Abstract
This paper is intended to analyze the challenges and consequences of the integration of Western Balkans to the European Union. Specifically, in the first case, challenges of this integration path and in the second case the consequences as a result of eventual stagnation in this path. For more than a century, the Western Balkans region has been seeking its way of European transformation. The region remains in the agenda of European Union expansion, but even after two decades of promises, the integration of Western Balkan countries to EU is not certain. The integration journey is first of all closely connected to building the institutional capacities, adoption of laws, rules, norms and European behavior in the domestic policymaking. Therefore, the challenges are converted into obstacle or inability to the establishment of values, identity, institutional and social aspects in the Western Balkan countries, whereas the consequences are reflected as derivatives of failure to accomplishing the membership of the region to EU. Based on the research conducted on this issue, this study argues that such challenges as lack of rule of law, high levels of corruption and organized crime are derivatives of historical legacy and political elite efforts to capture the state or dominate certain state resources, as well as of the EU approach towards this region. This study is important particularly in this aspect and unequivocally presents the common and separate challenges of the Western Balkans towards integration into the European Union. Along with this realistic presentation, the consequences themselves appear which first of all are not only to the detriment of the Western Balkans.
Highlights
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Central and Eastern Europe were pervaded by a democratic change wave which in turn culminated with the accession into the European Union (EU) in the period 2004–2007
The main goal of this study is to identify the main political challenges Western Balkans (WB) countries are facing on their path towards EU membership and elaboration thereof
The term 'Balkanization' opposes the concept of Europeanization, which primarily implies integration, respectively referred to Claudio Radaelli [42], Europeanization has to do with a process of: ‘a) construction, b) diffusion, c) and institutionalization of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy models, styles, ways of doing things and common norms or beliefs that have been established and consolidated at the EU policy level, which are included in the logic of local discourse, identity, political structures and public policy ‘
Summary
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Central and Eastern Europe were pervaded by a democratic change wave which in turn culminated with the accession into the European Union (EU) in the period 2004–2007. In the nineties of the previous century, these countries experienced consequent wars and destabilization politics whose origin may be sought in the historical legacy of the countries in the region, in the strategic decisions of the political elites and in the economic crisis that prevailed in the region during those years All this disruptive situation resulted, on the one hand, from the weakening of the state, the lack of rule of law, high levels of corruption and organized crime, extensive patronage and informality networks [2], and on the other due to the lack of a European perspective (in the 1990s, the EU was engaged in this region mainly in humanitarian activities), as well as doubling the European policy between stabilization and democratization towards the region [6, 8, 40]. A stabilocracy according to Florian Bieber [8]”, means ‘a regime that is characterized by considerable deficiencies in the aspect of democratic governance, but it enjoys external legitimacy providing assumed stability’
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