Perpetual Transitions: The Europeanization of Property Restitution Problems in South-Eastern Europe

Abstract

This paper surveys the South-East European experience in this key area of transformation: the establishing of a secure basis for property rights by the post communist regime. We ask what determined the a given country´s choice of a specific policy towards restitution, and what the consequences were: what, in addition, made European institutions involve themselves in this domestic problem and what the impact was of their intervention. Ultimately, we are concerned with the interplay of the process of Europeanization with the process of transformation. Our policy analysis presents first a survey of the problem in both the Eastern and Western Balkans in order to understand the path dependencies leading to the restitution policies of countries there and the interplay between domestic and external (European) factors in the formulation of domestic policies towards property restitution in the Balkans. We then analyze in detail the growing role of the European institutions, particularly ECtHR in the process of formulation and implementation of such policies, to review at last the challenges facing the EU property restitution policy towards the Balkan countries.