EDITED BY JELENA DŽANKIĆ,

SOEREN KEIL AND MARKO KMEZIĆ

new perspectives on south-east europe

THE EUROPEANISATION
OF THE WESTERN
BALKANS
A Failure of EU Conditionality?
New Perspectives on South-East Europe

Series Editors
Kevin Featherstone
London School of Economics and Political
London, UK

Spyros Economides
London School of Economics and Political
London, UK

Vassilis Monastiriotis
London School of Economics and Political
London, UK
South-East Europe presents a compelling agenda: a region that has chal-
lenged European identities, values and interests like no other at forma-
tive periods of modern history, and is now undergoing a set a complex
transitions. It is a region made up of new and old European Union
member states, as well as aspiring ones; early ‘democratising’ states and
new post-communist regimes; states undergoing liberalising economic
reforms, partially inspired by external forces, whilst coping with their
own embedded nationalisms; and states obliged to respond to new and
recurring issues of security, identity, well-being, social integration, faith
and secularisation. This series examines issues of inheritance and adap-
tation. The disciplinary reach incorporates politics and international
relations, modern history, economics and political economy and sociol-
ogy. It links the study of South East-Europe across a number of social
sciences to European issues of democratisation and economic reform
in the post-transition age. It addresses ideas as well as institutions; pol-
icies as well as processes. It will include studies of the domestic and for-
eign policies of single states, relations between states and peoples in the
region, and between the region and beyond. The EU is an obvious refer-
ence point for current research on South-East Europe, but this series also
highlights the importance of South-East Europe in its eastern context;
the Caucuses; the Black Sea and the Middle East.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14733
 Jelena Džankić · Soeren Keil
Marko Kmezić
Editors

The Europeanisation
of the Western Balkans
A Failure of EU Conditionality?
Editors
Jelena Džankić Marko Kmezić
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Centre for Southeast European Studies
Studies University of Graz
European University Institute Graz, Austria
San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy

Soeren Keil
School of Psychology, Politics and
Sociology
Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury, UK

New Perspectives on South-East Europe

ISBN 978-3-319-91411-4 ISBN 978-3-319-91412-1  (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1

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 Acknowledgements

The editors would like to thank all contributors of this book. Without
their commitment and hard work on the individual chapters it would not
have been possible to complete this book. We believe that their insights
and arguments lay the foundation of a high quality edited volume that is
a must-read for everyone interested in Europeanisation and the Western
Balkans.
In addition to our authors, we would like to thank Ambra Finotello,
Katelyn Zingg, and Imogen Gordon Clark at Palgrave Macmillian for
their support for this book. Without their encouragement, and at times
also their “pressure” on us, it would have been very difficult to final-
ise this book. We are also grateful to Dr. Spyros Economides and the
other editors of the Palgrave series on New Perspectives on South-East
Europe, who have been very supportive of this book project from the
beginning. Catherine Read provided helpful editorial support for this
book, and we are grateful for her input and hard work.
Jelena Džankić would like to thank her co-editors Soeren Keil and
Marko Kmezić for the great teamwork, which has made this book pos-
sible. She is grateful to Prof. Rainer Bauböck and Prof. Jo Shaw for
being endless springs of professional and personal inspiration, and to her
friends and family who are always there for her.
Soeren Keil would like to thank his colleagues at Canterbury Christ
Church University, in particular Professor Dr. David Bates and Dr. Sarah
Lieberman for their support, Dr. Zeynep Arkan, and Professor Bernhard
Stahl for their encouragement and feedback throughout, as well as

v
vi    Acknowledgements

his family, Claire and Malindi Parker, Peter and Regina Keil, Andreas,
Marina, Matthis and Liesbeth Keil.
Marko Kmezić would like to thank his co-editors Jelena Džankić
and Soeren Keil for years of friendship which made work on this book
a truly enjoyable experience. He is particularly grateful to Professor
Joseph Marko who first introduced him to the academic concept of
Europeanisation. Finally, his utmost gratitude goes out to his family,
Sanja, Nikola and Maša—for their unconditional support and love.
While all of these people have influenced our work and contributed to
the finalisation of this book, all mistakes remain naturally ours.
 Contents

1 Introduction: The Europeanisation of the

Western Balkans 1
Jelena Džankić, Soeren Keil and Marko Kmezić

2 European Union Conditionality in the Western Balkans:

External Incentives and Europeanisation 15
Asya Zhelyazkova, Ivan Damjanovski, Zoran Nechev and
Frank Schimmelfennig

3 Chips off the Old Block: Europeanisation

of the Foreign Policies of Western Balkan States 39
Ana Bojinović Fenko and Bernhard Stahl

4 EU Enlargement and State Capture in the

Western Balkans 63
Milada Anna Vachudova

5 EU Rule of Law Conditionality: Democracy or

‘Stabilitocracy’ Promotion in the Western Balkans? 87
Marko Kmezić

vii
viii    Contents

6 The Europeanisation of Minority Policies in the

Western Balkans 111
Simonida Kacarska

7 Ethnicisation vs. Europeanisation: Promoting Good

Governance in Divided States 135
Cvete Koneska

8 Tolerating Semi-authoritarianism? Contextualising

the EU’s Relationship with Serbia and Kosovo 157
Branislav Radeljić

9 The Europeanisation of Contested States: Comparing

Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro 181
Jelena Džankić and Soeren Keil

10 Economic Integration of the Western Balkans into the

European Union: The Role of EU Policies 207
Milica Uvalić

11 Conclusion: Rethinking Europeanisation 237

Florian Bieber

Index 247
 Notes on Contributors

Florian Bieber is a Professor of Southeast European History and

Politics and Director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies
at the University of Graz, Austria. He studied Political Science and
History at Trinity College (USA), the University of Vienna, and
Central European University (Budapest). He is the coordinator of the
Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG) and has been pro-
viding policy advice to international organisations, foreign ministries,
donors and private investors. He has worked for the European Centre
for Minority Issues and taught at Kent University (UK). He is also a
Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at CEU. He
has been a Visiting Fellow at the LSE and New York University, and
held the Luigi Einaudi Chair at Cornell University. His research inter-
ests include democratisation, institutional design in multiethnic states,
nationalism and ethnic conflict, as well as the political systems of South-
eastern Europe. He is the author of Nationalism in Serbia from the
Death of Tito to the Fall of Milošević (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2005) and
Post-War Bosnia (London: Palgrave, 2006) and edited and co-edited
several books, including most recently Debating the End of Yugoslavia
(Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014) with Armina Galijaš and Rory Archer.
Ana Bojinović Fenko is Associate Professor, currently Head of Chair
of International Relations at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of
Social Sciences and researcher at the Centre of International Relations
at the same institution. She received her Ph.D. in International Relations

ix
x    Notes on Contributors

in 2009 at the above Slovenian institution. She teaches introductory

courses in European Studies and International Relations programmes
including specialised ones on Foreign Policy and EU External Action.
She holds a Jean Monnet Module in the period 2016–2019 and has
received 2017 Success Story and Best Practice Award by European
Commission Directory General for education and culture for the pro-
ject EU4PRIM (Enhanced EU content in primary school curricula). She
has published research on EU enlargement policy, comparative analysis
of small states’ foreign policy and on international regionalism; her foci
areas are the Mediterranean, Central Europe and Western Balkans.
Ivan Damjanovski is Associate Professor at the Political Science
Department, Faculty of Law, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in
Skopje (Macedonia). His research interests are focused on political the-
ory and European integration, more specifically Europeanisation theory,
EU enlargement, EU integration theory and identity politics. He is also
engaged as associate researcher at the think tank Institute for Democracy
“Societas Civilis”—Skopje.
Jelena Džankić  is a Research Fellow at the European University
Institute (Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies) and the coor-
dinator of the Global Citizenship Observatory (GLOBALCIT). She
has cooperated with a number of organisations and institutions, includ-
ing Freedom House, the UK House of Commons and the European
Commission. Since 2011, she has been tracking the development
of investor citizenship programs. Her latest publications include her
monograph Citizenship in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and
Montenegro. Effects of Statehood and Identity Challenges (2015) and her
co-edited book The Europeanisation of Citizenship Governance in South-
East Europe (2016).
Simonida Kacarska is the director and co-founder of the European
Policy Institute, a think tank in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia.
She has held research positions at the University of Edinburgh, the
College of Europe, as well as the Central European University. Her
professional experience also includes lecturer at her alma mater the
American University in Bulgaria, and a civil servant in the European
integration office of the Macedonian government. Simonida holds a
Ph.D. in Politics and International Studies at the University of Leeds.
Her research interests are related to the political transformation and
 Notes on Contributors    xi

European integration of the Balkans. She is a regular contributor

to national and regional media and consults international organisa-
tions, including the OSCE and the Council of Europe. In 2017/2018
Simonida was a Fellow of the German Marshall Fund of the United
States and a Policy Leaders Fellow at the School of Transnational
Governance of the European University Institute in Florence.
Soeren Keil who is a Reader in Politics and International Relations
at the Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent, UK has edited a
special issue of Nationalities Papers, which discussed the connection
between Europeanisation, State-Building and Democratisation in the
former Yugoslavia. This special issue has also been published as an edited
volume with Routledge (Statebuilding in the Western Balkans: European
Approaches to Democratisation). He has published several academic arti-
cles on these topics, and written, edited, and co-edited six books, includ-
ing Multinational Federalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Ashgate 2013)
and The EU and Member State Building—European Foreign Policy in the
Western Balkans (co-edited with Zeynep Arkan, Routledge 2015). His
research focuses on the political systems of the Western Balkans, new
authoritarian tendencies, federalism as a tool of conflict resolution and
EU enlargement.
Marko Kmezić  is a lawyer and political scientist working at the Centre
for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz. He stud-
ied law at the Belgrade University and University of Graz where he
earned his Ph.D. with the thesis Europeanisation by Rule of Law
Implementation in the Western Balkans. Between 2006 and 2008 he
worked in Belgrade for the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights. Marko
is the author of several scientific monographs including Europeanisation
by Rule of Law Implementation in the Western Balkans (Institute for
Democracy: 2014), EU Rule of Law Promotion: Judiciary Reform in the
Western Balkans (Routledge: 2017) and co-editor of Stagnation and
Drift in the Western Balkans (Peter Lang: 2013). He published academic
articles on institutional design, rule of law reforms and EU integration
in Journal Southeastern Europe, Nationalities Papers, European Public
Law, Contemporary Southeastern Europe, Review of Central and East
European Law, Ethnopolitics and other journals. His work includes
expert advice on rule of law for the European Commission, the OSCE,
and the Council of Europe and has provided advice to governments and
international organisations on the Balkans.
xii    Notes on Contributors

Cvete Koneska is a researcher in Balkan politics and security, and is

interested in ethnic identity and ethno-politics in the region and the
processes of regional and European integration. Since completing her
D.Phil. in Politics at Oxford (2011), she has used her knowledge of
European politics and security to advise private companies, governments
and international organisations about risks and opportunities in various
jurisdictions across Europe, as the Senior Europe Analyst at Control
Risks in London. Prior to that, Cvete worked in the think-tank sector
in her native Macedonia, researching and advocating policy solutions in
the area of public administration reform and security sector reforms. She
regularly writes and comments on Balkan issues in academic and media
outlets. Her book, “After Ethnic-Conflict: Policy-making in Post-conflict
Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia”, was published in 2014.
Zoran Nechev (Ph.D. candidate, Institute for European Studies, Vrije
Universiteit Brussel), specialises in EU-Western Balkans relations and the
external dimensions of EU justice and home affairs. Since 2014, he has
been an academic guest at the Center for International and Comparative
Studies, ETH Zürich, examining the effects of the EU’s conditionality
policy on rule of law in the Western Balkans. He also heads the Center
for EU Integration at the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis”. At
the EU Institute for Security Studies, he is a Senior Associate Analysts
involved in activities relating to the EU Global Strategy, as well as justice
and home affairs in the Western Balkans.
Branislav Radeljić  is Reader in International Relations at the
University of East London, with research interests focusing on the
study of European Union, East European and Western Balkan politics.
He has held visiting fellowships at the London School of Economics
and Political Science, University of California at Berkeley, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan and University of
Pittsburgh. He is the author of Europe and the Collapse of Yugoslavia:
The Role of Non-State Actors and European Diplomacy (2012), edi-
tor of Europe and the post-Yugoslav Space (2013), Debating European
Identity: Bright Ideas, Dim Prospects (2014) and European Community-
Yugoslav Relations: Debates and Documents that Mattered (1968–1992)
(2017), and co-editor of Religion in the post-Yugoslav Context (2015)
and Kosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences
(2016). Outside academia, on an occasional basis, Branislav conducts
research and provides consultancy services within his area of expertise.
 Notes on Contributors    xiii

Frank Schimmelfennig is Professor of European Politics and member

of the Center for Comparative and International Studies at ETH Zurich
(Switzerland). His main research interest lies in the theory of European
integration and, more specifically, in EU enlargement, differentiated
integration, democracy promotion and democratisation. His most recent
books are Democracy Promotion by Functional Cooperation (with Tina
Freyburg, Sandra Lavenex, Tatiana Skripka and Anne Wetzel, Palgrave
2015) and Differentiated Integration (with Dirk Leuffen and Berthold
Rittberger, Palgrave 2013).
Bernhard Stahl is currently Professor of International Politics at
the University of Passau (GER) since 2010. He holds a Diploma
in Economics and a Master degree in European Studies. After hav-
ing achieved his Ph.D. and Habilitation in Political Science from the
University of Trier (GER) he spent some years in Serbia on behalf of the
German Economic Cooperation. His research interests cover compara-
tive foreign policies in Europe, in particular with regard to Southeastern
Europe, and identity theory. For instance, he has published on German,
French and EU foreign policy in the Kosovo war and on EU foreign pol-
icy in the Balkans in general and on EU-Serbian relations in particular.
Milica Uvalić  is Full Professor in Economics at the University of
Perugia (Italy) (since 1992, initially Assistant Professor), where she
has taught courses on Macroeconomics, International Economics,
European Economic Integration, Economic Development and
Transition Economics. She was also a member of the UN Committee
for Development Policy (2008–2012), Public Policy Scholar at the
Woodrow Wilson Centre (Washington DC, 2009) and Assistant Minister
in the first post-Milošević government in FR Yugoslavia (2001). She
holds Ph.D. from the European University Institute (1988). She is an
expert on the Western Balkans and wider East European region and
has published extensively on Western Balkans’ economic develop-
ment, privatisation, trade, FDI, labour markets, higher education and
the EU-Western Balkan integration process. Her recent publications
include: “Towards Sustainable Economic Growth and Development
in the Western Balkans” (2018) (with V. Cvijanovic), Friedrich-Ebert-
Stiftung; “Structural Change in the European Union and Its Periphery:
Current Challenges for the Western Balkans” (2018) (with M. Damiani),
Southeastern Europe; “Foreign Direct Investment in the Western Balkans:
What Role Has It Played During Transition?” (with S. Estrin) (2016),
xiv    Notes on Contributors

Comparative Economic Studies; “FDI into transition economies: Are the

Balkans different?” (with S. Estrin) (2014), The Economics of Transition;
Serbia’s Transition—Towards a Better Future (2010), Palgrave
Macmillan; Serbian translation: Beograd: Zavod za udzbenike (2012).
Milada Anna Vachudova specialises in political change in post-
communist Europe, European integration, and the impact of inter-
national actors on domestic politics. She is a Jean Monnet Chair of
European Integration, Associate Professor of Political Science and the
Chair of the Curriculum in Global Studies at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Vachudova has held fellowships and
research grants from the European University Institute, the Center for
European Studies at Harvard University, the European Union Center at
Columbia University, the Center for International Studies at Princeton
University, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at
Harvard University, the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow
Wilson Center, IREX, and the National Council for Eurasian and East
European Research. Her book, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage
and Integration After Communism (Oxford University Press, 2005) was
awarded the XIIth Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science
Research. She received a B.A. from Stanford University in 1991. As a
British Marshall Scholar and a member of St. Antony’s College, she com-
pleted D.Phil. in the Faculty of Politics at the University of Oxford in
1997.
Asya Zhelyazkova  is Assistant Professor in European Politics and Public
Policy at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology of
Erasmus University Rotterdam. Before that, she was a senior researcher
at the School of Management of Radboud University Nijmegen and also
worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the European Politics Research
Group at the Center for Comparative and International Studies at ETH
Zürich. Asya completed Ph.D. at the Inter-university Center for Social
Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) at Utrecht University. Asya’s
research interests include EU and national public policy, enforcement of
EU policy, European integration, transparency of governance outputs,
quantitative methods.
 List of Figures

Fig. 10.1 WB6 goods exports and imports from the EU and the rest
of the world (€mn), 2011–2016 (Source Prepared on the
basis of Eurostat statistics available online) 212
Fig. 10.2 Western Balkans goods exports and imports from the EU
and the rest of the world (shares in %), 2016
(Source Prepared on the basis of Eurostat statistics
available online) 214
Fig. 10.3 Trends in Western Balkan countries’ goods exports and
imports from the EU (ml €), 2012–2016 (Source Prepared
on the basis of Eurostat statistics available online) 215
Fig. 10.4 Western Balkan countries’ shares in total WB6 goods
exports and imports from the EU, 2016 (Source Prepared
on the basis of Eurostat statistics, available online) 216
Fig. 10.5 FDI inward stock from EU member states, 2009–2012
(in % of total) (Source Prepared on the basis of the
UNCTAD online database; data is not available
for Albania in 2012 or for Montenegro in 2009) 218
Fig. 10.6 Foreign ownership of banks in the Western Balkan
countries, 2004–2011 (Note Foreign ownership
is defined as banks with assets of foreign ownership
over 50%. Source EBRD Banking Survey available
online [ebrd.com]) 220
Fig. 10.7 GDP per capita (in Purchasing Power Standards) of EU
member states and Western Balkan candidate countries,
2015 (Source Prepared on the basis of Eurostat statistics
available online [no data are available for Kosovo]) 226

xv
 List of Tables

Table 3.1 Conceptual scheme of analysing Europeanisation of foreign

policy content in EU member states and in Western Balkans
non-member states 46
Table 3.2 Summary of Europeanisation effects of states’ foreign
policies in Balkan route migration management 56

xvii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Europeanisation

of the Western Balkans

Jelena Džankić, Soeren Keil and Marko Kmezić

At the Thessaloniki summit in 2003, the European Council declared,

“the future of the Balkans is within the European Union” (European
Council 2003). This political commitment of the heads of state and
prime ministers of the EU countries was understood as a strong incen-
tive and a promise that the future of the region, within the EU, will be
stable and prosperous. However, apart from Croatia that entered the
EU in 2013, ten years after the Thessaloniki Summit, Albania, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia are

