Western Balkans’ Accession to the European Union, Intertwined Interests

Abstract

The accession of the Western Balkans to the European Union will be the completion of a process initiated in November 2000 at the Zagreb Summit, which is proceeding at a slow pace and in different ways through individual negotiations with each of the countries of this region. In the first part of this study, there will be highlighted both the reasons why the EU member states are in favor of accession of the Western Balkans to the European Union and the rumors to the contrary within the EU member countries. In the second part, there will be continued with detecting the reasons why the governments of the countries of the Western Balkans region aspire the integration in the European Union without forgetting the opposition to the EU in certain countries of the Western Balkans. At the conclusion of this study, there will be clear that the advantages of different character drawn from this process are common interests of parties, EU and Western Balkan countries. DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2014.v3n3p406