Der Westbalkan und die EU-Erweiterung: Fiktion und Wirklichkeit
The Western Balkans and EU Enlargement: Fiction and Reality

Summary/Abstract: In February 2018, the EU Commission released a communication regarding enlargement of the EU in the Western Balkans. This “credible enlargement perspective for an enhanced EU engagement with the Western Balkans” is supposed to bring the Western Balkan region back on the top of the EU agenda. The implementation is foreseen with the help of six flagship initiatives. But what is actually new in this EU proposal? Very little indeed. The EU Commission rightly analyzed the present situation as characterized by back sliding, even with elements of state capture. It proposed to improve the situation through cooperation with the kleptocratic and increasingly authoritarian elites in Western Balkan countries that want to join the EU. Furthermore, ever more funds and experts are being provided. But without civil society representatives and NGOs as a partner no progress will be possible. It will also be necessary that the EU starts to question neoliberal transformation as such. It is questionable whether the Western Balkan countries will ever be capable of transforming into democratic states with a sustainable development if things continue the way they are.

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