J. Džankić (*) 
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University
Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
S. Keil 
School of Psychology, Politics and Sociology, Canterbury Christ Church
University, Canterbury, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
M. Kmezić 
Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 1

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_1
2  J. DŽANKIĆ ET AL.

still far away from full EU membership.1 In the meantime, the contrac-
tual relationship between the EU and the Western Balkans, embodied in
Stabilization and Association Agreements (SAA), has now entered into
force for all six countries, however only Montenegro and Serbia con-
tinue their accession negotiations. While Albania awaits the opening
of its first negotiating chapters after the end of a deep and prolonged
political crisis, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia’s EU
bids are facing difficulties due to internal political stalemates, weak
statehood, as well as issues with several EU members in the cases of
Kosovo and Macedonia.
Contrary to initial hopes that the approximation to the EU will
gradually introduce liberal democratic forms of government founded
on democracy and the rule of law in six non-EU Western Balkan coun-
tries, serious backsliding in terms of democracy and the rule of law can
be observed throughout the region over the past decade (Freedom
House 2018). The process of EU integration often remains over-
shadowed by the high number of domestic formal and informal “gate
keeper” elites that continue to control the state in an effort to pre-
serve their private economic interests and their grip on political power.
Moreover, the Western Balkans are suffering from a development gap.
Despite rapid growth recorded in the early 2000s, effective economic
reform has often been delayed due to the fact that regional economies
are incapable of withstanding the competitive pressures of the EU com-
mon market. Throughout much of the Western Balkans, economies
have remained undeveloped, dependent on aid, loans and remittances,
and prone to high levels of state intervention. With the current average

1 At this point authors would like to introduce several terminological clarifications. Most

international scholars, and in recent years even domestic authors, have chosen to follow the
lead of the EU, which since 1999 has considered the geographical region of Southeastern
Europe to be composed of two parts, whereas the second subgroup consists of the succes-
sor states to the former Yugoslavia (minus Slovenia) together with Albania. These states are
dubbed the Western Balkans which the authors will use in this volume contextually since
it includes all the countries under the scrutiny. This, however, is not the only open ter-
minological issue. The official EU documents use the term Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia. Authors will employ the term Macedonia, unless citing an official EU docu-
ment. Similarly, Kosova is the preferred usage by local authorities, but this book will use
the term Kosovo, which is more frequently used in English-language sources. For the
country known as Bosnia and Herzegovina, the accepted short forms Bosnia and BiH will
be used throughout this book, and refer to the whole country.
 1  INTRODUCTION: THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS  3

growth rates, it will take these countries at least several decades to con-
verge with the average EU GDP per capita (Sanfey and Milatović 2018).
In addition to the democratic and socio-economic setbacks, numerous
unresolved bilateral disputes and incomplete process of reconciliation
after the 1990s violent conflicts threaten to undermine fragile regional
stability (Djolai and Nechev 2018).
In its latest Enlargement Strategy entitled “The Credible Enlargement
Perspective for the Western Balkans”, the European Commission (2018)
has acknowledged the lack of progress among current EU candi-
date countries. Going beyond the usual diplomatic language used in
the EU Progress Reports, the Commission has established that “the
[Western Balkan] countries show clear elements of state capture, includ-
ing links with organized crime and corruption at all levels of govern-
ment and administration” (European Commission 2018). Furthermore,
the document added that “none of the Western Balkans can currently
be considered a functioning market economy nor to have the capacity
to cope with the competitive pressure and market forces in the union”
(European Commission 2018, p. 3).
So why, after almost two decades of the current enlargement process,
does Europeanisation of the region fail to produce more credible outcomes?
The Western Balkans represent a unique laboratory for exploring
a wide array of parallel-tracked political processes. Over the past three
decades, the region has experienced manifold state disintegrations, vio-
lent and non violent conflict between and within countries, as well as
a delayed transition to democracy and market economy. All of these
experiences have been framed through the concurrent, overlapping,
and conflicting dynamics of nation- and state-building and aspirations
to join the European Union (EU) (Keil 2013). Subtleties of the inter-
play between these two processes are therefore crucial to understanding
why the carrot of EU membership, which has effectively transformed the
political and economic outlook of the Central and East European (CEE)
states two decades ago (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005), has had
different and differentiated effects in the Western Balkans.
The process of EU accession in the Western Balkans is premised on
the adaptation to the EU’s requirements, which entail not only the
pooling of sovereignty but also the framing of broader nation-building
processes within wider accession dynamics. This implies that for the
Balkan states, the interaction between these two processes has a much
greater impact than in the countries from previous enlargement
4  J. DŽANKIĆ ET AL.

rounds. There are two dominant reasons for placing a particular empha-
sis on their interplay. First, given the conflicts in the region, the link
between state-building and national identities is far more socially and
politically embedded in these states’ structures. As such, they have a far
greater political influence than in other post-communist countries, to the
extent that they can negatively affect the country’s aspiration to join the
EU.
Examples of this are numerous, from the impossibility of the ethnic
communities to change the constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina and
move ahead in the accession process, to Macedonia’s name contestation,
to the reluctance of Serbia to accept Kosovo’s independence. Second,
the Western Balkan states are required to go through significantly longer
transformative periods with far more uncertain results and unclear acces-
sion timelines. With the exception of Slovenia that was included in the
2004 enlargement wave, other countries will have had around a quar-
ter of a century between the fall of communism and their EU accession.
That is, 22 years elapsed from Croatia’s declaration of independence in
1991 until its EU membership in 2013. For the remaining countries in
the line of accession, this time period will be significantly longer, particu-
larly as regards the increasing demands of the accession process attrib-
uted to the expansion of the EU’s legislation, the effects of the financial
crisis, and the general enlargement fatigue. Hence it is crucial to reflect
on what the EU accession process represents and how it interacts with
the political systems of the Western Balkan states.

Rationale of the Book

The process of Europeanisation has become central for the under-
standing of transformative dynamics of norm transfer from states to
the EU and vice versa. Initially defined as the adaptation of the polit-
ical, social, and institutional milieus of the EU Member States to the
dynamics of integration, Europeanisation is now largely taken to denote
a two-way process. In other words, Europeanisation entails not only
the domestic adaptation to EU norms, laws, and rules (top-down),
but also the changes in the dynamics of Europeanisation as a result of
domestic change (bottom-up). With the latest approach in the study of
Europeanisation, the concept can be applied not only to the study of the
EU Member States, but also to countries aspiring for EU membership,
and third countries. In conjunction with the previous work on this
 1  INTRODUCTION: THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS  5

topic (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005; Sedelmeier 2012), taking

into consideration a more recent turn in the study of Europeanisation
emphasizing the EU’s potential impact on non-EU countries (Börzel
and Risse 2012; Schimmelfennig 2012), a three-dimensional rationale
behind this edited collection emerges:

1. The need to further develop conceptual and normative studies of

how Europeanisation plays out in contexts in which the EU has
different degrees of leverage;
2. The contribution to the literature on the transforming nature of
Europeanisation through changes in the domestic context;
3. The benefits of exploring the intricate ways in which adaptation to
the EU transforms the Western Balkan states, where the effects of
Europeanisation are the most pronounced.

The central research question of this book tackles therefore the prob-
lem of how effective the EU’s “normative power” (Grabbe 2006) is in
transferring “rules, norms and ways of doing things” (Radaelli 2003) to
the legal, economic, and political systems of Western Balkan (potential)
candidate countries by way of the Stabilization and Association Process
(SAP) requiring on the one hand the acceptance of conditionality, but
also providing financial and technical support on the other. The main
hypothesis can be summarized in a nutshell: EU conditionality in the
Western Balkans so far does not work “effectively” in terms of social
change because rule transfer in the countries of concern remains—due
to veto-players on the ground and strong legacies of the past—a “con-
tested” business.
The comprehensive literature review undertaken by the authors of this
publication on Europeanisation of candidate countries for full member-
ship, established the following elements: Conditionality has—despite of
all the criticism—played an important role by imposing top-down pres-
sure on candidate countries; goals and contents often remain vaguely
specified; norm socialization remains inconsistent and ineffective as sub-
stitute for conditionality; only a credible prospect of membership is an
effective incentive; and finally, the EU’s impact is different across coun-
tries and issues.
Drawing on these findings, but also on the comparative train-
ing of the contributors to this volume, and their ample knowledge of
the Western Balkan states, this book casts a fresh look on how these
6  J. DŽANKIĆ ET AL.

countries’ political spaces are shaped, governed, and transformed under

Europeanisation that takes place during the EU accession process.
There has, of course, been a growing body of literature on the topic
of this book (Bechev 2012; Bieber 2012; Chandler 2010; Elbasani
2013; Freyburg and Richter 2010; Keil and Arkan 2015; Kmezić 2017;
Noutcheva 2012; Radeljic 2013; Rupnik 2011; Trauner 2012). So, one
might ask the question why another book on this widely researched topic
is necessary and what it can potentially contribute to our understanding
of the relationship between the EU and the Western Balkan states. The
editors and authors of this book have had a number of objectives in mind
to contribute, and enhance our current understanding of the academic
study of the Europeanisation of the Western Balkans.
First, in terms of substantial theoretical contribution to the study of
Europeanisation, this edited volume addresses the changing nature of
the concept. It explores the power of the EU to bring about change
in the region in which the incentives for EU-driven transformation
are the highest due to the prospect of membership. The chapters will
also underline the difference in the effects of Europeanisation in the
Western Balkans from those in Central and East Europe in the 2004
and 2007 enlargements. That is, individual authors will not only look
at the transformative power of Europeanisation, but also at the trans-
formation of Europeanisation. Through this approach, the book will
demonstrate that Europeanisation has changed profoundly because the
Western Balkan countries react differently to demands for reforms by
European actors. Hence, while the relationship between the EU and the
Western Balkans is asymmetric, their engagement nevertheless is based
on reciprocity.
Second, the traditional top-down approach in Europeanisation stud-
ies has in many cases underestimated the “constructivist institutionalist
approach,” and as Sedelmeier (2006) argued already in 2006, it is exactly
this approach that we hope will bring innovative results in the study of
(potential) candidate countries. The proposed theoretical framework, the
selection of countries for comparison, and the elaboration of a compre-
hensive framework of analysis trying to overcome the theoretical dichot-
omies thus provide new innovative ground.
Third, while there are a number of single case studies, no compre-
hensive, comparative, empirical, and cross-sectorial studies exist so far to
test pre-accession monitoring of and compliance with the EU demands
in the Western Balkans, and to analyse the different roles that various
 1  INTRODUCTION: THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS  7

gatekeeper elites and strong legacies of the past play. From the perspec-
tive of applied research, the book thus intends not just to advance schol-
arship on this topic, but also to have an impact on the policy strategies
for the accession processes in the Western Balkans beyond the “wait-and-
see” (Grabbe et al. 2010) approach pursued by EU institutions today.
Fourth, the entire book strengthens interdisciplinary research in the
study of the EU, but also Western Balkans area studies. Namely, the
focus on understanding the conceptual nature of Europeanisation builds
upon a well-established field in the studies of EU integration, and thus
will be of interest to scholars examining the effects of European gov-
ernance within and beyond the EU’s borders. In addition to this, the
authors examine specific policy areas, salient in the accession process and
to a different degree incorporated in the accession criteria. This means
that this study looks not only at the EU’s rule transfer during the acces-
sion process but also at particular policy areas and their challenges.
Fifth, by focusing on the Western Balkans, we are dealing with a
vibrant, changing, emerging region, “the periphery of the EU” (Bechev
2012), but also a centrepiece in the EU’s strategy for peace and stabil-
ity in its neighbourhood (European Commission 2015). This unique
focus on the EU’s neighbourhood, on countries that have been prom-
ised a membership perspective since the early 2000s, will provide a wider
perspective on the strategies (and their success) of the EU in conflict
resolution, support for political transformation and ability to integrate
countries with a very different history than the “core” of EU Member
States. The focus on weak states, transforming economies and societies,
and democratizing political systems that can be found in the Western
Balkans allows for an update, extension—and re-examination of previ-
ously published literature on this topic.
Sixth, this volume explains the significance of domestic framing of and
responses to broader regional and European processes. Paradoxically,
this latter aspect is often overlooked in the study of Europeanisation
beyond the member states. While defined as the “domestic adaptation
to regional EU integration” (Vink and Graziano 2007, p. 7), the domes-
tic aspect of the process is commonly taken for granted and effects of
Europeanisation is taken to denote the EU’s normative power.
Finally, it can be argued that both the overall theme and the top-
ics of this book go beyond the focus on Europeanisation. Chapters in
this volume address questions about the rule of law, democratization,
economic transformation, and the stabilization and reformation of
8  J. DŽANKIĆ ET AL.

semi-authoritarian regimes. Hence, while we have a clear focus on the

Western Balkans, and the EU’s impact on the enlargement process,
the content of this book tells a bigger story about EU foreign policy.
The ability of the EU’s often-praised transformative power to truly
change societies and systems, and the rise of new authoritarian regimes
in response to EU policies is as much at the heart of this book, as is the
specialized focus on the Europeanisation in the Western Balkans.

Structure of the Book

Unlike other books that explore Europeanisation and EU integration of
the Western Balkans, this volume does not take a country-by-country
approach. Equally, it does not select one single area and offer an
in-depth analysis of it. Rather, as indicated in this introduction, the
approach of this book is to examine the key areas affected by the pro-
cess of Europeanisation in the context of different states, thus identifying
obstacles and facilitators for social, political, and economic transfor-
mation. As will be seen in the individual chapters, some countries have
received more attention than others. Macedonia, for example, is stud-
ied across a number of chapters, not least because it has moved from a
front runner in the EU enlargement process in the early 2000s to a nas-
cent case of state capture after 2010. Since the change of government
in 2017, there is renewed hope that Macedonia will be able to catch up
with Serbia and Montenegro, the two countries generally considered
as front runners in the EU enlargement process. Albania, on the other
hand, is mentioned in multiple chapters in comparative perspective.
While it has received less attention than other countries in this volume,
many of the conclusions that the contributors reach can be applied to
Albania as well.
Obviously, the notion of Europeanisation touches upon a number
of other important policies, such as environmental protection, LGBT
rights, consumer protection, etc. While acknowledging their importance,
we have decided not to include them in this book, not the least because
of the constraints of time and length of the volume, but also as these pol-
icies are nascent across the region and their effects will be better studied
in the years to come.
This introduction, which provided general overview of the topic and
explained why we have decided to write this book, is followed by nine
chapters structured in three “clusters” and a conclusion. The first three
 1  INTRODUCTION: THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS  9

chapters provide an overview of the process of Europeanisation and its

effects on the external and the internal dimensions of the state. Three
chapters focusing on specific policy areas, where high degrees of contes-
tation at the domestic level have limited the EU’s transformative power,
follow. The final three chapters explore political, social, and economic
spaces in which Europeanisation has taken place.
Frank Schimmelfennig, Ivan Damjanovski, Zoran Nechev, and Asya
Zhelyazkova revisit the external incentives or conditionality model,
which had previously been used to explain the Europeanisation of
CEE during the Eastern enlargement process. The authors explore
whether this model is still a suitable theoretical mechanism for study-
ing Europeanisation of the Western Balkan states, taking into account
doubts regarding the credibility of the EU’s incentives and the suitabil-
ity of domestic conditions in the countries of the region. This chapter
summarizes the external incentives model and the findings generated by
its application to Eastern enlargement. The authors then analyse conti-
nuities and changes in the international and domestic conditions as EU
enlargement has moved to the Western Balkans and formulate expecta-
tions on the effects of conditionality. The chapter concludes by restat-
ing the need to revise the external incentives model in light of the
Europeanisation process in the Western Balkans.
To explore the “external” dimension of Europeanisation, Bernhard
Stahl and Ana Bojinović Fenko assess the foreign policies of the Western
Balkan states. They maintain that all states in the Western Balkans have
made EU integration their main foreign objective, and as such, have
started to align their foreign policies towards those of EU Member
States. However, this process of foreign policy convergence has evolved
differently and highlights some interesting differences between the
Western Balkan states. While some countries have gone for full conver-
gence (Croatia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Albania), others have partially
converged their foreign policies (Bosnia, Macedonia). The chapter com-
pares and contrasts these processes of convergence and divergence and
highlight what this says about the effects of Europeanisation on foreign
policy.
Complementing this with the analysis of the ‘internal’ effects of
Europeanisation, Milada Vachudova looks at the EU’s position for its
continued and renewed support for Europeanisation, and its effects on
the Western Balkans. Considering internal crises within the EU, particu-
larly in terms of rule of law enforcement in Poland and Hungary, the
10  J. DŽANKIĆ ET AL.

question emerges why the EU continues to support the weak integra-

tion and unstable states in the Western Balkans. Vachudova argues that
both the EU’s commitment to the democratization and integration of
the region, as well as wider political consideration such as combatting the
influence of Russia play a key role in the EU’s continued commitment.
In turn, the EU’s role in the Western Balkans continues to substantially
influence the developments in these countries, not least in supporting
those actors that push for democratization, liberalization, and economic
transformation.
Introducing the cluster of the book that centres on specific policies,
Marko Kmezić examines the most complex one—the rule of law, as
one of the pillars of the political criterion to enter the EU since 1993.
Juxtaposing the importance of the concept itself to the manifest lack of
academic work and empirical analyses, Kmezić unveils the meanings and
the intricacies of the concept of the “rule of law” as applied in the cur-
rent enlargement context. Starting from an exploration of the transfor-
mation of the EU’s accession process, and thus the changing nature of
Europeanisation, his analysis offers insights into resilience of the Western
Balkan states in the context of the demands of accession. As an empiri-
cal contribution, the chapter also offers an in-depth comparison of the
limits of Europeanisation in motivating transformation of the judiciary
in Macedonia and the freedom of the press in Serbia. In his chapter,
Kmezić poses an important question: has the EU put the emphasis on
the rule of law on hold for the sake of stability in the Western Balkans?
Deepening this approach, Simonida Kacarska offers an analysis of the
effects of Europeanisation on minority policies. Her chapter emphasizes
that national minority policies, although not regulated by EU law, have
been considered as a litmus test of Europeanisation through condition-
ality. Building upon the findings of the previous enlargement, Kacarska’s
chapter extends this research agenda to the candidate countries in the
Western Balkans. Studying the transformation of the national minority
policies in Croatia and Macedonia, her analysis sheds light on the evolv-
ing nature of the Europeanisation phenomenon and reflects on its merits
in contextual conditions where the minority issue is of utmost political
importance. As such, Kacarska’s chapter is an important addition to aca-
demic literature on the role of conditionality in national minority poli-
cies in the Balkans. It unpacks the changes of conditionality over time,
its flexible nature and the potential for polarization in areas that are not
strictly regulated by the EU acquis.
 1  INTRODUCTION: THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS  11

