, in theory, Turkey) through the disproportionate addition of Ukraine can be digested.
Ultimately, what must be determined is the percentage of Ukraine’s territory and population under the current and evolving frontlines that can be integrated into the EU. If the accession destinies of the Balkans and Ukraine were to become effectively intertwined, they would inevitably be determined by the outcome of Russia’s war.
Scenarios
All in all, several scenarios for the accession of the Western Balkan countries and Ukraine are conceivable in the medium term.
Unlikely: The EU concludes Western Balkan accession is the only way forward
Probably the only way toward an assured smooth and peaceful evolution of the region while the bigger issues of Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina remain yet to be fully addressed is European acceptance that it is time to grant more Western Balkan states full membership.
In such a scenario, the EU keeps the Western Balkans accession process neatly separated from others, such as Ukraine (or Turkey, for that matter), speeds up negotiations, and before long manages to accept Montenegro and perhaps even Albania and North Macedonia as the 28th, 29th and 30th EU member states. This process would send multiple positive signals: that the EU is finally acting strategically and is capable of proceeding with enlargement, that it keeps its promises and honors the candidates’ efforts, and that it accepts Slavic as well as Albanian nationalities. Then, attention would turn more fully toward larger states such as Serbia or Ukraine.
Extracting the rich raw material deposits found throughout the Balkans (such as the untapped lithium deposits in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina or the variety of minerals in the Trepca area in northern Kosovo) could become a boon for the region as employment and wealth are an excellent basis for overcoming inherited rivalries. However, questions remain: Will current EU member states and their domestic industries be willing and able to help develop and use these riches? Can the EU help Serbia and Kosovo to include this important and promising issue in their dialogue?
Possible: More delays and incremental measurements
A scenario lacking breakthroughs but also devoid of setbacks while keeping the region rhetorically “warm” as it rambles along, losing inhabitants due to meager birth rates and high youth migration to mostly EU countries, is possible. In this light, the populations vote increasingly for nationalistic agendas that, in turn, put the brakes on reforms and openings.
The EU helps out with a growth plan for the Western Balkans and the famously slow and bureaucratic Instrument for Pre-Accession, which, in the meantime, has been overshadowed by the sprawling multi-billion-euro aid flows to Ukraine. Despite goodwill among regional leaders, if respectable economic growth rates persist, nothing dramatic can be expected to happen. However, the demographic downward trend and the risk of re-emerging political tensions will grow again.
Less likely: Radically adverse developments
There is also a smaller chance of negative developments, for example, following economic crises, domestic upheavals, collateral effects of the war in Ukraine or the advent of another type of leader in the region. Despite all the criticisms, the two tall men at the helm of the region’s biggest Slavic and Albanian states, President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia and Prime Minister Edi Rama of Albania, are following a rational, moderate path – at least rhetorically. In the absence of these seasoned, cool-headed leaders, the ghosts of the past could easily make a return, especially in the most fragile Balkan state, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a miniature Yugoslavia of sorts.
Conclusion
A rapid integration of every single Balkan territory into the EU space that fully surrounds the region is a logical, easy and reasonable solution for everyone. Think only that the EU and its about 450 million inhabitants is and will be dealing with the Western Balkans region of 18 million. It would require a strategic vision, a genuine urgent effort and a serious allocation of political and economic means and resources. The EU’s hardly sustainable spending for Ukraine is demonstrating that a significant European effort is perfectly possible. In the final assessment, bringing the Western Balkan states into the bloc would cost very little in comparison to remedying any conflict situation while offering a multitude of benefits to the entire European continent.
The EU assessment mantra for candidates has always been “based on merit.” The relevant council conclusions from the Copenhagen criteria onward have made it clear what the steps for accession are. For the Western Balkan countries, the EU has closely followed these steps, acting strictly by the book. If followed, this would be the credible path for Ukraine and Moldova as well.
The EU could “buy” peace and assured prosperity. It is possible if member states genuinely decide to go for it. The new administrations in Brussels, Washington and Berlin will move into office almost simultaneously. Their decisions will shape developments throughout Europe, including in the half-forgotten southeast corner of the European continent that is the Balkans.
