EUROPEAN UNION – WESTERN BALKANS: DYNAMICS OF INTEGRATION

Abstract

The article was devoted to the analyses of the European Union’s integration strategy towards Western Balkans states. The author examines the reasons for transformation of the EUs’ policy from restrained attitude towards enlargement of the Union embracing western Balkans states to acceleration of this process on the background of aggravation of the geopolitical situation and armed conflict around Ukraine. The European Union’s priorities concerning its enlargement were also examined. They are oriented towards strengthening the EU’s role as important actor on global and regional scale and aimed on prevention of geopolitical competition in the region and resumption of crisis cycle in the region by means of stabilization of the region, by realization of profound social and economic as well as legal reforms in the Western Balkans states on the basis of the Copenhagen criteria. Assessment of the EU’ strategy on integration of the Western Balkans has been done on the basis of key documents of the EU’s organs and official statements of its leaders as well as results of the EU’s summits in Slovenia and Brussels (December 2023). Considerable attention was devoted to the key directions of perspective cooperation of the EU and the Western Balkans states in the areas of security and defense. The conclusion was made that the EU’s integration strategy towards Western Balkans is aimed at keeping those states in the realm of its political and economic influence and stabilization of the region in conditions of the new challenges to its stability and security.