This is followed by Cvete Koneska’s study of the good governance-

related reform processes in the Western Balkans in the context of these
countries’ EU membership aspirations. The focus is on two ethnically
divided power-sharing states, Macedonia and Bosnia, and the reforms in
the security sector, which were conducted under substantial EU influ-
ence. The contribution engages with arguments of Europeanisation
and the enlargement literature, questioning the established asymmetry
of Europeanisation through enlargement, with the EU providing good
governance models and applicant states complying and ultimately inter-
nalizing good governance values. Rather, based on the evidence of the
two policy cases, Koneska argues that in the ethnically divided context
in the Western Balkans, EU membership can contribute to further eth-
nicization of politics, becoming a token in policy competition between
ethnic groups.
Transitioning from the analytical cluster devoted to policies, to that
dedicated to political, social, and economic spaces, Branislav Radeljić
explains how the EU’s approach towards the region has contributed
to the rise of authoritarianism. Using the cases of Serbia and Kosovo,
Radeljic notes how the EU’s mild approach to cooperative or seemingly
cooperative leadership has enabled political elites to have a stronghold
over the state’s institutions. In other words, the author claims that such an
approach by the EU has given enough margins to semi-­ authoritarian
practices to emerge, despite the high level of support for accession
among the countries’ public. In his conclusions, Radeljić expresses his
concerns that should this trend continue, it will likely result in the dis-
enchantment with the carrot of membership and the rise in anti-EU
sentiment.
This analysis is followed by Soeren Keil’s and Jelena Džankić’s insights
in how the struggles and challenges in the domestic arena pose limita-
tions to the transformative power of Europeanisation. The authors com-
pare the integration process in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia
and Montenegro. The analysis centres on the different political systems
and conflict-resolution mechanisms in these three countries in order to
explain their different progress in EU accession. Keil and Džankić argue
that consolidated statehood is not only key for effective democratiza-
tion, but also a prerequisite for EU accession and functional EU integra-
tion. Systematically applying these concepts to Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Macedonia and Montenegro, the chapter unpacks the connection
between internal contestation and a lack of general consensus on EU
12  J. DŽANKIĆ ET AL.

integration, as well as the connection between different nation-building

projects and limited Europeanisation.
In the last chapter before the conclusion, Milica Uvalić addresses
some of the main problems of economic integration of the Western
Balkan countries into the European Union. In her contribution, Uvalić
first discusses some of the main structural problems of the Western
Balkan economies that have been aggravated by the recent economic
crises. She then outlines the main differences in EU policies towards
Central East European countries and the Western Balkans, primarily
those that have influenced the pace of economic integration. She con-
cludes by outlining the recent changes in the EU enlargement strat-
egy, assessing whether the increased emphasis on economic governance
is likely to contribute to faster economic development of the Western
Balkan countries.
In the concluding remarks, Florian Bieber summarizes the major
findings of the chapters and discusses their contribution to the study of
Europeanisation as part of EU enlargement. Bieber reflects on the use-
fulness of the theoretical framework as well as the knowledge gained
from the application of Europeanisation to different policy areas. By
doing so, he opens up wider theoretical questions and points towards
new avenues that are in dire need of further academic investigation.

Conclusion
This book looks at a topic that remains of key importance for European
politics fifteen years after the Thessaloniki Summit of the EU promised
membership to the Western Balkan states. The EU’s engagement with
the region is predicated by its previous commitments and the willing-
ness to integrate these states into the union. But it has more recently
also become much more important from a perspective of realpolitik.
Russia, Turkey, the Gulf countries and increasingly also China have dis-
covered the strategic relevance of the Western Balkans for their own for-
eign policy objectives. The EU remains the most important actor, but
not the only one anymore. European integration remains the best hope
for the region to overcome the legacies of violent conflict, state disso-
lution and inter-ethnic tensions. European integration also remains
the main hope for those seeking to overcome the existing state capture
and administrative weaknesses across countries. However, if the EU’s
engagement with the region will lead to success remains to be seen.
 1  INTRODUCTION: THE EUROPEANISATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS  13

The analyses in this book cast doubt on the current approach and hint at
ways in which a more successful engagement might be framed.

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 CHAPTER 2

European Union Conditionality in the

Western Balkans: External Incentives
and Europeanisation

Asya Zhelyazkova, Ivan Damjanovski, Zoran Nechev and

Frank Schimmelfennig

Introduction
The study of Europeanisation has traditionally focused on the impact of
European integration and governance on the European Union (EU) mem-
ber states (Goetz and Meyer-Sahling 2008; Ladrech 2009; Treib 2008).
In the last decade, however, we have witnessed the establishment of a

The research in this chapter has been supported by the Swiss National
Science Foundation’s SCOPES Programme, Joint Research Project no.
IZ73Z0_152536.

A. Zhelyazkova 
Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
e-mail: [email protected]
I. Damjanovski 
Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 15

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_2
16  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

distinctive subarea of Europeanisation research that included candidate

states in the analysis of Europeanisation. This expansion of Europeanisation
research was mainly driven by the observation that the enlargement process
went together with a massive process of political and legal transformation
in the candidate countries induced by EU conditionality. In the course of
this process, the candidates adopted not only the EU acquis communau-
taire but also principles and rules in areas, such as democracy and the
rule of law, in which the EU did not have competences in the old mem-
ber states (Sedelmeier 2011). Studies in this research area have focused on
analysing the conditions under which EU accession conditionality has been
effective in inducing rule adoption in a variety of policy areas in the candi-
date countries of Eastern enlargement (Grabbe 2002; Schimmelfennig and
Sedelmeier 2005; Vachudova 2005; Balfour and Stratulat 2011).
Originally, this research focused almost exclusively on the Central and
Eastern European (CEE) candidates, which became member states in
2004 and 2007. It remains to be seen, however, to what extent the condi-
tions that have proven relevant for the CEE countries are also applicable to
the candidate states from the Western Balkans. Put differently, do existing
theoretical approaches on the impact of EU conditionality on candidate
states explain the compliance record of the countries from the Western
Balkans? Alternatively, is it necessary to adapt these theoretical approaches
to the specific circumstances of enlargement in the Western Balkans?
There are some indications that the group of Western Balkan can-
didates face more serious challenges in their path to accession than the
CEE countries. First, with a view to the experiences from the CEE
enlargement, the EU has applied more stringent accession criteria for
the countries from the Western Balkans. Second, these countries have to
cope with widespread “enlargement fatigue” among the member state
societies. Third, the Western Balkans had to start their way to accession
from a more difficult basis than the CEE countries, as they have had less

Z. Nechev 
Institute for European Studies, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels,
Belgium
e-mail: [email protected]
F. Schimmelfennig (*) 
ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
e-mail: [email protected]
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  17

experience with democracy and often lower levels of governance capacity.

Finally, unlike the CEE countries, the candidates from the Western
Balkans face problems of contested statehood and unresolved ethnic con-
flicts due to recent legacies of civil war.
With a view to these pronounced differences, the question arises: To
what extent are theoretical factors that explained the compliance record of
the CEE countries also relevant for the group of Western Balkan candidates?
In this chapter, we set out to address this question theoretically by ana-
lysing the applicability of existing theoretical models of Europeanisation
to rule adoption in the Western Balkans. Our theoretical analysis shows
that existing models of Europeanisation provide a useful starting point
for studying the success of the new candidates in meeting the EU mem-
bership requirements. In particular, high membership credibility coupled
with low-to-moderate domestic costs of rule adoption have proved to be
important factors for the Europeanisation of CEE candidate countries.
Thus, the presence of more stringent accession criteria, lower credibil-
ity of membership, weaker administrative capacity and higher domestic
political costs seem to contribute to a slower pace of Europeanisation
in the Western Balkans relative to the CEE countries. At the same time,
EU conditionality has had a differential impact on rule adoption in the
new candidates, with some countries continuing to comply with the EU
accession criteria despite their lower credibility of obtaining membership.
The availability of intermediate rewards not directly tied to a promise for
accession, as well as EU capacity-building initiatives, could explain the
continuous progress of compliance in the Western Balkans.
We start our analysis by presenting the theoretical models on the enlarge-
ment process of the CEE candidate countries and discussing their findings.
Then, we apply the existing theoretical approaches to Europeanisation in
the Western Balkans and discuss the relevance of these approaches on the
basis of the state of the literature on the Western Balkans. The concluding
section of this chapter discusses the possibility of incorporating new factors
that could explain compliance in candidate member states.

Theoretical Approaches to the Europeanisation

of the CEE Candidate Countries

Theoretical perspectives employed in the studies of Europeanisation

specify the mechanisms of EU impact, and the conditions under
which they operate and are effective, as building blocks for a theory of
18  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

Europeanisation (Schimmelfennig 2012). In regard to the Central and

Eastern European Countries (CEECs) accession process, Schimmelfennig
and Sedelmeier (2004, 2005) distinguished two dimensions of the
Europeanisation mechanisms. First, Europeanisation can be EU- or
domestically driven. Second, it can be based on different institutional
logics: the “logic of consequences” and the “logic of appropriateness”.
According to “the logic of consequences”, EU-driven Europeanisation
is based on external incentives that the EU provides for a target govern-
ment to comply with the EU conditions. The EU employs a bargaining
strategy of “reinforcement by reward” to induce compliance in the can-
didate countries. By contrast, the “logic of appropriateness” suggests
that EU-driven Europeanisation is induced by social learning and per-
suasion, and candidate countries consider the adoption of EU rules and
regulations as legitimate. Moreover, it is possible that candidate countries
choose to adopt EU rules independently from EU conditionality or their
incentives to join. Given that CEECs had to undertake tremendous polit-
ical and economic reforms during their transition from communist rule,
they may have adopted the EU rules because they considered these to be
effective solutions to domestic policy challenges. Based on these assump-
tions, Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier (2004, 2005) suggest one domi-
nant theoretical model (the external incentives model) and two alternative
models that could explain the Europeanisation of the CEE candidate
countries (social learning model and the lesson-drawing model).

The External Incentives Model

The external incentives model is a rational choice bargaining model. It
is an actor-centred model that assumes that conditionality is a bargain-
ing game played by rational actors whose decisions and behaviour are
driven by material and political self-interest and cost-benefit calculations.
According to the external incentives model, conditionality is a policy
in which the EU enforces adoption and implementation of its rules in
the target governments through a strategy of reinforcement by reward.
According to this strategy, the EU sets rule adoption as a condition for
obtaining rewards. If a target government complies with the EU con-
ditions, the EU will pay the reward, and if it fails to comply, the EU
withholds the reward. The rewards may vary from financial assistance
to different modalities of association, with full membership as the ulti-
mate prize. The effectiveness of conditionality is seen as a function of a
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  19

strategic calculation of the target government, which complies with EU

rules only if the benefits of the reward outweigh its domestic material,
political and power-oriented costs.
Furthermore, according to the external incentives model, the effec-
tiveness of conditionality on compliance depends on (1) the determinacy
and consistency of EU conditions, (2) the credibility of accession, (3) the
capacity of candidate countries and (4) domestic costs.
Determinacy has three major dimensions: precision, obligation and
consistency. Precision promotes compliance by helping candidate coun-
tries to know exactly what they need to do in order to meet the EU
conditions. Obligation tells them how relevant and binding these con-
ditions are. Consistency means that all candidates are subject to the same
requirements, and that the requirements for each individual candidate do
not change over time. The more precise, binding and consistent a condi-
tion is, the more likely target actors are to comply with it.
Another factor of EU conditionality is its credibility. The credibil-
ity of the membership perspective depends both on a credible threat
to withhold membership in case conditions are not met and a credible
promise to admit candidate countries that meet the conditions (Hughes
et al. 2004; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004; Pridham 2007). The
credibility of the threat works best in situations of highly asymmetrical
interdependence in favour of the EU—in which the candidate countries
are more interested in membership than the EU is interested in enlarge-
ment. The less the EU benefits from enlargement, the more it can afford
to withhold accession if the candidates do not meet the conditions
(Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004). The credibility of the accession
promise depends, first, on the level of consensus and conflict within the
EU about accession. The more contested a candidate is among the mem-
ber states and in public opinion, the less certain this candidate can be
of admission—even if the compliance record is excellent. Uncertainty
related to conflict among the old members discourages candidates from
tackling costly issues of compliance. Second, credibility has been argued
to vary with the stage of the accession process. Dimitrova suggests that
“EU conditionality works best with states which are neither too far
from nor too close to joining the EU” (2005, p. 73; see also Böhmelt
and Freyburg 2013). This is when both the promise of membership and
the threat of exclusion are credible.
Whereas determinacy and credibility are characteristics of the EU
enlargement process, capacity and domestic costs refer to domestic actors
20  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

in candidate states. The CEE countries were obliged to effectively trans-

fer more than 80,000 pages of acquis in national legislation and prac-
tice within a relatively short period of time (Toshkov 2008: 380). The
EU acquis imposed tremendous burdens on the national bureaucracies
in these countries, which needed to implement the EU conditions before
specified deadlines. In other words, the success of Europeanisation was
expected to rely on the administrative capacities of national bureaucracies
to comply with the EU conditions.
Even if a candidate enjoys sufficient administrative resources to imple-
ment the EU acquis, it may still face adoption costs that obstruct the
compliance process. The external incentives model postulates that the
size of domestic adoption costs and their distribution among domestic
actors determine candidate states’ compliance with the EU conditions.
Adoption costs are generally political in nature in the sense that they
depend on the preferences of governments or other powerful domestic
actors whose agreement is necessary for the implementation of EU rules
(i.e., veto players). Thus, adoption costs are high if rule transfer threat-
ens the welfare base of domestic actors and groups or the power base
of parties and governments in terms of electoral support. In addition,
compliance may create opportunity costs of forgoing alternative rewards
offered by adopting rules other than EU rules.

Alternative Models: Social Learning and Lesson-Drawing

The explanatory power of the external incentives model has been com-
pared to two alternative models of Europeanisation in candidate states:
social learning and lesson-drawing. The social learning model assumes
that Europeanisation operates based on the logic of appropriateness,
where the actors involved are motivated by internal identities, values and
norms rather than external incentives to seek rewards and avoid punish-
ment (March and Olsen 1989). Candidate states’ compliance with EU
conditions is then driven by the perceived legitimacy of the EU condi-
tions and the EU ability to persuade domestic actors about the appropri-
ateness of these conditions. Following Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier
(2004, 2005), the EU legitimacy is expected to increase if the member
states are subject to the same EU rules as the candidate countries, the
rules are shared with other international organisations and rule adop-
tion takes place after processes of deliberation. Furthermore, the EU’s
persuasive power increases if a candidate country identifies with the EU
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  21

community and there is a resonance between the norms and values in the
target candidate state and the norms and values espoused by the EU.
Finally, the lesson-drawing model assumes that candidate states’ com-
pliance with EU conditions is not necessarily driven by external incen-
tives or persuasion. Thus, based on the lesson-drawing model, the CEE
countries were expected to adopt the EU rules if they considered these
to be effective remedies to domestic challenges and needs and not
because of the coercive or normative power of the EU. Accordingly,
Europeanisation in candidate states could occur if several conditions are
met. First, domestic actors should be dissatisfied with the effectiveness or
legitimacy of existing national rules. Second, these actors should search
and learn about policy solutions at the EU level through their partici-
pation in EU-centred epistemic communities. Finally, the EU rules have
to be suitable to address domestic problems and EU rule transfer should
face limited resistance by powerful domestic actors.

