SOUTH EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES PROGRAMME

European Studies Centre

St Antony’s College, Oxford

OPINION PIECE

EU and the Balkans:

The Long and Winding Road to Membership

by Dimitar Bechev

SEESP Research Associate

It is nowadays common to say that the EU is the only game in town for the Balkans.

Joining Europe is, time and again, declared the strategic objective for the region. It is

as salient in states as it is in quasi-state entities like Montenegro and Kosovo. Levels

of public support for EU accession are exceptionally high, rarely falling below 70

percent of the electorate. Astonishingly, even die-hard nationalists like Vojislav

Šešelj and Tomislav Nikolić’s Serb Radicals or the Greater Romania Party led by the

flamboyant Corneliu Vadim Tudor, figuring for a long time on the West’s blacklist,

are eager to jump on the European bandwagon. At the other end of the spectrum,

mainstream political leaders flag up the prospect of membership to push for hard

decisions: redrawing municipal borders in Macedonia, extraditing top-ranking Serbian

generals to The Hague-based International Criminal Court for Yugoslavia, and

changing the Bulgarian constitution to allow foreigners to own land.

This overwhelming pro-EU sentiment is in part bolstered by the advancement

of integration. In 1999 when the Kosovo conflict raged, the idea of Balkan

enlargement was beyond the pale of one’s wildest imagination. Even the likes of

Bulgaria and Romania who enjoyed a privileged status due to their Europe

Agreements of 1993 were trailing far behind the frontrunner countries of central

Europe. When the EU launched the Stability Pact to help post-Kosovo reconstruction,

it foresaw a gradual inclusion of the Balkans into its ambit but took extra care to

dilute its language and avoid strong membership commitments. Five years down the

road, Bulgaria and Romania are almost certain to join the EU on 1 January 2007,

while Croatia is poised to follow suit two years afterwards. Next in line are

Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro. At the

Thessaloniki Summit in June 2003, the EU made it clear that the Stabilisation and

Association Process (SAP) for the Western Balkans was essentially an enlargement

platform. It is structured around the same political, economic and institutional

conditions as applied to the new members joining in 2004 and backed up by identical

policy instruments (e.g. EU–funded institution-building programmes). The incoming

European Commission headed by José Manuel Barroso has now transferred the

Western Balkans from the External Relations to the Enlargement directorate, a

symbolic move testifying to the Union’s strong commitment to the countries in

question.

The optimistic mood, however, is offset by South East European countries’

slow progress in meeting the EU conditions and benchmarks. Coupled with the

region’s relative underdevelopment in comparison with the new member states of the

Union, the legacy of conflicts and delayed reforms has stymied the process of EU

integration. If the whole EU project aims, at least in part, at transcending state

sovereignty, it is still dependent on the capacities of national level bodies and

structures to implement policies and governance standards, as well as effectively

safeguard the rights and interests of individual citizens. All post-communist countries

in South East Europe have experienced difficulties in critical sectors such as the

reform of public administration and the judiciary, privatisation, and border

management among other arenas. Ultimately, state weakness has done more harm to

the EU prospects of Balkan countries than ethnic divisions or lingering status issues.

Weakness leads to illegitimacy, which tends to reproduce itself through the

democratic process. Across South East Europe, public distrust in political and

bureaucratic institutions feeds into voter apathy. A record low 55 per cent of those

entitled voted in Macedonia’s presidential polls in May 2004. The Serbian Parliament

had to strike the 50 percent turnout requirement from electoral laws in order to avoid

a third debacle at the vote for president in June 2004. The rise of the Serbian Radical

Party, fuelled by its populist rhetoric appealing to those experiencing the heavy social

burden of reforms, suggests that the image of a liberal, market-friendly and pro-EU

consensus is somewhat flawed.

What is the state of play in the individual Balkan countries’ integration into

the EU, the opportunities and obstacles they face along the way?

If one needs success stories, Croatia has, no doubt, been one. Since 2000, it

has embarked on an ambitious programme to set aside President Tudjman’s

authoritarian legacy, boost growth, and harmonise its legislation with the EU acquis

communautaire. In 2001, Zagreb signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement

(SAA) with the EU and submitted a membership application two years later.

Following the European Commission’s positive assessment, the December 2004

Brussels Council decided to open membership negotiations with Croatia. The

Croatian application was served by the commitment to political and economic

liberalisation by the moderately nationalist HDZ of Ivo Sanader, which replaced the

social democrat cabinet of Ivica Račan in 2004. However, the country’s EU bid is

threatened by its events from its recent past. Brussels has put the extradition of

General Ante Gotovina, hailed by many as a hero of the ‘liberation’ campaign of

1995, to The Hague as a key condition for Croatia.

