Western Balkans, EU integration and cooperation

"We must go beyond the idea that the Western Balkans are a sort of ghetto made up of non-EU countries. This would contribute not only to the Europeanisation of the Western Balkans, but also to overcoming some disagreements between candidate countries and EU member states". Ana Krstinovska, founder and president of the think tank Estima based in Bitola, in North Macedonia and research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP)

How do you evaluate the current state of regional cooperation in the Western Balkans?

Over the last two decades, regional cooperation in the Western Balkans has increasingly intensified, so much so that today there is practically no area where there is not a regional cooperation initiative or organization which, in addition to civil society and local administrations, also involves businesses and academia.

However, I am not entirely convinced that the quantitative increase in regional initiatives has always entailed a leap in quality. There are many new initiatives trying to generate some positive impact. However, different project and activities often overlap, and do not always manage to produce an impact and create closer ties between countries.

While some progress has been made on this front, further efforts are needed to optimize cooperation in order to encourage those initiatives that have a significant impact on society, in the sense of producing tangible results that citizens can actually associate with regional cooperation. For instance, the agreement on the abolition of roaming charges has affected the daily lives of citizens. When it comes to regional cooperation, we need less rhetoric and more concrete actions.

Furthermore, efforts should be made to extend cooperation to the entire Balkan area. There are many regional initiatives in which the six Western Balkan countries participate, but there is a lack of projects capable of involving other countries as well, such as Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia and Romania. We must go beyond the idea that the Western Balkans are a sort of ghetto made up of non-EU countries. Such a change of perspective would contribute not only to the Europeanisation of the Western Balkans, but also to overcoming some disagreements between candidate countries and EU member states, such as those between North Macedonia and Greece, between Bulgaria and North Macedonia, between Albania and Greece, between Serbia and Croatia.

Therefore, rather than focusing exclusively on the Western Balkans, efforts should be made to build and strengthen ties throughout the Balkan region. Otherwise we risk seeing the multiplication of initiatives such as Open Balkan, which could fuel resentment between the countries left behind and therefore undermine regional cooperation.

What role has civil society played in advancing cooperation between the Balkan countries?

Civil society took up the task of bringing the Balkan countries – primarly Kosovo and Serbia – closer together and has acted as a driving force for regional cooperation in virtually all areas.

When government representatives nd public officials from different countries sit at the same table, friction often emerges, while among members of civil society this never happens. Civil society has the potential to move things forward even in those areas where cooperation is limited.

On the other hand, civil society is not capable of exercising strong influence on institutions and making its voice heard. This is a problem that affects all countries in the region. For governments, collaboration with civil society is often a mere formality: of all the ideas proposed by civil society only a small part is taken into consideration and the collaboration ends there.

Let us focus further on the impact of civil society. At the Civil Society Forum, organized as part of the Berlin Process last October in Tirana, you presented a paper on enlargement policy. What are the highlights of your analysis?

The document is the result of a collaborative effort. We tried to involve various experts and civil society organizations from the Balkans, but also from the rest of Europe. The aim was to encourage out-of-the-box discussions that could give a boost to the process of EU enlargement to the Western Balkans.

We started from the assumption that, in the current geopolitical context, the European idea has gained new momentum. So we tried to understand how EU institutions, member states and governments of the Western Balkan countries could use this momentum to revive and strengthen the enlargement policy that has been going through a serious crisis for a decade now.

So far there is no specific timeline for the Balkan countries to join the EU. The North Macedonia, a "veteran" among the candidate countries, waited almost twenty years to get the green light to start accession talks. Without a credible accession perspective, Euroscepticism will rise and the candidate countries feeling disenchanted with the progress in enlargement risk to stop internal reforms and deviate from their accession path. There will be also more space for EU geopolitical competitors like Russia, China, to use this situation for their own benefits.

Could you explain in more detail some of the main proposals you have put forward to accelerate the process of European integration?

The EU can continue with the integration of new member states without posing an issue for its internal way of functioning. We advocate for introducing qualified majority-voting (QMV) at the EU level. We know that it's a very challenging issue because it is associated with the broader context of the EU's Council’s decision-making, but still, we suggest an incremental process where first QMV will be introduced for all these technical steps of opening, interim and closing benchmarks within the negotiation process. Then we can move on to some more ambitious steps if we have trust among EU member states that this process will not be abused.

Having more flexibility in decision-making will accelerate the accession of the Western Balkans. Acceleration should not come to the detriment of the quality, because the process itself is a guarantee that the candidate countries will implement the necessary reforms and will align with the EU. Instead, we urge for a more ambitious agenda set by the European Commission and for more guidance that could be provided with some interim deadlines. That is in a way related to some aspects of the process that already existed in the case of Croatia, which had for instance the Accession Partnership.

Adopting specific accession action plans in coordination with the negotiating countries could help to speed up the integration process. There should also be defined intermediary milestones, so that countries that deliver receive in return clear incentives related to their EU accession, enhancing a virtuous cycle.

Furthermore, there is a need to increase the capacities both on the side of the EU and negotiating countries. The Commission should devote more resources because the number of negotiating countries has significantly increased, including here those from the Eastern Partnership. The negotiating countries as well should devote more resources and make the best possible use by prioritizing the public administration reform, as the backbone of the accession process.

On the role of civil society in the EU accession, it should be more involved in terms of providing expertise, but also monitoring and shadow reporting on the negotiation process.

North Macedonia went through the presidential and parliamentary elections in May, and the main right-wing party, which was then in opposition, scored a double victory. What can we expect in the near future with regards to the EU integration path of the country?

In the case of North Macedonia, the EU integration is neatly divided into two paths. The first path conserns the usual reforms related to the Copenhagen criteria and negotiating chapters, where we need to deliver and precious time has already been lost. Despite the fact that the country's European integration process has been going on for twenty years now, according to some government estimates, the rate of alignment with the acquis is less than 45 percent. This means that we are not progressing at a fast enough pace so that we can keep up with all the changes in the enlargement process and be considered a credible candidate for joining the EU in the coming years.

The second path is related to good neighbourly relations with Greece and Bulgaria. The Prespa Agreement, signed and ratified in 2018, put an end to the tensions with Greece. However, after the recent change in political leadership, there is a risk of backsliding in terms of the implementation of the agreement.

At the same time, the country is obliged to amend the Constitution to include the Bulgarian minority. The governing coalition does not refuse to do so, but asks for international guarantees to prevent Bulgaria from making further demands or vetoes on Skopje's EU accession process.

I hope that the new government will act wisely and, once the post-election euphoria has passed, realize that we must fulfill our obligations. There are no alternatives if we want to continue on the European path. The government will only be able to fulfill its commitments by acting on both fronts, thus continuing the dialogue with neighbors and, at the same time, intensifying reforms required for EU membership.