Application to the CEE Enlargement: Main Findings

Previous research has established the dominance of externally driven and
incentive-based Europeanisation in the Eastern enlargement process.
This is also true in the case of political democratic and rule of law condi-
tionality. The effectiveness of political conditionality has been shown to
depend mainly on two sets of factors: a credible membership incentive
on the part of the EU and low to moderate domestic adoption costs and
a pro-EU identity in the target countries (Schimmelfennig et al. 2006;
Schimmelfennig 2007). Intergovernmental material bargaining based
on the consistent incentive of membership proved to be the primary
successful strategy (Schimmelfennig et al. 2003; Schimmelfennig 2007),
in contrast with incentives with lower standing, such as association agree-
ments and financial aid which have had a much weaker effect (Vachudova
2005; Schimmelfennig et al. 2006). Thus, consistent and credible politi-
cal membership conditionality has enabled pro-EU governing coalitions
to establish democratic and rule of law reforms and has locked in these
reforms against opposition from nationalist and authoritarian parties that
could not afford to jeopardise the highly popular EU accession pros-
pects of their countries (Schimmelfennig 2005). However, even in such
a constellation, high adoption and power costs for incumbent govern-
ments (such as threats of coalition breakup in case of compliance) have
blocked rule adoption in a few cases. The reluctance to comply in these
22  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

situations has been overcome by a combination of pro-EU attitudes

of the target governments and the imminent perspective of opening
or concluding accession negotiations (Schimmelfennig et al. 2006,
pp. 239–240; Schimmelfennig 2007, p. 131).
Most studies on democratic conditionality in the CEE countries
show that EU accession has had a differential, but generally positive
impact on the democratisation and stabilisation of national institutions
and policy practices (Grabbe 2014; Zubek and Goetz 2010). More spe-
cifically, studies of the EU’s impact on democracy and human rights
promotion in the CEECs correlate the effectiveness of EU condition-
ality with regime type and party configurations in the candidate states
(Schimmelfennig 2005; Sedelmeier 2011, p. 18). They demonstrate that
EU democratic conditionality has had most distinctive impacts in uncon-
solidated democracies with liberal or mixed domestic party constellations
(Schimmelfennig et al. 2006; Vachudova 2005). In the frontrunner CEE
democracies, EU political conditionality has been redundant; and it has
proven ineffective in authoritarian systems.
Rule of law conditionality surprisingly has not attracted much schol-
arly attention, despite being a fundamental principle of democratisation.
Whereas scholars recognise the overall positive effect of the Copenhagen
criteria in pushing “post-communist countries to enact specific policies
and comply with standards of democratic constitutionalism and the rule
of law” (Přibáň 2009, p. 350), the EU approach towards consolidation
of rule of law in the CEE candidate states and the reform of the judici-
ary has also provoked substantial criticisms. Much of the criticism has con-
centrated on the weak determinacy of the EU’s rule of law conditionality.
The noted deficiencies range from the structure of the Copenhagen cri-
teria and its fusion of democracy and rule of law assessment (Kochenov
2004) to the general conflicts that arose from the absence of a coher-
ent Community-wide conception of rule of law and its imposition
by the EU as a principal condition for accession (Mineshima 2002).
In a similar vein, Pech (2016) argues that the consistency and effectiveness
of EU rule of law promotion has been limited by its lack of a coherent
analytical, monitoring and integrated rule of law framework. This incon-
sistency has been further highlighted by the findings of several studies on
the EU’s impact on judicial independence. The clear lack of a coherent
theory of judicial independence (Mungiu-Pippidi 2008; Smilov 2006) in
convergence with domestic costs contributed towards uneven patterns of
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  23

judicial governance in the candidate countries (Piana 2009), making the

impact of EU conditionality in this area inconsistent (Coman 2014).
The limitations of rule of law conditionality have been even more
emphasised in the accession of Bulgaria and Romania. Weaker state
capacity and high domestic political and power related costs have con-
tributed to a poorer rule-of-law compliance record in Bulgaria and
Romania compared to the eight post-communist candidates that entered
the EU in 2004 (Noutcheva and Bechev 2008; Spendzharova and
Vachudova 2012). The introduction of the Cooperation and Verification
Mechanism (CVM) as a monitoring instrument aimed at increasing
the EU leverage in the post-accession judicial reform and fight against
corruption in Bulgaria and Romania did not meet expectations in the
absence of a low credibility of threats against member states (Gateva
2013). The problems of the 2007 enlargement reinforced the point that
EU conditionality is much more effective before rather than after acces-
sion (Vachudova 2009), a lesson that the EU employed in its enlarge-
ment strategy for the Western Balkan candidates.
Finally, research on conditionality before and after the 2004 enlarge-
ment (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005; Schimmelfennig et al.
2003; Schimmelfennig 2008) has shown that the explanatory power of
the alternative sociological institutionalist conceptions of conditionality,
such as the social learning as well as lesson drawing models, has been
inconsistent and marginal. Given the prominence of the external incen-
tives model in explaining the Europeanisation process in the CEE coun-
tries, in the following paragraphs, we apply the theoretical assumptions
and expectations of the model to the Europeanisation of the countries
from the Western Balkans.

Europeanisation of the Western Balkans: The External

Incentives Model
As discussed above, the external incentives model postulates that the
impact of EU conditionality depends on four factors: (1) the determi-
nacy of EU conditions, (2) the credibility of the membership perspec-
tive, (3) the capacity of candidate states and (4) the adoption costs that
they face when transferring the EU conditions in national law and prac-
tice. We discuss the impact of each of these factors on compliance in the
Western Balkans.
24  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

Determinacy
The current EU enlargement strategy has significantly enhanced the
determinacy of the process by specifically framing rule of law condi-
tionality into a much stricter and more coherent system of compliance
monitoring than it was for the CEE candidate countries. It is an exam-
ple of a learning curve that indicates the intention to settle major rule
of law, political and bilateral problems prior to accession, instead of
dealing with them after accession (Müftüler-Baç and Çiçek 2015). The
2012 EU Enlargement Strategy Paper outlines, “strengthening the rule
of law and democratic governance is central to the enlargement process
[…] and the lessons learnt from previous enlargements highlight the
importance of an increased focus on these areas and further improving
the quality of the process” (European Commission 2012). The subse-
quent introduction of the “new approach” to accession negotiations
shows the significantly enhanced role of the Commission in monitoring
the progress made by the candidate countries in the rule of law poli-
cies (Hillion 2013). By incorporating this approach in the negotiation
framework for Montenegro, the conditionality related to rule of law is
now firmly anchored in the enlargement process (European Commission
2012). From a different perspective, the “new approach” also reveals the
extent to which member states can be instrumental in modelling and
supporting the enlargement process and acting upon the lessons learned
from previous waves of enlargements (UK Foreign and Commonwealth
Office 2014). In comparison to the CEE enlargement, the conditional-
ity applied by the Union has increased in terms of content, breadth and
implementation of reforms (Dimitrova 2016).
In contrast to previous rounds of enlargement, in order to obtain
EU membership, the candidate countries from the Western Balkans are
required not only to adopt the EU regulations and conditions set out
in the negotiating chapters, but also to have the most difficult acquis
effectively and sustainably implemented before accession. The “new
approach” has arguably made conditionality stricter by the provision of
opening Chapters 23 (Judiciary and fundamental rights) and 24 (Justice,
freedom and security) at the initial stage of the negotiations and keep-
ing them open during the entire negotiation process. In this way, the
EU hopes to ensure consistency in compliance throughout the acces-
sion process, while also allowing a candidate country the maximum
time to establish all necessary legislation, institutions and solid track
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  25

record of implementation. An additional innovation in the negotiation

process is the modification of the suspension clause. If the Commission
notes insufficient progress under the rule of law chapters, relative to the
progress in the overall negotiations, it may, on its own initiative or on
the request of one third of the member states, propose to withhold its
recommendation to open and/or close other chapters and adapt the
associated preparatory work until this disequilibrium is appropriately
addressed. The remodelled approach has triggered advancement in the
application of the benchmarking system. Namely, to track the implemen-
tation record and long-term nature of reforms in the area of rule of law,
the Commission introduced interim benchmarks for Chapters 23 and
24. These benchmarks specifically target adoption of legislation, estab-
lishment and strengthening of administrative structures and the inter-
mediate track record. In sum, the conditionality applied to candidate
countries through the new approach is formulated in such a way that
the Union can exercise political influence and steer political reforms on
politically highly sensitive issues (Nechev et al. 2013). The introduction
of sophisticated monitoring mechanisms is expected to increase the visi-
bility of compliance problems in the candidate countries at an early stage
and improve the clarity of the specific requirements in the course of the
accession process.
Whereas increased levels of determinacy are expected to have a pos-
itive impact on compliance in the Western Balkans relative to the CEE
candidates, there are also variations of determinacy of EU conditions
across the current candidate states. For example, in the Croatian case,
some of the novel instruments introduced by the enlargement strat-
egy were implemented only at a later stage in the accession process,
whereas in the cases of the other candidates they have been or will
be introduced from the very beginning of the accession negotiations.
Furthermore, the EU accession criteria for the Western Balkan coun-
tries still vary in their levels of precision and binding nature and could
explain why candidate states comply with some of the conditions rather
than others. Despite the efforts in streamlining the EU conditionality
approach, the lack of clarity in regards to the nature and scope of rule
of law and the EU acquis still negatively affects the consistency and
effectiveness of the EU’s approach towards the Western Balkans hope-
fuls (Pech 2016).
26  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

Credibility
While the determinacy of EU conditions is higher for the group of
Western Balkan candidates, these countries face lower credibility of EU
membership in comparison to the previous rounds of enlargement. First,
public opinion support in the EU has become more critical towards the
enlargement process in the Western Balkans. Eurobarometer surveys
consistently show that the enthusiasm of the public in the EU in regards
to accepting new members in the future is on a decreasing trend. For
example, in the 2015 Autumn Eurobarometer surveys, the percentage
of those opposed to further enlargement reached 51% of the respond-
ents. Opposition to enlargement is dominant in 15 member states,
led by Austria (75%), Germany (73%), Luxembourg (69%) and France
(67%) (Standard Eurobarometer 84 2015). Second, the new candidate
countries also face a more unfavourable constellation of intergovern-
mental preferences regarding future EU enlargement rounds. The 2005
and 2008 French constitutional revisions introduced the obligation for
France to hold a referendum on any further EU enlargement following
Croatia. An exception to this rule would only apply in case the French
Congress approves the ratification of an Accession treaty by a three-fifths
majority (Wunsch 2015). Lack of public support for enlargement in the
member states has put extra pressure on the policy makers and their pref-
erence formation regarding enlargement policy. Assuming that govern-
ments have become more responsive to public opinion in EU politics
and taking into account that some member states have announced to put
further accession treaties to a referendum, this negative public sentiment
reduces the credibility of the EU’s accession promise. For example, the
Dutch citizens rejected the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in a
referendum thus, becoming a significant veto force for advancing the rat-
ification process of the Agreement on behalf of the Union.
Intergovernmental conflict within the EU is also becoming more sali-
ent. In many instances, the likelihood of accession has been also severely
hit by the emergence of member-state veto players who have been able
to impose the resolution of their bilateral disputes with the candidate
countries as determinant conditions for advancement in the EU accession
process. Actions of this kind have led to severe distortions of the overall
dynamics of the enlargement process in the Western Balkans increasing
the uncertainty of the membership perspective. In a broader sense, inter-
nal EU opposition towards enlargement has become more prominent.
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  27

Whereas preparing the CEE countries for accession was the main
focus of the EU in the previous enlargement rounds, the EU has shown
less eagerness to grant membership to the countries from the Western
Balkans. The Commission activism towards future membership expan-
sion is much lower than in previous enlargement rounds (Phinnemore
2013). The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude
Juncker, announced that there would be no enlargement rounds during
his tenure. This trend has been symbolically underlined by the Council
decision to reduce the stature of the enlargement portfolio (now called
enlargement negotiations) in the new composition of the European
Commission by fusing it with the European Neighbourhood Policy port-
folio. The widespread “enlargement fatigue” in Western societies is part
of the reason for the EU’s decreased emphasis on future enlargements.
In addition, the EU has been confronted with both internal and external
challenges. Internally, the Euro crisis, the Brexit negotiations and the ref-
ugee crisis have shifted the attention of the EU member states away from
future membership expansion. Externally, the EU member states and
the Commission have been preoccupied with the Russian military inter-
vention in Ukraine and the subsequent unrest in the country. All these
events have overshadowed accession negotiations with the new candidate
countries from the Western Balkans.
Finally, the low credibility of the enlargement promise has also
affected the perceptions of domestic actors regarding the size of the
rewards. In particular, enlargement is now proceeding at a much slower
pace than in previous rounds. Most CEECs have moved from get-
ting a membership perspective within a little more than a decade (i.e.,
1993–2004). For the Western Balkans, only the accession of Croatia has
progressed in a similar time frame. As a result, the ultimate reward of
membership is in the distant future and way beyond the political horizon
of current governments. They are thus, unlikely to be the beneficiaries
of their efforts and therefore unwilling to tackle costly and unpopular
reforms.
Because the credibility of new EU enlargements is generally low, it
is questionable to what extent it plays an important role in explaining
differences in compliance between the countries of the Western Balkans.
Nevertheless, certain aspects of credibility, such as member states’ pub-
lic opinion are likely to vary across candidate states and affect the per-
ception of domestic leaders in the Western Balkans about their chances
of accession. The credibility of Croatia was arguably higher than the
28  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

other countries. In addition, some intergovernmental conflicts have

been partially resolved after candidate states agreed to meet the EU
demands (Croatian and Serbian cooperation with ICTY), while others
still remain. In 2016, Croatia on two occasions blocked the opening of
negotiation chapters with Serbia due to complaints about the treatment
of the Croatian minority in Serbia and its cooperation with The Hague
war crimes tribunal. On the other hand, Macedonia’s accession progress
remains in a deadlock due to the name dispute with Greece. Since 2009,
the European Council has ignored eight consecutive Commission rec-
ommendations for opening accession negotiations.

Domestic Capacity
As regards capacity, candidate states need both financial and administra-
tive resources to implement the EU accession requirements. In a com-
parative perspective, with the exception of Croatia, the Western Balkans
states are generally among the poorest and least developed in Europe.
Their economic performance over the past several years has been mod-
est, with low levels of economic growth in some cases and continuous
recession in others. Their economies have been marred by high levels of
unemployment, mismanagement of public finances, informal economy,
trade deficits and slow liberalisation of the market. Despite their contin-
uous efforts to reform the public sector, the ongoing transformation of
their robust bureaucracies has yielded mixed results. Politicisation of the
state apparatus and the low levels of meritocratic recruitment remain a
major obstacle for the process of professionalisation of the bureaucracy.
Uneven distribution of institutional reforms, political tensions, commu-
nist legacies, the rather ineffective enforcement of laws and high levels of
corruption seriously limit the effectiveness of governance and the over-
all process of state building. Some researchers have even problematised
the functioning of EU conditionality in the post-conflict societies in the
Western Balkans, due to the weakness and ethnicisation of the state-level
institutions (Aybet and Bieber 2011).
Croatia is considered to have the strongest capacities in the region
(even before its accession to the EU), followed by Serbia and Macedonia
(Börzel 2013). Conversely, Kosovo has the weakest administrative capac-
ity within the group of Western Balkan countries. Albania and Bosnia-
Herzegovina are in the middle group (Börzel 2011). There are also likely
to be differences over time and across issue areas, with some countries
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  29

gaining more resources from the Commission to implement particular

reforms, while neglecting progress in others. For example, Mendelski
(2013) shows that financial resources allocated to the judiciary in Serbia
have improved over time. However, the latest 2016 Special report on the
“EU pre-accession assistance for strengthening administrative capacities
in the Western Balkans” revealed that “the Commission did not apply
conditionality sufficiently and relatively little IPA I funding was provided
in key areas of the rule of law, such as media freedom, public prosecution
and the fight against corruption and organised crime” (European Court
of Auditors 2016). Roughly €485 million was invested in ‘rule of law’
projects, whereas the Commission allocated only 0.5% of total alloca-
tions to funding media freedom and civil society in the Western Balkans.
The percentage of funds allocated to the fight against corruption and
organised crime and support for public prosecution services is 2 and 1%
respectively (ibid.).

Domestic Adoption Costs

The candidate countries from the Western Balkans are also challenged
by high domestic adoption costs in terms of opposition and resistance
to compliance with EU conditions. Previous research on the accession
of the CEE countries has broadly distinguished between governmental
and societal veto points. Governmental veto points relate to the extent
to which parties in government can block or delay compliance by threat-
ening to leave the coalition (Schimmelfennig et al. 2006). Societal
veto points refer to powerful interest groups or movements, which are
needed for compliance and/or can credibly threaten to disrupt pub-
lic order or thwart the government’s re-election prospects. In general,
a candidate state is considered to face high domestic costs if there are
Eurosceptic parties in government or parliament and societal attitudes
are not in favour of EU membership. On the one hand, if we only
consider these aspects of domestic costs, the number of domestic veto
players in the Western Balkan countries appears to be small. Generally
speaking, there is no significant variation in the preferences of both
political and societal actors in regards to the prospect of EU member-
ship of their countries. Within each country-specific party system either
there are no significant Eurosceptic parties at all, or they have gradually
become supporters of the accession process. On the societal level, pub-
lic opinion has been highly supportive of the EU accession process.
30  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

On the other hand, the EU-induced political conditionality in the

Western Balkans in most cases directly affects extremely sensitive issues
of national and ethnic identity and statehood (Freyburg and Richter
2010; Subotic 2010; Schimmelfennig 2008; Noutcheva 2009; Elbasani
2013, Gordon et al. 2013). Despite the absence of Eurosceptic parties,
nationalist and non-Western identities are much stronger in some of
the current candidates and make compliance with EU conditions less
acceptable (Freyburg and Richter 2010).
Sensitive issues related to the cooperation with the ICTY and the ter-
ritorial dispute with Slovenia in the case of Croatia; cooperation with
the ICTY and the status of Kosovo in the case of Serbia; the implemen-
tation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement and the name dispute with
Greece in the case of Macedonia have (had) a detrimental effect on soci-
etal cohesion and political consensus in the respective states and have
at times produced complete deadlocks in the accession process. Ceteris
paribus, they have the potential to cause serious societal opposition and
significantly increase the political costs of the government, which could
be faced with extensive popular revolt and loss of power if it complies
with the EU demands. In addition, EU-supportive governments may not
be willing to reform institutions that operate in a way that is favoura-
ble to their political and electoral interests. For example, Giandomenico
(2013) argues that extensive electoral reforms were only superficially
implemented by the governments and clientelistic structures still put
pressure on voters. Finally, in the absence of openly Eurosceptic par-
ties, other types of domestic veto players appear to have a larger role in
some Western Balkan countries than in the previous Eastern enlargement
rounds. For instance, the decentralised political system of Bosnia and
Herzegovina creates multiple veto points that have blocked the progress
of this country towards enlargement. In short, we expect that domestic
costs are likely to play an important role in explaining state compliance in
the Western Balkans.