Croatia’s success in graduating to full EU candidacy has certainly inspired

Macedonia, the first Western Balkan country to sign an association treaty with the

Union. Still coping with the fallout of the 2001 conflict between the central

government and the ethnic Albanian guerrillas of the KLA, Macedonia submitted a

membership application in March 2004. It was supported by the coalition

government’s pro-reform policy. In February 2005, Skopje completed a 14,000-page

long questionnaire needed to assess progress in adopting EU standards. Still,

persistent political instability raises questions as to the country’s EU prospects. The

uneasy implementation of the 2001 Ohrid framework agreement that promotes ethnic

power-sharing at the national and local levels has unsettled Macedonian society. In

the summer of 2004, a coalition of opposition forces successfully initiated a

referendum hoping to vote down two laws redrawing the borders of several

municipalities, including Skopje, in favour or ethnic Albanians. The EU staunchly

opposed the plebiscite threatening that a blockage of the Ohrid process would halt the

Macedonia’s integration. Held on 7 November 2004, the referendum ended in failure

after only one quarter of the electorate turned out. Meanwhile, stability remains a

distant goal judging from developments such as the death of President Trajkovski in

an airplane accident, Albanian paramilitary incursions in the vicinity of Skopje, civil

unrest at the grass-root level spurred by the redistricting initiatives, the sudden

resignation of the country’s prime minister Hari Kostov in late 2004, as well as

sluggish economic growth.

Yet Macedonia’s mixed record contrasted with the difficulties experienced by

its northern neighbour Serbia and Montenegro. The loose federation, sometimes

referred to as ‘Solania’ after one of its founding fathers, has failed to receive a

feasibility study from the European Commission that would pave the way to a SAA.

This is partly due to the reluctance of the two constituent republics to harmonise their

foreign trade regimes foreseen under the 2002 Belgrade Agreement. Faced with that

problem, the EU introduced in 2004 the so-called twin-track approach which

effectively ditched the principle of economic integration between Serbia and

Montenegro but facilitated technical negotiations. It is not unlikely that a Montenegrin

independence referendum in 2006 would seal the fate of the federation. Cooperation

with The Hague has emerged as an even greater stumbling block. The EU has

consistently criticised the broad coalition government of Vojislav Koštunica for

failing to surrender high-level military figures indicted for war crimes during the

Kosovo war. International pressure as well as violence against the Kosovo Serbs,

culminating in the March 2004 riots, boosted the profile of nationalist forces. The

Serbian Radical Party gained the largest chunk of the popular vote at the December

2003 parliamentary elections and even came close to winning the presidential polls in

June 2004. The new president Boris Tadić, leader of the pro-Western opposition

Democratic Party once chaired by the late Zoran Djindjić, has pledged to improve

cooperation with The Hague and move Serbia closer to EU membership but his

narrow constitutional powers give him few levers. Positive signals from the EU as the

long-awaited feasibility study could strengthen the position of the Belgrade

reformists.

Assessed by its institutional links with the EU, Serbia and Montenegro is now

behind the other two Western Balkan laggards Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Since early 2003, Albania has been negotiating a SAA with the European

Commission. Yet progress has been very slow as Albania has problems in meeting

both the technical and political conditions set by the EU. The country has been

plagued by confrontation between the ruling socialists and the opposition, at times

leading to outbursts of political violence. The EU has repeatedly pointed out that a

key test will be the parliamentary polls in mid-2005, warning the Fatos Nano cabinet

that it will not tolerate electoral fraud. While Bosnia-Herzegovina was the subject of a

positive feasibility study in November 2003, the latter outlined 16 additional

conditions before opening SAA talks, including the reintegration of Mostar and the

strengthening of the central-level institutions’ policymaking authority. During a

meeting with the Bosnian Prime Minister Adnan Terzić in February 2005, Jose

Manuel Barroso pointed out that negotiations could start in May if there was better

cooperation with ICTY, alluding to the arrest of General Ratko Mladić and the former

Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić. Bosnia-Herzegovina also figured high on the

EU security agenda. In December 2004, NATO transferred peacekeeping

responsibilities to the Union-led ALTHEA operation.

The Western Balkan states’ difficult and slow-paced EU integration has

widened the gap with their eastern neighbours Bulgaria and Romania. Bulgaria

wrapped up its membership negotiations with the EU in June 2004. Despite the

elections for president and parliament on 28 November, Romania managed to catch

up in early December, days before the regular EU Council. In Brussels, Sofia and

Bucharest received a green light to sign an accession treaty in April 2005 and join the

EU in 2007. However, the accession treaty will also contain safeguard clauses

providing for a one-year delay in case obligations undertaken during the negotiations

are not implemented. Meanwhile, the second round of the Romanian presidential

elections ended in a victory by the opposition candidate Traian Băsescu, who then

engineered a centre-right coalition. The new government has vowed to combat

corruption and clientelism, which had tarnished Romania’s external image during the

social democrat administration of Adrian Năstase, through measures like the

introduction of a flat-rate income tax and restrictions on international adoptions.

Though perceived as more advanced on the reform front, Bulgaria, ruled since 2001

by Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, has similarly been a target of EU criticism over the

lack of progress in the judicial sector. What accounts for this failure is the cabinet’s

weakness as well as its dependency on a shaky coalition of parties and political

groups. However, politics in Bulgaria -- as well as in Romania -- is characterised by a

powerful pro-EU consensus. Although the outcome of the upcoming parliamentary

elections in June 2005 is unclear, the future government is more likely than not to

pursue similar policies as its predecessor.

The EU is now facing its first expansion towards South East Europe, apart

from the accession of Greece in 1981. Though this gives additional momentum to the

Balkans’ integration into the Union, the process will clearly be rather bumpy and

protracted. Much depends on the power of the EU membership perspective to catalyse

long overdue economic and institutional reforms in the individual South East

European countries. The EU has significantly strengthened its commitments, now it is

time for the region’s political elites to take up the opportunity.