EU must stick to its values and find new instruments to deal with state capture in the region

The panelists reflected on the disappointing results of the EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels on 23 June for the region. They reminded that the EU has not made a consequential decision in the Balkans since 2017, when it closed one negotiating chapter with Montenegro.

Non-alignment is not an option anymore

“The EU is acting like an adrenalin junkie, swinging between self-confident and lack of action, and only crises trigger them to react”, pointed out Goran Buldioski, Managing Director at Open Society Foundations Europe and Eurasia, during the first panel of the conference.

He believes that the EU could be a good disruptor for the region. It should overcome present frames of engagement and focus on finding solutions for real life problems that matter to both sides, such as migration and brain-drain, democracy and security.

“Unfortunately, liberal elites are in the wrong game. People, especially youth, don’t want to be educated but influenced. So, the solution may be to find influencers if that works, and engage in kafana conversations with citizens about their problems”, Buldioski advised.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, options for the Western Balkans are shrinking and non-alignment is not an option anymore. Instead, the region needs to get involved in security discussion in the EU, he concluded.

The EU needs to start making decisions on the Western Balkans

“Despite messages of support for the region throughout the spring, recent EU-WB summit was a disappointment. North Macedonian example shows us that EU will not help you if you are a captured state or even if you manage to de-capture it. We should work to liberate from authoritarinism and re-democratize by ourselves. The EU needs to start making decisions on the Western Balkans”, stressed Adnan Ćerimagić, Senior Analyst for the Western Balkans at European Stability Initiative.

He reminded that unanimity is not the only obstacle to EU’s decision-making, since decision on visa liberalization with Kosovo requires only qualified majority approval, and even that threshold couldn’t be reached.

Ćerimagić proposed to raise motivation for enlargement by offering the WB states a membership in the EU single market, based on four freedoms – of goods, services, capital and people. This would raise the cost of non-alignment. However, this cannot happen without the Rule of Law.

New proposals for integration of the region have political and geo-political motivation and could mean de-coupling Europeanisation from democratization, he warned.

Engjellushe Morina, Senior Policy Fellow at European Council on Foreign Relations, agreed that different ideas of integration that emerged recently usually mean moving the goalpost and that is not good news for the region.

“Enlargement has been EU’s most effective foreign policy instrument. The trouble is the EU hasn’t centralized foreign policy decision-making. EU mixing enlargement with Russia policy is a mistake”, she underlined.

The EU has to find new instruments to deal with state capture in the region

Although it was clear that Serbia hasn’t fulfilled conditions for progress in negotations, the disappointment in the enlargement process comes with the lack of other decisions – to start accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania, to grant Kosovo visa liberalization, said Biljana Đorđević from Ne davimo Beograd. It should have been a geopolitical decision, but it also should have been fair. This means, if you conduct reforms, you should get the support to continue. Otherwise, EU’s credibility is put in question, she pointed out.

“For the past decade the regime of Serbian Progressive Party and Vučić in Serbia has been dancing with the EU in support of stabilitocracy. For us as opposition actors this is dangerous. We want to find a solution to this dilemma how Serbian citizens could see the support of the EU but that this is not a support for the autocratic regime that has captured the state, and even the society”, she explained.

The Europeanisation has thus been separated from democratization and has been an overall technocratic process. Although Ne davimo Beograd is pro-European political actor, EU membership is not their primary goal, but democracy consolidation. Đorđević explained that grassroot initiatives and new political forces are actors of democratization and they try to give meaning to values and standards that somehow have become void of substance in the meantime.

BCSP presented its International Advisory Committee

“EU enlargement is not a favour, concession nor an obligation. It is an investment in peace, security and prosperity, and it remains a merit-based process. We share understandable impatience of the region. New initiatives are not a replacement for accession”, it was stressed by H.E. Emanuele Giaufret, Head of the Delegation of the EU to Serbia, at the opening of the second conference panel that gathered members of BCSP’s newly formed BCSP International Advisory Committee.

Srđan Cvijić, President of BCSP International Advisory Committee explained that establishing this body BCSP is adapting to challenging times. With experts renowned worldwide in areas of international relations, defense, security and the rule of law, BCSP aims to regionalize its impact and internationalize its network, inter alia.

EU must stick to its values even when it is not opportune

Nikola Dimitrov, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia, reminded that the EU has two pillars of influence: its common market and its values, i.e. leading by example. Reflecting on the inability of the EU to start negotiations with North Macedonia (and Albania) based on Bulgaria’s veto, he warned that this compromises EU’s principles and undermines its soft power.

“We are on bus to EU but it doesn’t move. We first have to fix it. Current enlargement process doesn’t award reformers, doesn’t sanction backsliders, it has been abused for specific national objectives. The whole EU loses when a member state uses the Union for an anti-European goal. EU must stick to its values even when it is not opportune”, he emphasized.

Oana Popescu Zamfir, Director of Global Focus, fears that the enlargement process has lately been very political in a negative sense, to the detriment of EU norms and values.

“The EU should engage more with internal drivers of democratization in the region – civil society, entrepreneurs and media. They need something to cling to, gradual rewards in order to sell the process to their constituencies”, she pointed out.

Europe should decouple from the Russian regime, not from Russian people

Hannes Swoboda, President of the Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW), stressed that the Western Balkans should be included in EU’s internal debate. European civil society should work more closely with Balkan NGOs against corruption and autocratization in the region. He also criticized EU efforts to decouple from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.

“Europe’s policy on Russia should be to decouple from dependence in energy and food and Putin’s regime, but not to decouple from Russian people, intelectuals & civil society. We need to think of long-term solutions to finding a space for resolution of conflict,” he added.

Rosa Balfour, Director of Carnegie Europe, spoke of solidifying transatlantic cooperation, especially on security and defense, energy and migration. Russia has been the most divisive foreign policy issue, she said, and being on the same page now regarding Russia is a large achievement, but also painful.

“We should be attentive of two divisive questions: Where does the war end and what are its (in)direct costs? We already have inflation and food insecurity, which increase inequalities, making our societies more prone to populism, confrontational politics and polarization”, she explained.

This event is organized with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.