Discussion: Alternative Sources of Europeanisation

in the Western Balkans

In sum, the state of research is characterised by rather consistent find-

ings regarding Europeanisation in Eastern enlargement that support
the external incentives model and emphasise the relevance of credible
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  31

accession conditionality under relatively benign domestic conditions in

the candidate countries. There is also general agreement that most of the
conditions of effective conditionality are weaker in the Western Balkans.
Whereas the determinacy of EU conditions has improved, compliance
with these conditions is likely to be hindered by the lower credibility
of the accession perspective, lower state and governance capacities and
higher political and financial costs. Despite these unfavourable condi-
tions, the accession process in the past decade has progressed slowly but
steadily. Croatia joined the EU in 2013. Montenegro and Serbia started
accession negotiations in 2012 and 2014, respectively. Macedonia has
been a candidate since 2005 with a positive recommendation from the
European Commission to open accession negotiations since 2009 (con-
ditional in 2015 and 2016), whereas Albania for the first time received
a conditional recommendation from the Commission to open acces-
sion negotiations in 2016. Furthermore, the Commission progress
reports show that at least some countries from the Western Balkans (i.e.,
Albania) have maintained and even improved their compliance records
with the EU acquis despite lower prospects for membership (Noutcheva
and Aydin-Düzgit 2012).
These developments point towards the existence of alternative factors
of compliance with EU conditions. The literature has put forward and
discussed alternative mechanisms of rule promotion: capacity-building
and transnational coalition-building. “Capacity-building” is a strategy
that seeks to close the capacity gap undermining EU conditionality
(Börzel 2011). To some extent, financial aid, administrative expertise
and other forms of capacity-building can make up for structural defi-
cits of candidate countries. Moreover, the EU may be able to ‘buy off’
resistance by veto players or persuade them to change their preferences
through participation in transnational coalitions. On the one hand, the
EU may differentially empower such coalitions to overcome domestic
veto points by offering incentives for collaboration and providing them
with financial and organisational resources. On the other hand, such
coalitions help the EU to increase local knowledge, identify adequate
developmental goals for non-member countries and design effective ways
to achieve them (Bruszt and McDermott 2012; Bruszt and Langbein
2014). In this way, transnational coalitions improve the EU’s incentives
and capacity-building measures; they increase the pool of beneficiar-
ies from rule alignment (Bruszt and Langbein 2014) and they have the
32  A. ZHELYAZKOVA ET AL.

potential to strengthen and uphold the legitimacy of the EU and its poli-
cies during the enlargement process.
Whereas capacity-building and coalition-building have not featured in
the original external incentives model, they are easy to integrate because
they are also largely based on the manipulation of cost-benefit assess-
ments in the target countries. Capacity-building lowers adoption costs
and thus helps to achieve a positive cost-benefit balance. However, it is
more likely to help with the lack of technical or administrative expertise
than with buying off political and power-related costs. Transnational coa-
lition-building changes the societal veto player structure. In contrast, it
is generally difficult for the EU to empower and mobilise societal actors
against resistance at the political and governmental level.
Moreover, the original external incentives model has focused on
accession and association as incentives targeted at the candidate states
as a whole. In addition, however, the EU can induce compliance with
the EU acquis through the use of policy-related conditionality, thus
offsetting the drawbacks from the lack of a credible membership per-
spective in the countries from the Western Balkans (Trauner 2009;
Renner and Trauner 2009). For example, Trauner (2009) argues that
the mechanisms of Europeanisation identified for the CEE countries
are useful but not sufficient to fully explain the EU’s external influ-
ence on the Western Balkans. Policy-related conditionality can induce
Europeanisation by offering intermediate rewards in exchange for
candidate states’ compliance with specific EU policies. For example,
in offering more relaxed travel conditions in exchange for the signing
of an EC readmission agreement and reforming domestic Justice and
Home Affairs policies, the EU could counterbalance the shortcomings
of membership conditionality and establish an additional avenue of
external leverage (Trauner 2009).
In short, several studies suggest that the external incentives model is
a useful starting point for explaining the Europeanisation process in the
Western Balkans. However, the relatively low credibility of membership
in all Western Balkan countries (with the exception of Croatia) points
towards the relevance of additional factors that could explain and pro-
mote the continuous process of rule adoption in new candidate states.
Future research should also strive to identify the empirical relevance of
these factors.
 2  EUROPEAN UNION CONDITIONALITY IN THE WESTERN BALKANS …  33

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 CHAPTER 3

Chips off the Old Block: Europeanisation

of the Foreign Policies of Western Balkan
States

Ana Bojinović Fenko and Bernhard Stahl

Introduction
In the summer and autumn of 2015, the migrant crisis which was pre-
viously linked to the Mediterranean, hit Southeastern Europe. Not only
got the Brussels system under stress, all countries along the “Balkan
route” had trouble dealing with the substantial increase of migrants, and
even the biggest member state, Germany, struggled with the large num-
ber of migrants arriving in the country. Yet, human rights concerns and
intense public debates on the European Union (EU, also the Union) vs.
member states’ obligations, immigration, and asylum superseded another
analytical value of the case. It is rare that a crisis touches upon member

A. Bojinović Fenko 
Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
e-mail: [email protected]
B. Stahl (*) 
University of Passau, Passau, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 39

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_3
40  A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

states and non-member states/candidate countries alike and leads them

to common action. This is why the migrant crisis of 2015 looks perfectly
suited to grasp different aspects of Europeanisation. For instance, differ-
ent levels of integration—EU member state, member of Schengen area,
candidate country—provide for a nuanced socialization argument. Our
analysis starts in June 2015 when the migrant crisis became more severe
and we will cease with the West-Balkan conference in Vienna on 24 of
February 2016. Following common wisdom, the conference results led
to a blockage of the Balkans route and the migration crisis came to an
end (for the region).
Three arguments support the idea to conceive of a migration crisis
as a case of Europeanisation of foreign policy. First, as an institutional
argument, Art 78(3) TEU states that “(i)n the event of one or more
Member States being confronted by an emergency situation character-
ised by a sudden inflow of nationals of third countries, the Council, on a
proposal from the Commission, may adopt provisional measures for the
benefit of the Member State(s) concerned. It shall act after consulting
the European Parliament.” As this decision-making procedure did not
apply, the European Council crisis decision-making took over, exercising
the decision-making rules practiced in EU foreign policymaking. Second,
content-wise, the migration crisis became a serious security issue for the
entire Southeastern Europe region and the EU alike due to the ineffec-
tive regulation and implementation of EU immigration policy. Finally, as
the origin of the challenge and partially its initial management originated
outside of EU borders, the “foreign” character of the matter resulted
in decision-making procedures resembling foreign policy issues—the
Commission could have proposed a solution but the member states
rather resorted to European Council consultations. In the very extreme,
as even the European Council did not show signs of effective crisis man-
agement for months, the EU as an organization seemed ineffective to
tackle the challenge and some of the most affected EU member states
resorted to unilateral foreign policy actions.
Hence, the relevant research question is: to what extent is this
“domestic impact of the EU” different in the case of foreign policy?
Focusing only on foreign policy content, one would presume that the
fact of non-binding EU legislation in the field of Common Foreign
and Security Policy (CFSP) plays a role. Due to the intergovernmen-
tal decision-making method and political rather than legal sanctions for
non-implementation, or the so-called intensive transgovernmentalism
 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  41

politics (Wallace and Wallace 2007, p. 245), the domestic impact of CFSP
is expected to be weaker than in the field of real common, i.e. commu-
niterized policies. However, some degrees of “increasing salience of
European political agenda, adherence to common objectives, common
policy obligations taking priority over national domaines réservés and inter-
nalisation of EU membership” (Wong and Hill 2011, p. 7) would have
to be present in national foreign policy content (foreign policy strategy
and decisions). For our research problem, a second question is pertinent
here: does Europeanisation via accession process apply to the Western
Balkans’ non-member states in any different way than to EU mem-
ber states? One would assume that due to the nature of CFSP content,
non-member states would not have different conditions to adopt norma-
tive policy principles or common EU positions than member states. In
the accession process, the candidate state aligns its national foreign pol-
icy to CFSP in Chapter 31 of the accession negotiation framework titled
“Foreign, security and defence policy”.
The structure of the article is as follows: In the following theoreti-
cal part, we will highlight some implications of the Europeanisation of
foreign policies, denote caveats of the concept and present our under-
standing of its logic (summarized in Table 3.1). In our case study, we
will focus on the policy level of Europeanisation by sketching the pol-
icies of the countries involved, mainly Germany, Austria, Slovenia,
Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, and Hungary. Finally, we will
revisit our findings highlighting that the official relation of a state to
the EU’s immigration policy (EU and Schengen member state; EU
but not Schengen member state; and only EU candidate state) does
not uniformly determine the effects of the Europeanisation of states’
foreign policies. Rather, we will demonstrate that for candidate states,
Europeanisation effects are comparable or even stronger than for some
EU member states.

Europeanisation of Foreign Policies

In the following, we will approach the subject from three different
angles: the empirical-phenomenological, the normative-analytical, and
the theoretical—the latter will also cover the issue of the causal path-
way and implications for Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA). Empirically, we
first ask, what is “Europeanisation of foreign policy” (if we see it)? If
anything, the analytical term only makes sense when we assume that it
42  A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

means foreign policy change. A rather superficial look at the traditional

literature of foreign policy change already reveals the basic problematique
involved. Where can we analytically locate foreign policy change (cf.
Herrmann 1990; Rosati et al. 1994)? In a simple manner, we may con-
ceive of foreign policy change as change of foreign policy behaviour and
policies. Yet, foreign policy change might occur on a deeper level such as
foreign policy goals, or even on the identity/culture level. To complicate
the issue, changes on these deeper levels must not immediately trans-
late in behavioural change: Germany’s no immigration policy after 1993
looked rock-solid for 20 years and did not show any signs of change.
Yet, when state authorities collapsed under the influx of refugees in
2015, a “welcome culture” came to the fore which demonstrated that
the attitudes of some parts of the population have been undergoing
significant change. Thus, change may occur on different societal levels
which do not necessarily show up in behaviour (catching-up change,
preceding change). Considering this caveat we move to the analyti-
cal-normative perspective of Europeanisation.
Indeed, to uncover change demands a comparison. A dynamic
state-specific comparison, though, does not tell us much. For instance,
stating that Slovenia’s foreign policy today differs from its foreign pol-
icy in 1995 looks trivial without external reference points. The term
“Europeanisation” already indicates that the benchmark is the European
Union. Surprisingly, the réferéntiel problem of any Europeanisation
process has not been explicitly covered in the literature. The analytical
bridge of introducing “convergence” as clarifying what Europeanisation
of foreign policies should mean does not solve the normative refer-
ence problem. For foreign policies, one might ask whether the EU’s
proper foreign policy or member states’ foreign policies represent
the référentiel? For the first, we might compare Serbia’s foreign policy
with the ideal-type EU as a “normative power” (Manners 2002). By so
doing, we would probably find unfinished business regarding Serbia’s
Europeanisation. Yet, a comparison of Serbia’s foreign policy with
the real-type EU foreign policy, e.g. vis-à-vis the dictatorships of the
Southern Mediterranean might reveal that Serbia’s foreign policy looks
perfectly Europeanised. In any case, the analyst should pay attention not
to fall into the “lamenting trap”: When lamenting that EU foreign policy
looks deficient we should recall Joergensen’s classic plea not to implicitly
compare the EU’s foreign policy with the one of an Empire (Joergensen
1998).
 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  43

If we presume that EU foreign policy should not serve as a reference

point but the member states, one might ask: To whom shall Serbia’s for-
eign policy converge? To Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, or Germany? Since
comparisons with real-type models look not overtly convincing we may
address an ideal-type référentiel. Yet again—making use of the argu-
ment raised above—to assess whether a country’s foreign policy looks
“Europeanised” would then require to compare it to an ideal-type for-
eign policy, e.g. civilian power (Maull 1990) or small states (Hey 2003).
The Europeanisation literature—and here we are entering the theo-
retical aspect—has tried to escape these tricky questions by narrowing
the focus and becoming “pragmatic”: Considering the very power-
ful EU and its rhetorical aims of change, there should be processes of
change—obviously, the empire metaphor looks like a standard assump-
tion. Furthermore, the political requirements of the Copenhagen crite-
ria evidently set the stage for the theoretical approach. This assumption,
though, was also transferred to the Eastern partnership where member-
ship was practically excluded and those Western Balkan states with which
the negotiations are not opened yet (Börzel 2011)—and the take-over of
the acquis has remained scarce.1
In addition, Europeanisation has been modelled as a process entail-
ing causal pathways from the EU (mostly the European Commission, if
not “Brussels”) to and in the neighbouring state and vice versa. From
the beginning of the use of Europeanisation concept in the 1990s, there
has been high diversity in what is being measured as a dependent and
independent variable at the two “ends” of this process, for instance,
“the Brussels process”, the domestic impact of the latter or the result
of mutual effects of both ends. Researchers of the phenomenon have
since come to an agreement to apply these three paths or dimensions of
Europeanisation via universal computer-language terms referring to the
direction of the process—uploading, downloading, and cross-loading
(Wong and Hill 2011). Moreover, an ontological convention has been
formed on “what exactly” is the explanandum of Europeanisation pro-
cess, referring to policymaking (institutions, formal roles, agents’ com-
petences and procedures; more generally politics) (Ladrech 1994, p. 17;

1 The Stabilization and Association agreements only prepare for the negotiations: “they

(…) identify common political and economic objectives and encourage regional co-operation.
In the context of accession to the European Union, the agreement serves as the basis for imple-
mentation of the accession process” (EC 2018).
44  A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

Tonra 2001), and to policy outcomes (rules, norms; more generally

­policy content) (Hix and Goetz 2000). Some studies have then pointed
out that this process-based ontology of alternating between the EU and
member states as structure and as agency opened a larger epistemolog-
ical issue on causal mechanisms that perform change in politics or pol-
icy with the dependent variable (either the EU or member state level).
Nevertheless, empirically, most Europeanisation studies have grounded
in policy analysis and comparative politics approaches framed within mul-
tilevel governance. In this respect, the dependent variable was mostly
the so-called domestic impact, namely national politics, institutions, and
policy change (Börzel and Risse 2007). This represents all types of top-
down effects of the EU on member states, e.g. national adaptation, social
and economic modernization, elite socialization, or identity reconstruc-
tion, as summarized by Wong (2011, pp. 150–154).
Operationalization of Europeanisation downloading research would
not seem too difficult to carry out as Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA)—a
sub-discipline of International Relations (IR) dealing with state behav-
iour in world politics—has produced many approached clustered by
Carlsnaes (2012) into process and policy oriented. The latter refers
directly to analytical framework of process- and policy-linked effects of
Europeanisation. The main difference between FPA approaches is that
they are based on a presupposition of agency-driven state decision-mak-
ing, thus they omit the above explanation of Europeanisation (EU level
influence) as independent variable. The latter would simply be termed
external environment of a state’s foreign policy which influences state
decision-making via decision-makers’ interpretation of factors which then
enables or prevents certain foreign policy options to become decisions
(Hill 2016, pp. 183–192). FPA approaches to Europeanisation would
thus be conceptually complementary to downloading Europeanisation; if
(for analytical purposes) internal and external material and semi-material
environmental factors (Hill 2016, p. 176) were to be entirely omitted.
Yet, following the argument that domestic sources of policymak-
ing are the essence of FPA (Hudson 2014), FPA approaches would
have much stronger explanatory power (and understanding relevance)
if the dependent variable was reversed, namely in case of the upload-
ing Europeanisation path. Uploading refers to state influence on
other member states, state attempts to increase influence in the world
(using the EU as a multiplier or lever), and the state using the EU as
an umbrella (Wong and Hill 2011, p. 7). At this point, Bojinović Fenko
 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  45

and Lovec (2015) illustrate the value added of epistemological choice

by IR (including FPA) approaches; the question of whether national
projection alias member states’ behaviour and policy standpoints at the
EU level derive from their rational choice (interest-based behaviour via
logic of consequences), or from meaningful choice (based on internal-
ization of EU norms, behaviour via logic of appropriateness). In this
context, rational choice theory, liberal intergovernmentalism, and social
constructivism respectively have prevailed for empirical operation-
alization purposes. If looking at the projection of national interests to
the CFSP, i.e. EU-level, one presumes that the logic of appropriateness
would definitely prevail in case of member states’ national projection.
The argument is that internalising EU norms is supposed to be a long-
term socialization process affecting interpretation of national interest via
identity-based argumentation (Manners and Whitman 2000, pp. 7–8).
EU member states would have to demonstrate a cross-loading coordina-
tion reflex, shared definition of national and EU interest, emergence of
shared norms among national policymaking elites on international poli-
tics and the so-called “pendulum effect” in cases of extreme national and
EU positions (Wong and Hill 2011, p. 7). In comparison, the Western
Balkan non-member states’ national projection of foreign policy goals to
the EU level is, on the one hand, their general EU membership aspi-
ration and, on the other, the narrower aspect of CFSP-related national
goals. In the second case, one expects that the goals are less internalized
and demonstrate a mere interest-based argumentation, a logic of appro-
priateness following a rational cost-benefit analysis. Generally, Western
Balkans national policymaking elites are expected to display at least
some degree of EU shared norms on international politics as the wider
European system of states historically withhold a particular regional
experience with application of international legal principles at least on
state sovereignty—this actually is the political interpretation of the first
EU accession condition, namely to be a European state (TEU, Art. 49).
However, in the case of extreme national and EU positions, a non-EU
member state is expected to lean into the EU position due to national
interest cost-benefit analysis if the general EU membership goal upload-
ing is in question; this has widely been proven by the EU conditional-
ity and normative power effects in the accession negotiations, also in the
case of Western Balkans states (Noutcheva 2012; Elbasani 2013; Keil
and Stahl 2014). A conceptual scheme of analysing Europeanisation
of foreign policy content in EU member states and in Western Balkan
non-member states is summarized here below.
46  A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

Table 3.1  Conceptual scheme of analysing Europeanisation of foreign policy

content in EU member states and in Western Balkans non-member states

Downloading Uploading Cross-Loading

EU CFSP related princi- member state shared definition

ples, declarations and contributes to a of national and EU
standpoints common EU foreign interest, shared
policy norms on interna-
tional politics
Member state internalization: influence on other – coordination,
– salience of EU member states, – promotion of
political agenda, attempts to increase common EU
– adherence to EU influence in the interests,
objectives, world based on – pendulum effect
– EU policy obliga- meaningful choice in cases of extreme
tions taking over (national identity national and EU
(internalized norm, positions,
trust, logic of – national policy-
appropriateness) making elites share
norms on interna-
tional politics
Western Balkans influence on other – pendulum effect
non-member state member states, in cases of extreme
attempts to increase national and EU
influence in the positions,
world based on – national policy-
rational choice making elites share
(national interest norms on interna-
cost-benefit, logic of tional politics
consequences)

