Reassessing European Challenges in the Balkans
Reassessing European Challenges in the Balkans

Summary/Abstract: The independence of Kosovo completes the process of Yugoslavia’s dissolution which started two decades earlier in Kosovo. With the completion of the process of redrawing of the map of successor states the overall thrust of EU’s Balkans policy has moved from an agenda dominated by security issues related to the war and its legacies to an agenda focused on the perspective of the Western Balkans accession to the EU. A formal political commitment all EU members to that prospect has been there since the Saloniki summit of June 2003. The framework was set, the verbal commitments of the political elites in the region were clear enough, the policy tools were supposedly familiar to all since the previous wave of Eastern enlargement. With the most contentious issues for the stability of the region apparently defused one could expect an acceleration of the process of EU integration. What was the difference between Central Europe and the Balkans? Ten or fifteen years, the lost decade of the Balkans in the 1990’s. There are, however, a number of reasons why such a reassuring presentation should be nuanced. Some have to do with the uneven pace of reforms and democratic change in the region, others with the lack of political momentum within the EU for a renewed and sustained enlargement commitment.

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