The Western Balkans

Abstract

The term Western Balkan is both geographic and political. It was initially employed by US and European policymakers to describe the part of the Balkan Peninsula that remained outside of both the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) since the early 1990s. It included all seven states that were formed during the collapse of Yugoslavia (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia) together with Albania, which was emerging from international isolation. During the 1990s, several of these emerging countries had experienced wars generated by nationalist politicians to establish “ethnically pure” territories and to restore or enlarge national statehood during the disintegration of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). Following the EU’s Thessaloniki Summit in June 2003, commitments were made to include all the Western Balkan states in the European Union, and since that time Slovenia (in 2004) and Croatia (in 2013) have become EU members. NATO also underscored its commitments to integrating the region, and Slovenia (in 2004), Croatia (in 2009), Albania (in 2009), and Montenegro (in 2017) all entered the alliance. The remaining states have experienced persistent problems in qualifying for EU and NATO entry. In many cases, reforms remain incomplete and some states confront prolonged disputes over governmental powers, administrative borders, and even their sovereign status. Incomplete, conflicted, or contested states present serious challenges for the region’s institutional absorption into both NATO and the EU.