Source Authors’ literature review summary

Case Study: The Migrant Crisis 2015

Context
After having successfully completed the Single market and enabled the
free movement of people, the EU had to effectively deal with regulation
and management of individuals who have access to the market. Thus, it
 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  47

had envisaged an immigration policy (the Treaty on Functioning of the

EU—TFEU, Chapter 2, art. 79). However in 2015, this system has
proven incapable of “ensuring, at all stages, the efficient management of
migration flows” (ibid.), as, for instance, differentiating between individ-
uals who might want to enter the EU as workforce and individuals who
want to enter the EU as asylum seekers proved impossible. The pressure
to “do something” regarding people who show up on the EU’s borders
stems from two structural constraints. First, externally, the EU has sub-
scribed to the Geneva Convention which foresees to harbour refugees.
Second, the common goal of the Amsterdam treaty to create a common
space of freedom, security, and justice also means to create a Common
European Asylum System (CEAS). Hence, the Dublin Regulation
(Regulation 604/2013)2 determines the EU Member State responsi-
ble to examine an application for asylum seekers seeking international
protection under the Geneva Convention. It is complemented by the
EURODAC Regulation which establishes a Europe-wide fingerprinting
database for un-authorized entrants to the EU. The Dublin Regulation
aims to determine the Member State responsible for an asylum claim
and provides for the transfer of an asylum seeker to that Member State.
Usually, the responsible Member State will be the state through which
the asylum seeker first entered the EU.
It is important to note what the Dublin system does not cover. There
is neither a system of distribution for refugees,3 nor any complementary
way to legally enter the Union as a migrant. This turned out to be highly
problematic since the Schengen agreements allow for free movement of
people within the Schengen space. Thus, refugees cannot effectively be
hindered to leave the members state which is responsible for them fol-
lowing the Dublin regulation.
As early as in 2011, Greece’s membership in the Dublin sys-
tem was de facto suspended by the rulings of the European Court of

2 Also called Dublin III Regulation; previously the Dublin II Regulation and Dublin

Convention, cf. Council Regulation (EC) No. 343/2003 of 18 February 2003 establishing
the criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining
an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States by a third-country national.
Official Journal of the European Union. L (50/1), 25 February 2003.
3 Under the impression of the migration crisis in 2015, the Council established a mod-

est distribution system by making use of Qualitative Majority Voting (EU 2015/1601).
Slovakia’s and Hungary’s objections against the Council decision were rejected by the
European Court of Justice on 6 September 2017.
48  A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

Human Rights (case MSS v Belgium and Greece followed by the

Bundesverfassungsgericht and other national courts) due to the coun-
try’s lack of capacity to effectively manage border controls and harbor
refugees. Yet this went largely unnoticed in the EU’s publics. When the
Syrian imbroglio deepened and Assad hardened conscription laws pres-
sure increased on the Balkans route to the EU. The migrants started in
Turkey and entered Greece, passed through Macedonia and Serbia and
headed further north via Hungary to Austria and Germany. An alterna-
tive passage—especially after Hungary effectively closed its borders—
comprised Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia before arriving in Austria.
Analytically and normatively, we are not saying that all the countries
along the passage should have complied with the Dublin accord—also
considering that such an assumption would be legally debatable. Yet
admittedly, the incentives to do so were strong considering the safe third
country concept, the provisions of the Stabilization and Association
Agreements and the negotiating chapters of the acquis—not mentioning
the political cost for a small country to depart from the EU’s acquis. If
the download effect works, we would expect compliance following the
incentive route of obligations. “Uploads” in this case are primarily meas-
ured inside the EU system by candidate countries or members states
aiming at altering the rules. “Cross-loads” is foreign policy behaviour
directed at other EU member or candidate states with taking the EU
norms and rules into consideration with the aim of finding a common
beneficial solution for the EU and relevant states. We shall thus inves-
tigate how the EU member states and Western Balkans non-member
countries in the EU accession process have tackled the migration chal-
lenge. In particular, we are interested in what norms they interpreted as
guidelines for their foreign policy actions and what rules can be observed
as their expected foreign policy behaviour. As a normative ground, in this
case, we identify EU norms such as

• the “efficient management of migration flows” (Art 79 TFEU),

• the “prevention of illegal immigration” (Art 79 TFEU),
• “(t)he policies of the Union and their implementation shall be gov-
erned by the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility”
(Art 80 TFEU),
• the establishment and maintenance of “a common system of tem-
porary protection for displaced persons in the event of a massive
inflow” (Art 78(c) TFEU),
 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  49

• “carrying out checks on persons and efficient monitoring of the

crossing of external borders” (Art 77(b) TEU) and
• effective and fair management of asylum seekers according to the
Regulation (2013).

The Crisis
In the summer of 2015, the number of refugees following the Balkans
route to Germany (and Sweden) steadily increased: From 70,000 in
June to 107,000 in July (Economist 22/8/2015). For the first eight
months of the year, more than 400,000 claims for asylum were claimed
in Germany alone. On 10 June, Fabrice Leggeri, director of Frontex,
warned the German Bundestag that irregular entries to Greece increased
by 550% from 2014 to 2015 (Aust et al. 2015). On 24 August 2015,
Germany decided to make use of the “sovereignty clause” to voluntarily
assume responsibility for processing Syrian asylum applications for which
it is not otherwise responsible under the criteria of the Regulation (aida
2015a). Germany’s behaviour impacted on the transition countries of
the Balkans route in two ways. On the one hand, it absorbed the refu-
gees on the way but also attracted new ones by signalling the thousands
in the refugee camps in Turkey and elsewhere that a journey through
the Balkans might pay off. That is why Austria and Hungary criticized
Merkel’s “wir-schaffen-das” approach while the Commission assessed the
move as an “act of solidarity” demonstrating that the border countries
are not left alone (cf. Dernbach 2015). On the other hand, Germany’s
and especially Austria’s later return to the Dublin accord immediately
put enormous pressure on the transit countries since the refugees could
not leave them towards the EU anymore.
Greece, unable to cope with the massive influx of refugees, let
the refugees go to Macedonia. Mitko Cavkov, Macedonia’s Interior
Minister, heavily criticized Greece for that and lamented that the num-
ber of migrants had tripled in one year—with 2000–3000 people trying
to enter every day (Voice of America 2015). Since many refugees had
illegally crossed the Greek-Macedonian border and walked through
the country by night, the government changed its immigration laws.
Pressured by human rights groups the parliament passed a law which
granted three-days travel visa to refugees in mid-June (Taylor 2015). By
so doing, the country already departed from the Dublin accord. This was
surprising to some extent since the incentives to abide by the rules were
50  A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

strong (Andeva and Nechev 2015, p. 41; Smilevska 2012, p. 5). This did
not mean, though, that Macedonia stuck to unilateral action but pre-
ferred ongoing bilateral and multilateral cooperation. Despite the visa
change, the country was so much challenged by the thousands trespass-
ing that the Macedonian government declared the state of emergency
on 21 August. In retrospect, president Ivanov stressed, Macedonia was
forced to act alone since the EU was unable to manage the crisis. His
bitterness became evident when he pointed to the aid for Greece while
Macedonia “does not get a cent”—Macedonia would mean noth-
ing to Brussels: “no EU, no Schengen, no NATO, nobody wants us”
(SPIEGEL 2016). Similar to the EU, the Macedonian policy triggered
very negative assessments: “The response of the Macedonian authorities to
the crisis was as chaotic and disorganised as the common EU approach to the
crisis appears to be” (Spasov 2016).
In addition, evaluations point to the very low standards of asylum
and the extremely low number of admittances (10 out of 1200 in 2014)
(aida 2015b, p. 29). In November 2015, the bilateral relations between
Greece and Macedonia worsened again when Macedonian border guards
started to build a fence and the government announced to limit the
passage to Syrians, Iraqis, and Afghanis. This was heavily criticised by
UNHCR with regard to international law (Lehmann 2015).
As early as of 23 June, Hungary objected to receiving any refugees
who were detained in other EU countries (Than and Nasralla 2015).
The government decided to build a fence of 175 km in order to deter
refugees. Overburdened by the migrants, the government enabled some
thousands of refugees to continue their voyage to Germany and Austria
by the end of August. Media attention grew when 71 people were found
dead in Austria in an empty van coming from Budapest. In the begin-
ning of September, the Hungarian government closed the Budapest rail-
way station for people without valid EU visa. Thousand two hundred
stranded asylum seekers then departed by foot (4 September). Following
an ad hoc agreement between German, Austrian, and Hungarian gov-
ernments, 4500 people were transported to the German border by
bus. The government decided to close the borders both with Serbia
(15 September) and Croatia (16 October), and initiated plans to build
another fence on its border with Romania. After clashes with refugees
even on Serbian territory tensions with Serbia grew and the border had
to be opened five days later (Lilyanova 2016, p. 7). Hungary’s Foreign
Minister Peter Szijjarto stated: “that every member-state of the EU should
 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  51

honor the Dublin Regulation when dealing with immigrants, stressing

that the fence that was being put up along the Hungarian border with
Serbia was not aimed against Serbia” (Tanjug 2015). The Serbian for-
eign minister Ivica Dačić assessed the situation as being “unacceptable”
and a state secretary with the Serbia Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs
envisioned to deploy soldiers to its border to prevent Hungary sending
back migrants: “If they want to send them back, they’ll have to send them
back to Greece. That was the first country of entry into the EU. We will not
accept them even at the price of Serbia deploying soldiers to its border” (Beta
and Tanjug 2015). This clearly reveals that the Serbian government still
abided by the Dublin rules, yet not recognizing that sending refugees
back to Greece was neither legally nor practically possible any more.
Remarkably, the EU remained largely silent when asked for help. The
European Commission spokesperson Natasha Berto only stated that the
EU “has a readmission agreement with Serbia,” and that she “does not
know whether Hungary has a separate bilateral agreement on returning
asylum seekers”—so she “could not make a comment” (ibid.).
Since mid-September, pressure spilled over to the Serbian-Croatian
border due to the measures of the Hungarian government. Until the
end of October, 10,000 people were stranded at the border post in
Slavonia. As a consequence, tensions between the two countries grew
and Belgrade warned to go for a trade war if Croatia would not move
(Juvanovic 2015). In November, Serbia and Croatia finally agreed to
transport refugees from Serbia to Croatia by train.
Overall, Serbia was praised for its policy in the migrant crisis. The
European Commission report spoke of “a very constructive role in man-
aging the migration crisis” (EC 2015a, p. 4) and of Serbia making “a
substantial effort to ensure that third country nationals transiting through
the country received shelter and humanitarian supplies, with EU sup-
port as well as the support of others” (ibid., 6). Following the European
Parliament, Serbia “has acted as an EU partner committed to coopera-
tion and regional stability” (ibid., 1), no wonder that “the EU defined
Serbia as a key partner in finding a sustainable solution to the migrant
crisis”. In general, though, the country received “criticism for inade-
quately implementing its asylum legislation” (EP 2016, p. 5). This criti-
cism is shared by the NGO AIDA which points to the lack of registration,
lack of access to the procedures and suitable accommodation. This fake
compliance behaviour might be generalized following the AIDA report:
“Instead of solving deficiencies in the respective asylum systems, national
52  A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

authorities, notably in Hungary, Serbia and FYROM, prefer to acknowl-

edge the unwillingness of asylum seekers to apply for international pro-
tection in their country and continue to violate international obligations
to ensure access to international protection” (aida 2015b, pp. 29–30).
In Slovenia, an EU and Schengen member state with an external EU
border with Croatia, the migration flows were taken into consideration
fully within the issue management at the EU level.4 At the time, Slovenia
was not considered as a migrant route. In May 2015, the Ministry for
Interior supported the 4-pillar initiative of the European Commission,
with a reservation made by the Prime Minister, Miroslav Cerar, with ref-
erence to refugee quotas being defined on the basis of voluntary soli-
darity, exposing limited capabilities of Slovenia as a small member state
(RTVSLO MMC 2015a; Vlada RS 2015a). However, as the Hungarian
government had closed its borders, the migrant flow was steered towards
Slovenia. Here, considerations were not only towards state security and
migrants’ human rights while enabling their transit but also a possibil-
ity for Slovenia to become a so-called “pocket” for migrants, should
Austria decide to close down its borders as well. In September, the Prime
Minister reiterated the self-identification of Slovenia as the guardian of
not only a domestic but an EU external border (Vlada RS 2015b). As for
migrants’ transition in October 2016, the Croatian government did not
collaborate with the Slovenian on optimal terms as migrants were being
transported in buses and trains up to the Slovenian border unannounced
and way outside the agreed daily number of 5000 people (RTVSLO
MMC 2015b). In these circumstances, the Slovenian Parliament took
three decisions: the first was the National Assembly decision of 20
October 2015, amending the Law on Defence with a clause enabling the
Slovenian Army to receive special police powers if demanded by secu-
rity circumstances. The second was the government’s decision on 9
November 2015 to set up “technical barriers” (as Prime Minister Cerar
repeatedly called them), i.e. a fence in a selected border line between
Slovenia and Croatia. The third decision was that of the National
Assembly on 22 February 2016, to activate the article of the Law on
Defence introduced by the abovementioned 2015 amendment empow-
ering the Slovenian Army with special police powers for a period of three
months. The rationality for these decisions may be summed up from the

4 At-the-time management of a bilateral border dispute (Bojinović Fenko and Šabič

2014) did not overshadow the issue.

 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  53

Opinion of the President of the Republic, Borut Pahor, presented at the

extraordinary session of the National Assembly on 4 November 2015
(DRŽAVNI ZBOR 2015):

In the situation, the primary concern is human dignity. Demanding as it is,

Slovenia needs to show a human face and strengthen noble human virtues.
First comes the humane treatment of refugees and migrants, second is
acceptance of all measures to assure order and state security. […] We have
a duty to help people in their dire life situation […] We also have a duty to
refrain in our debates from standpoints, sentences and statements, which
could be understood by anyone as intolerant or insulting. […] Should cir-
cumstances occur for Slovenia to start becoming a pocket for the migra-
tion flow, it is of strategic national interest that at no cost the border of the
most integrated part of the EU is to be moved from our Southern border
to the Karavanke. (i.e. to the North, which would leave Slovenia out)

In January 2016, the Prime Minister had called for a common EU solu-
tion and thus presented to Chancellor Merkel of Germany a suggestion
of enhanced cooperation at the EU external border with Turkey and at
the Greek-Macedonian border (Vlada RS 2016). The EU praised the
Slovenian role and dedication in managing the migrant crisis with fully
implementing regulation of the external border regime. But as the EU
institutions had been working too slowly, the Prime Minister proposed in
February 2016 an initiative of closer police cooperation between Austria,
Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia (RTVSLO MMC 2016).
In October 2015, the EU met with the Western Balkan states in order
to draft a plan for mitigating the numbers and coping with the situation.
In a so-called “17 point plan of action” (EC 2015b). The plan foresaw
better information between states, offered grants and assistance for pro-
viding shelter for the refugees, strengthened border cooperation in par-
ticular between Greece and Macedonia (including cooperation with the
UNHCR), and enhancing border controls by making use of Frontex.
Since the influx of migrants to Greece remained the main source of
the immediate problem, the EU started to negotiate with Turkey. On 30
November, both sides agreed on an “action plan” which—among many
other issues—entailed substantial financial assistance for Turkey and a
“Refugee Facility for Turkey” (ECo 2015). As a consequence, Turkey
promised to withhold refugees which was meant to substantially reduce
the number of migrants entering Greece.
54  A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

Yet in effect, the EU remained paralyzed since the distribution sys-

tem did not work and Germany was busy to receive about one million
people. It was then Austria which took the initiative and invited nine
Viségrad and Western Balkans countries (foreign and interior minis-
ters) to find additional measures to stop the influx. Vienna had already
received some criticism from Brussels when announcing a cap on the
number of incoming migrants (37,500 refugees per year, 80 for asylum
in Austria, 3200 to move on to Germany). “We have to reduce the influx
now,” (Smale 2016) said Ms. Mikl-Leitner, Austria’s interior minister,
and: “This is a question of survival for the European Union” (ibid.).
While the cap idea did not meet approval on the meeting, one measure
was to effectively limit the incoming migrants to those refugees who are
“in proven need of protection” (ibid.). Another one was to substantially
assist to the Macedonian border forces and dozens of police officers from
the countries were sent to the Greek-Macedonian border (cf. ibid.).
Greece was not invited to the meeting and was not amused: “The
Greek government rebuked Austria for imposing the restrictions and
for convening a meeting of Western Balkan countries to discuss the
migration crisis that excluded Greece. The foreign ministry described the
meeting as a ‘unilateral move which is not at all friendly toward our coun-
try’” (Borger 2016).
The measures agreed at the 10-country meeting worked and only two
weeks later the Macedonian government—supported by its neighbours
in the North—declared that the Balkans route was closed (BBC 2016).

Conclusions
In our analysis, we treated the reactions to the migrant crisis of 2015 as
a specific foreign policy case which tells us to what extent foreign pol-
icies of states immediately affected by the migrant crisis can be called
“Europeanised”. Although the crisis was to be expected since there was
a long prelude, its risk of escalation regarding trade, bilateral relations,
EU relations, and EU cohesion was immense which made it a full-
blown EU crisis. The largely dysfunctional EU immigration and asylum
system broke down and caused state collapse “all the way down” the
Balkan route from the EU’s weakest link, Greece, to the German power
state.
What makes the case very special is the different level of integration all
along the “Balkan route”. The simplified socialization argument would
 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  55

expect Germany being more Europeanised than Greece (acceded in

1981), Greece more than Austria (acceded in 1995), Austria more than
Slovenia and Hungary (acceded in 2004), Slovenia and Hungary more
than Croatia (acceded in 2013, not member of the Schengen space at the
time), Croatia more than the pre-ins Serbia (a candidate state undergo-
ing accession negotiations) and Macedonia (candidate state since 2005
but yet to start accession negotiations). The empirical analysis, though,
shows a much more nuanced picture. When the EU system became dys-
functional due to the conflicting values (Humanitarian requirements
of the refugee convention, the regulations of Schengen, and the oper-
ation of Dublin) “downloading” got into trouble, too. The German
nolens volens suspension of the Dublin accord and the German govern-
ment’s “solidarity seeking” in the EU represented a classical uploading
effort of a powerful member state. The Hungarian uploading behaviour
might be called obstructive in the light of humanitarian (and maybe
Schengen) values but claimed to abide by the Dublin rules. However,
the breakdown of download consent triggered very different learning
processes from the crisis which paved the way for different uploads from
Germany’s “welcome culture” to Hungary’s obstruction. Austria repre-
sented a middle-of-the-road broker which uploaded a new plurilateral
policy—of course, to make ends meet regarding the different EU val-
ues but formally outside the EU framework. Remarkably, the full mem-
bers Greece (for Dublin) and Hungary (for human rights) felt free to
substantially depart from the EU consensus while the pre-ins Serbia and
Macedonia tried hard to appease Brussels and the member states by ask-
ing for assistance and pragmatically leaving the rules.
Slovenia showed the strongest downloading effect all the way until
there was hope that the EU would ponder a common solution to the
crisis. The arguments for this were humanitarian and pro EU-external
border protection (Schengen and Dublin) in this order of relevance.
As the EU proved to be ineffective, the state eventually uploaded ideas
to Germany on a common EU solution via an agreement with Turkey.
Later, Slovenia saw the crisis as a risk not only because it would under-
mine EU-rules implementation but also its own national security
(becoming a pocket state). Slovenia then sided with Austrian prag-
matic plurilateral crisis management looking at a solution for the entire
Western Balkan region (Table 3.2).
Cross-loading Europeanisation effects can be assessed in terms of
immediate states’ foreign policy (re)positioning and in terms of potential
 56 

Table 3.2  Summary of Europeanisation effects of states’ foreign policies in Balkan route migration management

Downloading Uploading Cross-Loading

EU EU values, Schengen norms, state’s contributions to a com- shared definition of national

Dublin Regulation rules mon EU policy, and EU interest on state and
states’ initiatives for new regula-human security, effective EU
tion and amendments external border management,
shared norms on migrants’ and
refugees’ human rights
Member states – salience of EU political ►EU values based (meaningful – initially failed coordination
Slovenia agenda: diverse choice): Germany, Slovenia and promotion of common EU
Germany Austria – adherence to EU objectives: ►national interest based interests, eventually plurilateral
Hungary EU values: Germany, Schengen (rational choice): Hungary, final groupings within and beyond
A. BOJINOVIĆ FENKO AND B. STAHL

norms and Regulation rules: stage of crisis: Austria, Slovenia the EU

Slovenia – pendulum effect not
– EU policy obligations taken achieved, extreme national and
over: Slovenia EU positions remain
Member state and non-Schen- week salience of EU political national interest based (rational – national policymaking elites
gen state Croatia agenda, EU obligations not choice) do not share norms on human
taken over rights versus national security
dilemma (Germany, Austria
& Slovenia vs. Hungary and
Croatia)
Western Balkan non-member strong salience of EU political national interest based (rational national positions within scope
state agenda choice) of EU positions, national
Serbia, Macedonia policymaking elites share norms
on human rights versus national
security dilemma
 3  CHIPS OFF THE OLD BLOCK: EUROPEANISATION …  57

long-term effects of the crisis on current and future EU-law-making or

practices yet to be seen. Member states along the Balkan route did not
resort to the pendulum effect of mitigating between extreme national
and EU positions due to their own extreme positions before even form-
ing the EU position. National foreign policy positions and actions of
Hungary and Croatia departed from EU values, thereby preventing the
formation of a shared definition of national and EU interest on state, EU
and human security in general and of shared norms on migrants’ and ref-
ugees’ human rights in particular. This, indeed, prevented effective EU
external border management as some states rationally looked at assuring
their “win state security” rather than looking at humanitarian obliga-
tions of the EU as an international organization. Hence, potential future
cross-loading effects will be seen as far as the formation of new rules and
the development of EU capabilities are concerned. They would need to
address the management of a potential large-scale inflow of people at the
EU external border and the reception and distribution within the EU
regardless of a member state’s participation in the Schengen area. We
have thus proven that the official relation of a state to the EU’s immi-
gration policy (EU and Schengen member state; EU but not Schengen
member state and only EU candidate state) does not uniformly deter-
mine the effects of Europeanisation of states’ foreign policies. By con-
trast, we have demonstrated that for Western Balkan EU candidate states
Europeanisation effects are comparable or even stronger than the ones
of some member states. These findings challenge the idea of an overall
Europeanisation effect due to mere membership but support the notion
of a Europeanisation pull in the accession process.

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 CHAPTER 4

EU Enlargement and State Capture

in the Western Balkans

Milada Anna Vachudova

In 2018, the European Union (EU) enlargement process in the Western

Balkans is at a crossroads: EU leaders have strongly recommitted them-
selves to the process, creating the opportunity for candidates in the
region to get the kind of political attention and financial support that
can spur domestic reforms and facilitate agreements. For years, the EU

This chapter is a substantially revised version of the article “EU Leverage and
National Interests: The Puzzles of Enlargement Ten Years On,” Journal of
Common Market Studies 52, 1 (2014): 122–138. The research for this project
was funded by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research
(NCEEER), under authority of a Title VIII grant from the U.S. Department of
State. Neither NCEEER nor the U.S. Government is responsible for the views
expressed within this text. The research was also supported by the Center for
European Studies and European Union Center for Excellence at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

M. A. Vachudova (*) 
Department of Political Science, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, NC, USA
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 63

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_4
64  M. A. VACHUDOVA

had been preoccupied and weakened by the financial and the migra-
tion crises. The message from Brussels in 2018 reaffirms that if candi-
date countries can move forward with democratic and economic reforms,
the EU will respond by shepherding them toward membership (Mirel
2018; European Commission 2018). For their part, however, the
Western Balkan states in the membership queue are hobbled by the cap-
ture of the state by elites who favor rent-seeking and ethno-nationalist
appeals over economic reform, media freedom, and the rule of law. In
the 1990s, most were involved in ethnic wars that caused or worsened
problems related to sovereignty, territory, ethnic minorities, and state
capture. They face severe problems that require an overhaul of the state
and economy—and it is an open question whether the EU’s leverage can
bring about sustained reform in all of them. While the EU could have
done more and done it better, the political, administrative, and economic
backwardness of the Western Balkan candidates is largely the fault of
rent-seeking elites for whom the status quo offers power and wealth at
the expense of reform.
The EU’s renewed commitment to the enlargement process in the
Western Balkans in 2018 is perhaps surprising given what has happened
since 2010 in Hungary and also in Poland and the Czech Republic.
There, the ascendance of rent-seeking elites who use ethno-nationalist
appeals to legitimize the concentration of power has undermined liberal
democracy—and in Hungary, it has destroyed it. Why would the EU
risk another round of post-communist new members who may follow
in dismantling liberal democracy and the rule of law? Will the EU not
be significantly weakened by encompassing member states governed by
authoritarian regimes? This concern is underscored by the disappointing
performance of other post-communist states, such as Bulgaria, Romania,
Slovakia, and Croatia in fighting corruption, building independent insti-
tutions and bolstering the rule of law before and since their accession
to the EU. Meanwhile, Russia aims to weaken and divide the EU by
turning citizens and political parties against it. It has aided and abetted
regimes that reject liberal democracy and vilify the EU.
In 2018, we do not know whether the tide will turn against illib-
eral regimes in the EU, whether the EU will develop tools to protect
liberal democracy in its member states, and whether Russia and other
external actors will be punished for and dissuaded from their transna-
tional anti-liberal agenda that has already destabilized the EU. Given
the propensity of Balkan citizens to mistrust the West and the affinity
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  65

of some Balkan ruling elites with Russian interests, the EU’s renewed
commitment to the Western Balkans is all the more notable. One way
to understand it is as a reaffirmation of the overall success of enlarge-
ment, and as an answer to the growing danger of ethno-nationalist illib-
eralism in the region. “Enlargement,” the European Commission writes,
fosters reform in the candidate states and “reinforces peace and stability
in Europe” (European Commission 2009). New and old member states
alike have benefited geopolitically from greater stability and security, and
economically from the expanded internal market. The EU can credibly
argue that the EU’s enlargement has been the most successful democracy
promotion policy ever implemented by an external actor. While in some
cases EU leverage reinforced an existing liberal democratic trajectory, in
other cases it was critical in helping to move a state away from illiberal or
authoritarian rule. While we do not yet know if the EU can help existing
members move away from authoritarian rule, we have extensive evidence
that the EU enlargement process has helped moderate political parties
and incentivize democratic reforms in candidate countries (Vachudova
2008, 2014).
EU member states continue to make choices—year after year—
that keep the enlargement process going. I argue in this chapter that
EU member states still see enlargement as a matter of national interest
because it brings net economic and geopolitical benefits over the long
term. The Western Balkan states taking part in the pre-accession pro-
cess in the 2010s are Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro,
and Serbia. When EU leaders consider these candidates, it is the geo-
political benefits of stability that are the main selling point as the eco-
nomic benefits will be quite small. The states left in the membership
queue have greater security risks and lower economic potential than the
previous post-communist applicants. Paradoxically, this has reinforced
the commitment of EU leaders to enlargement: the dividends from the
“democratizing effect” of the enlargement process (or the costs of fore-
going them) are considered substantial, while the economic adjustments
brought on by the accession of such small economies will be low—and
the number of workers likely to relocate relatively small.
I also argue that the enlargement process does continue to have a
“democratizing effect.” Some Western Balkans candidates and proto-
candidates are responding to the incentives of EU membership in much
the same way as their post-communist predecessors in the member-
ship queue once did. As predicted, in some cases, political parties have
66  M. A. VACHUDOVA

fundamentally changed their agendas to make them EU-compatible, and

governments have implemented dramatic policy changes to move for-
ward in the pre-accession process (Vachudova 2005, 2008). These policy
changes usually enhance the quality of democracy, especially if they are
accompanied by durable institutional change, though in some areas there
is certainly room for debate. The underlying dynamic of the EU enlarge-
ment process is still asymmetric interdependence: the candidate states
stand to gain more from joining the EU than do existing members.
It is therefore in their national interest to comply with extensive entry
requirements in order to secure membership through a lengthy and
uncompromising process—and one that is arguably imposing more con-
ditions on the Western Balkan candidates than on previous candidates.
But as EU leverage zeroes in on building independent institutions and
fighting corruption, it poses a greater threat to the wealth and power of
entrenched rent-seeking elites than before. As Croatia’s membership tra-
jectory illustrates, what is good for the country as a whole is not neces-
sarily good for corrupt ruling elites, and it remains to be seen how many
can be unseated by political competition in concert with EU leverage.
When dealing with the Western Balkan states in the pre-accession
process, EU member states and institutions have applied lessons learned
from the 2004/2007 enlargements. The most important ones are that
leverage works well only before accession and that a longer period for
exercising conditionality is needed in certain areas. While learning has
helped, I also explain briefly why EU leverage in the Western Balkans has
been weakened in three ways. First, the EU has had little experience or
expertise in using its leverage to bolster the rule of law, the fight against
corruption or minority rights in candidate states since these anchors of
competent governance are addressed only indirectly by the existing
acquis communautaire (see Kacarska 2018; Kmezić 2018). Second, on
issues that impinge on national sovereignty and identity, the EU has had
to face greater challenges to the legitimacy of its leverage—and these
sorts of issues have also provided political shelter for rent-seeking elites
(Noutcheva 2012). Third, the EU has weakened its hand by sometimes
being inconsistent in laying out and enforcing the requirements for mov-
ing forward in the pre-accession process.
Meanwhile, much has changed over the last decade in how scholars
and other observers debate the merits of the EU’s enlargement pro-
cess for the region’s post-communist candidates. The concern that
the EU was too heavy-handed, too dictatorial in imposing its rules
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  67

and institutions on post-communist members has been almost entirely

eclipsed by criticism that the EU was not thorough, explicit, and consist-
ent enough in its demands—and not vigilant enough in its enforcement.
When faced with stalled or shoddy reform in a candidate country, it is
always relatively easy for scholars to point out the shortcomings of EU
policy; indeed, this is far easier than untangling the complicated domestic
factors that allow contented power holders to perpetuate the status quo
(Mirel 2018). It is ultimately domestic actors that make choices about
the pace and quality of reform. Given the complexity, breadth, and rel-
ative uniformity of the EU’s accession requirements, the great variation
in outcomes across the EU’s ten new post-communist members under-
scores that the details of domestic reform have largely been determined
by domestic factors. However, I also explore the EU’s shortcomings, and
argue that it has undermined incentives for reform in some cases, espe-
cially in Bosnia and Macedonia.
The rest of this chapter is divided into four parts. The first part explores
in a general way why the dynamics of the EU enlargement process have
remained more or less the same from the perspective of existing EU
member states. The second part looks at how political party positions
and government policies have changed in response to EU incentives in
Croatia and Serbia. The third part sketches the changes that the EU has
made in order to exercise its leverage more effectively, and whether these
have helped overcome problems with expertise, consistency, and legit-
imacy in the pre-accession process. The conclusion reflects on how the
illiberal turn in Europe may shape the EU’s enlargement process over
the next decade.

The EU Member States: The Enduring Logic

of Enlargement

The EU enlargement process has continued in the Western Balkans,

despite reports of its demise. The process has suffered as a result of the
economic crisis, with European governments distracted and under the
stress of economic austerity. But it has continued—slowly, doggedly—
hampered more by difficult initial conditions in the Western Balkan candi-
dates and by entrenched elites there than by the EU’s indifference. From
the perspective of EU member states, the underlying dynamics of enlarge-
ment remain largely the same because enlargement brings economic and
68  M. A. VACHUDOVA

especially geopolitical benefits over time. There are of course substan-

tial differences in how much individual EU members support enlarge-
ment to specific candidate states; these national positions generally reflect
preferences that are beyond the scope of this contribution and are well
covered elsewhere (see Moravcsik and Schimmelfennig 2009). But
there is little evidence that the process has been halted by EU member
states. If, for example, a country like Germany, where public support
for enlargement is weak, were genuinely seeking to stall enlargement, it
would not have agreed to open negotiations with Montenegro in 2012
or with Serbia in 2014; instead, it has taken the lead in using condi-
tionality to get results (Judah 2013). Overall, if EU member states no
longer wanted enlargement, we would expect to see them make a deal
with ­power-holding elites in the Western Balkans: In exchange for putting
plans for full EU membership on the shelf, the EU could offer them some
kind of an associate membership—and, crucially, ease up on pressure for
reform of the state and the economy that might threaten their domestic
sources of power. So far, no such deal is on the table.
When considering why the EU has continued the enlargement pro-
cess, it is important to look at how the relationship between the EU and
its democratizing neighbors unfolded after the fall of communism. When
the dissidents who had courageously opposed communist regimes and
dreamed of a democratic, European future for their countries became,
overnight, the leaders of a free Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary,
the EU did all but nothing to help them. During 1990 and 1991,
which were long years of economic hardship and uncertainty, especially
in Poland, the new democratic governments were shocked that access
to the EU’s internal market and a path to EU membership were not
forthcoming. These restrictions were reinforced in the 1991 Europe
Agreements (Vachudova 2005).
Over the course of 1992 and 1993, EU leaders made a series of deci-
sions to offer the perspective of EU membership to the EU’s immediate
eastern neighbors. Despite the ungenerous way that the EU treated its
post-communist neighbors early on, some constructivist scholars argued
that, later, they successfully made the case that the EU had a particu-
lar obligation toward them and that enlargement was the product of the
rhetorical entrapment of EU leaders (Sedelmeier 2005; Schimmelfennig
2003). There was no doubt many forces at play, including idealism,
but as I argued with Andrew Moravcsik in 2003 there were also tan-
gible geopolitical and economic benefits on the table (Moravcsik and
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  69

Vachudova 2003). Fifteen years on, considering enlargement to the

Western Balkans after prolonged economic crisis twinned with grow-
ing domestic opposition to immigrants of all kinds, it is hard to see
how weak candidate states, skeptical publics or even the European
Commission could be “trapping” member states into carrying on the
process.
Scholars also argued that if national interests were driving EU policy
toward its post-communist neighbors, the EU would only offer them
associate membership—a much less costly relationship (Schimmelfennig
2003). Associate membership, however, could not deliver the same ben-
efits in the areas of regional security, immigration, and economic growth.
Most important, it could not lock in economic and regulatory reform—
and deliver the same likelihood that a state would remain stable, demo-
cratic, and pro-Western. Fifteen years on, there is not a single country
on the EU’s borders with an association agreement but without a mem-
bership perspective that can be described as a stable, democratic, and
dependable political ally and economic partner for the EU. And while
the erosion of liberal democracy in Hungary and Poland is potentially
a game changer, there is no question that EU membership has had a
restraining influence across new members and across many policy areas
(Sedelmeier 2014; Pop-Eleches 2013).
When the EU began post-communist enlargement in the mid-1990s,
the goal was not to export democracy; instead, it was to import a buffer
of well-functioning democracies with growing economies and strong
state capacity. By the late 1990s, the purpose of enlargement had broad-
ened. The EU had become quite ambitious on the world stage and
made strong commitments to revitalize the Western Balkans. What had
been separate—enlargement and foreign policy—was brought together
as leaders realized that the EU’s most effective foreign policy tool was
indeed enlargement (among many, Kelley 2004; Jacoby 2004; Grabbe
2006; Schimmelfennig 2007; Börzel and Risse 2012; Noutcheva 2016).
The EU would use the power of its enlargement process to transform the
Western Balkans, opening a new chapter after a shameful decade of fail-
ure in the region (for early plans, see European Council 1997). Western
Balkan states were offered a membership perspective for the first time in
Sarajevo in 1999 as part of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe—
and this perspective has since been reaffirmed many times (European
Commission 1999; for background, see Smith 2003).
70  M. A. VACHUDOVA

The reasons for EU member states’ support for continued enlarge-

ment to the Western Balkans are the same as for earlier enlargements:
Fostering stable democratic regimes in the EU’s backyard (or internal
courtyard). There is the perception of abiding geopolitical risks: the EU
will pay the price in myriad ways for ethnic conflict, economic collapse,
lawlessness, instability, and poor governance in the region if it does not
pursue enlargement. EU member states thus have a strong interest in
seeing the EU’s “best available” democratizing tools deliver far-reaching
reform.
While the geopolitical benefits of enlargement to the Western Balkans
are potentially substantial, the costs of admitting them are low in some
important ways. These are very small countries that should be easy to
integrate from the point of view of EU institutions and the EU budget.
As in the past, member states know that they can impose long transi-
tion periods on the free movement of labor, lower transfers from the EU
budget, and other arrangements in order to mitigate short-term adjust-
ment costs. The EU bargaining process works this out “much as it has
prior conflicts about the uneven distribution of the costs of integration
projects that are beneficial overall” (Moravcsik and Vachudova 2003,
p. 43). The costs and benefits of EU enlargement may not be evenly
distributed across the existing EU member states, but negotiations
yield transition periods and side payments that bring all EU govern-
ments on board (Plümper and Schneider 2007; see also Moravcsik and
Schimmelfennig 2009).
The evidence suggests that, as a whole, Old Member States (OMS)
and New Member States (NMS) have strengthened their economies
due to enlargement. The economic balance sheet is important because
it helps shape how EU governments think about future enlargements,
even if the relative economic weight of the Western Balkan candidates
is small. As the Commission observes, the enlargement process has
“boosted the economies and improved living standards in the New
Member States, thereby also benefiting the Old Member States notably
through new export and investment opportunities. It has strengthened
the economy of the Union as a whole, through the advantages of inte-
gration in a larger internal market” (European Commission 2009, p. 3).
Advantages include a more efficient division of labor and greater global
competitiveness among some OMS, accompanied by economic modern-
ization, rising investment and rising trade in the NMS (Sweeney 2010;
European Commission 2009).
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  71

There is no question that 2008 marked the start of a dark decade for
the EU. The prolonged financial and economic crisis eclipsed the eco-
nomic gains of enlargement and halted growth in the new members.
The recession helped politicize European integration as citizens in the
old member states became more likely to resent workers from the east,
and citizens in the new member states become more likely to resent their
economic backwardness compared to the west (see Epstein 2014; Jacoby
2014). The refugee crisis further strengthened support for various
Eurosceptic and ethno-nationalist political parties across the continent.
The vote for Brexit in the United Kingdom and the vote for authori-
tarian rule in Hungary speak for themselves. Yet during this difficult
decade, as I show below, not much has changed in the Western Balkans
when it comes to the dynamics of enlargement. This could be because,
when it comes to the illiberal turn, the Western Balkan candidates are
both behind the curve—and ahead of it.

The Candidate States: State Capture and EU Leverage

For more than two decades, the basic equation underpinning the
enlargement decision for eligible neighboring states has also not
changed: The benefits of joining the EU (and the costs of being
excluded from it) create incentives for governments to satisfy the EU’s
extensive entry requirements. For the EU’s post-communist neigh-
bors, membership has brought economic benefits and also a very pleas-
ing geopolitical change of fortune through the protection of EU rules,
a new status vis-à-vis neighboring states, and a voice in EU institutions
(Vachudova 2005). The promise of EU membership for candidate states
was summed up by the Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák when
addressing his Serbian counterparts in September 2012. He explained
that Serbia was very fortunate to have the EU perspective and that it
should not dwell on whether or not the requirements are “fair.” The
acquis is a complex, moving target, but it is not designed that way to
thwart candidate states; rather, it is a reflection of the EU’s ongoing
integration. The pre-accession process has rules and procedures that
help countries implement necessary reforms, and they should not (and
will not) be changed. Conditionality is very important in getting these
reforms done. Candidates should, therefore, focus on substance, and not
status, in the negotiations: They cannot enter the EU as “equal part-
ners.” However, once a country attains membership, there will be a chair
72  M. A. VACHUDOVA

waiting for it at the table—and it will have the same influence as other
EU members.1
I argue in this section that political parties and governments in at least
some of the candidate states in the Western Balkans are responding to
these incentives by changing party agendas and implementing new policies,
even in the face of tougher EU requirements. I focus on whether Serbia is
following in the footsteps of Croatia, and sketch briefly the unique prob-
lems for EU-compatible political contestation in Montenegro, Bosnia, and
Macedonia. Political parties are arguably the most important and most
proximate source of domestic policy change—and thus of compliance or
noncompliance with EU requirements. My “adapting model” predicts
that major political parties will respond to EU leverage by adopting an
EU-compatible agenda. Constructivist scholars point to national identity,
domestic narratives, and social norms as helping shape the environment
within which elites form preferences and choose strategies; this is consist-
ent with, though not necessary, for my argument (among many: Epstein
2008; Subotic 2012). Candidate states where regime change is followed
by illiberal democracy or authoritarianism are the most interesting. Here
“adapting” often comes in two rounds: In the first round, reform-ori-
ented parties in opposition to the authoritarian ruling parties rally along
with civic groups around a pro-EU agenda which is entwined with their
broad pro-democracy agenda. In the second round, the authoritarian and
anti-EU parties make themselves EU compatible, realizing that this is the
only way to get back into the electoral game (Vachudova 2008, 2014).
Croatia is a case where the adapting model is broadly confirmed. As
predicted, Croatia’s party system experienced a dramatic change after
2000, not just with the ousting of the vicious authoritarian regime of
Franjo Tudjman but also, crucially, with the transformation of the agenda
(if not the membership) of his extreme right-wing Croatian Democratic
Union (HDZ) party (Konitzer 2011). The HDZ embraced demo-
cratic reforms and preparations for EU membership. This was perhaps
easier than in neighboring Serbia because Croatia’s belonging to Western
Europe had never been questioned by the HDZ (Subotic 2010), because
the West supported Croatia in Operation Storm, and because the destruc-
tive grip of authoritarian forces was somewhat weaker (Dolenec 2013).
After the HDZ recaptured power at the end of 2003, Prime Minister Ivo

1 Remarks at the Belgrade Security Forum (http://belgradeforum.org), September

2012.
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  73

Sanader led a government that put preparations for EU membership at

the heart of its governing program—and that included reforming the
judiciary and bolstering institutions to fight corruption (Konitzer 2011).2
What Sanader did not apparently consider, however, was that these more
independent institutions might go after him. He was indicted on a color-
ful array of corruption charges and, in November 2012, he was sentenced
to ten years in prison by a Croatian court (Barlovac 2012).
When Croatia joined the EU in 2013 there were still problems, of
course, including high levels of organized crime and corruption, and
the absence of efforts to encourage refugee return among Croatia’s erst-
while Serbian minority (see European Commission 2013a). Celebrations
attending the 2012 verdict of the ICTY freeing former general Ante
Gotovina on appeal showcased the dark side of Croatian national-
ism, and Croatia must be judged on how it pursues war crimes trials at
the domestic level. A cynic can look at Croatia and say that it is sim-
ply the beneficiary of relative economic prosperity and of ethnic cleans-
ing that removed the Serbian minority in 1995. But the removal of the
Serbs forced nationalist politicians in Croatia to move on from ethnic
scapegoating and tend to domestic reform in response to the expecta-
tions of their voters for a rising standard of living and a more efficient
state. Sanader’s reform of the HDZ party is consistent with the adapt-
ing model that expects leaders of post-authoritarian parties to moderate
party agendas in order to stay in the political game—and then pursue
reforms that the EU now insists include building independent institu-
tions in order to move forward in the pre-accession process (Vachudova
2008). Yet the pre-accession transformation of the HDZ is consist-
ent with two kinds of uncertainty going forward. First, this sequence
of events (sometimes called “Sanaderization”) may be less likely as
entrenched and corrupt political leaders in the region, such as those in
Montenegro and Bosnia, not wishing to join Sanader behind bars, learn
to maneuver through EU-led institutional reform with greater caution.3

2 On the HDZ’s turn back to nationalism after it lost power in 2011, see Jović (2012).
3 Thanks to Kristof Bender, Florian Bieber, Dejan Jović, Senada Šelo Šabić, and other
participants at the conference “Leaving Europe’s Waiting Room. Overcoming the Crisis
of EU Enlargement in the Western Balkans,” at the University of Graz in November 2012
for a great discussion on this point. For more information on Croatia, see the website of
the European Stability Initiative (www.esiweb.org) that includes the documentary film
“Twilight of Heroes: Croatia, Europe and the International Tribunal.”
74  M. A. VACHUDOVA

Second, the moderation of political parties may be short-lived as party

leaders choose to take ethno-nationalist and anti-democratic positions
after accession.
The behavior of Serbia’s largest formerly authoritarian parties have
been in the 2010s also strongly and, for some, unexpectedly consist-
ent with the adapting model as these parties made satisfying difficult
EU requirements a priority. Over the last decade, the axis of competi-
tion in Serbia shifted dramatically (Dolenec 2013). The populist and
extreme right-wing Radical Party split in 2008, with Tomislav Nikolić
and Aleksandar Vučić bringing many party members into the new
Progressive Party (SNS). Nikolić proclaimed that it was his support for
Serbia’s integration into the EU that forced a split from the Radical
Party loyal to Vojislav Šešelj, a warmongering chauvinist and ultrana-
tionalist. Meanwhile, the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), the party of
Slobodan Milošević, adopted an agenda supporting Serbia’s membership
in the EU under a new leader, Ivica Dačić. After the May 2012 parlia-
mentary elections, the Progressive Party and the Socialist Party formed a
coalition and Dačić became prime minister, marking a return to power of
Milošević’s associates.
Even though Europe’s crisis hit Serbia especially hard and the
Democratic Party (DS) government in power since 2008 had little to
show economically, its leader Boris Tadić was widely expected to win
the May 2012 presidential elections. Tadić and the DS had long pre-
sented themselves at home and abroad as the only hope for a reasonable,
pro-Western, pro-EU government for Serbia. But their track record of
compliance was actually mixed: With extremists opposing them at every
turn, they counseled the EU and the United states to expect only mod-
est gains—and then, bit by bit, delivered these gains in highly significant
foreign policy areas, such as cooperation with the ICTY, remembrance
in Srebrenica, and the regulation of relations with neighboring Kosovo.
They also formally applied for EU membership and laid the ground-
work for transposing the acquis. What Tadić and the DS did not deliver,
however, was domestic reform. Instead, changes to the judiciary filled it
with DS acolytes; party control and the sale of jobs in the public sector
increased; the media was largely under DS control; the oligarchs acted
with impunity; and there was little progress in improving Serbia’s busi-
ness environment. Nikolić defeated Tadić in the second round of the
presidential elections in part because a small number of former support-
ers of the DS took part in the “white ballot” campaign and did not vote
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  75

at all. Some former DS supporters even spoke out in favor of voting for
Nikolić on the logic that the tempering effect of government could be
beneficial for the Progessives, Serbia’s largest political party and that—as
the adapting model predicts—this party may be more able and willing to
comply with EU requirements than the DS.
Once in power, Serbia’s new coalition government led by the
Progressive and Socialist parties made some major policy changes
in order to move forward in the EU pre-accession process. The
Progressives seemed to enjoy more room to maneuver thanks to their
long hiatus from power and their strong nationalist credentials. Serbia’s
most powerful politician, the Progressive leader Aleksandar Vučić,
explained that “Now we have to pay for it all - Kosovo, corruption,
public debt” (B-92, 2013). The most consequential breakthrough was
an agreement between Kosovo and Serbia that integrates the institu-
tions of the Serbian municipalities in northern Kosovo into the Kosovar
state in exchange for extensive local autonomy (Lehne 2013). For this,
the Serbian government was rewarded by the European Council with
a start date for Serbia’s official accession negotiations in January 2014.
Meanwhile, despite economic stagnation, support for the EU among
Serbian citizens was rising with polls showing that an accession referen-
dum held “today” would pass with around 65% of the vote in 2013,
similar to the margin in 2012 in neighboring Croatia. Opinion polls also
showed that Progressive Party voters were following the government’s
lead and becoming more supportive of an agreement on Kosovo and of
European integration (IPSOS 2013).
The Progressive Party went on to win outright the elections in 2014
and 2016, giving Vučić virtually total power over the Serbian govern-
ment—and this was only deepened when he was elected President in
2017. Six years on, Vučić and other the Progressive Party leaders still
declare that their governing program is organized around the project of
joining the EU. The government still works to meet EU expectations
in its comportment toward Kosovo and toward its other Western Balkan
neighbors. At home, however, the Progressive Party has worked to gain
rents and concentrate power in the same ways as other illiberal regimes
in the region, including the near obliteration of a free press, the (further)
politicization of the state administration, and the suppression of critical
civil society groups.
Another barometer for the effectiveness of EU leverage is
Montenegro, which was given the green light by EU leaders to start
76  M. A. VACHUDOVA

negotiations in 2012. By then, all of Montenegro’s major parties had

adopted positions supporting EU membership. What sets Montenegro
apart from Croatia and Serbia is the startling absence of political turno-
ver. This makes Montenegro a difficult case for the adapting model—and
for the EU: Can the “Đukanović clan” implement government policy
in pursuit of EU membership that creates independent state institutions
and bolsters the rule of law? For the negotiations to conclude success-
fully, Montenegro’s state institutions, especially the judiciary, will need
a thorough overhaul that includes dramatic improvements in the fight
against corruption and organized crime. The puzzle in Montenegro is
whether such far-reaching reforms can actually be considered successful
without putting Prime Minister Milo Đukanović and his associates, who
have benefited from colossal rent-seeking and links to organized crime
while in power for over 20 years, behind bars (see Mirel 2018; Hopkins
2012). In some ways, Vučić and Đukanović are now alike: they employ
strongly nationalist appeals, claiming to be defending the nation against
its internal enemies while also striving toward the EU (see Džankić and
Keil 2017). They are also alike in facing a weak and divided opposition
at home, although it is important to understand how the enlargement
process also empowers different actors in society (see Noutcheva 2016).
Serbia and Montenegro are nevertheless the most promising candi-
dates: it is more difficult to imagine political competition and new gov-
ernment policies bringing comprehensive reform to Bosnia, whatever
the formal positions of Bosnia’s parties on joining the EU. This makes
Bosnia a difficult case for the adapting model as Bosnia’s unwieldy insti-
tutions create terrible incentives for politicians, regardless of political
turnover. While in the war Bosnian Serbs, as well as Bosnian Croats,
launched a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against Bosnian Muslims
(who also committed war crimes against Serbs and Croats though on a
lesser scale), today politicians representing all three ethnic groups appear
to be cooperating fully in preserving a status quo that immiserates all
Bosnians. The engagement of citizens and interest groups in politics is
even weaker than in Serbia and Montenegro, making the costs for poli-
ticians of not complying with EU requirements even lower (Džihić and
Wieser 2011). Politics has been reduced to mono-ethnic platforms and
backroom deals among party leaders—and these leaders preside over
authoritarian structures that doggedly pursue personal and party agen-
das at great cost to the citizens (see Bieber 2011; Reeker 2013). What
citizens of Bosnia get is poor governance at great expense—and the
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  77

institutions are especially dysfunctional on the Federation side where the

entity government shares power with 10 cantonal governments. In 2013,
there were unprecedented protests aimed against the country’s predatory
political class and its huge governance failures (Štiks 2013; Bieber 2013).
The protestors, however, refused any cooperation with political parties
and as a result, had little impact on who is elected and how they govern.

Problems with Expertise, Legitimacy, and Consistency—

And Learning to Overcome Them?
As explored above, the object of the EU’s pre-accession process is to
create incentives for governing elites to enact EU-prescribed domes-
tic reforms—and to provide guidance on how to design and implement
high-quality versions of these reforms. What, then, have EU member
states and institutions learned from the 2004/2007 enlargement that
they have applied to the pre-accession process with the Western Balkan
states to make this outcome more likely? Have these innovations helped
address problems with expertise, legitimacy, and consistency in the pro-
cess? Taking a broad view, EU actors have learned three things: that lev-
erage works well only before accession, that a longer period for exercising
conditionality is needed, and that fostering the rule of law and independ-
ent state institutions takes finer grained requirements that are also better
enforced.
Before the rule of illiberal governments in Hungary and Poland, the
post-communist states suffered little backsliding after joining the EU
(Dimitrova 2010; Levitz and Pop-Eleches 2010; Sedelmeier 2012). This
is only meaningful, however, if reforms are adequate at the moment of
accession. In 2007 in what is now widely considered a mistake, the EU
admitted Bulgaria and Romania despite grave problems with the rule of
law, organized crime and the fight against corruption. The European
Council created the Cooperation and Verification Measure (CVM) to
ramp up reform in these areas after accession, primarily through detailed
monitoring. While very useful at certain junctures, the CVM did not
have enough traction to compel comprehensive reform in either coun-
try—and everyone agrees that pre-accession leverage is far more power-
ful (Spendzharova and Vachudova 2012; Ganev 2013). And it turns out
that other recent graduates of the EU’s pre-accession process such as the
Czech Republic and Slovakia are also a playground for elites that prey on
78  M. A. VACHUDOVA

the state. The Western Balkans pose an even greater challenge because
war, sanctions, and isolation have warped more profoundly the rebuild-
ing of the state after communism (Dolenec 2013; Šelo Šabić 2003).
The EU may now be resolute about enforcing higher standards
related to the rule of law and the fight against corruption, but it has rela-
tively little expertise since these and other areas bearing on the quality of
democracy have been addressed only indirectly by the existing acquis (see
Kochenov 2008; Elbasani and Šelo Sabić 2017; Kmezić 2018). The EU
similarly cannot turn to the acquis to provide EU standards for national
minority policies, which has contributed to inconsistencies and vagueness
in what it asks of candidate states in this area (see Kacarska 2018).
To meet these greater challenges and also higher expectations in areas
related to the rule of law, judicial reform, and the fight against corrup-
tion, EU leverage became more detailed and was delivered earlier in the
process for Croatia. The main innovation has been “benchmarking:”
Once screening takes place to ascertain what needs to be done related
to each chapter, the Commission can choose either to open negotiations
right away, or require that certain conditions that are called “opening
benchmarks” are met first. The EU has also chosen to start the negotia-
tions with the most difficult chapters—Chapters 23 (Judiciary and funda-
mental rights) and 24 (Justice, freedom, and security)—so that they get
the most possible scrutiny. In the future, the Commission is proposing
that “these chapters would be opened on the basis of action plans, with
interim benchmarks to be met based on their implementation before
closing benchmarks are set” (European Commission 2013b). What is
worrying is that the EU rejected a CVM for Croatia as this would signal
the failure to reform before accession—and yet the Commission’s March
2013 report, the last before Croatia joined the EU, pointed to abiding
problems related to the rule of law (European Commission 2013a). The
difficult initial conditions in Croatia and in other Balkan states likely
mean that however far previous reforms have gone, there is always more
to do—and the concern about backsliding can only be growing.
The EU has also created more moments where it can apply leverage
well before accession. Milestones include: negotiating the SAA agree-
ment; having the SAA agreement comes into force; negotiating a visa
liberalization agreement; being recognized as a candidate country; being
given an official date for the start of accession negotiations; and then
moving forward through the negotiations with the opening and clos-
ing of individual chapters (that now also contain opening and closing
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  79

benchmarks).4 The East Central European candidates had to go through

some, but not all, of these “conditionality checkpoints.”
Another problem that the EU has encountered in its efforts to shep-
herd the Western Balkan states through the pre-accession process is that
conditionality is more contested on issues related to national sovereignty
and identity (Noutcheva 2012). While several East Central European
candidates had to comply on issues related to borders, citizenship, and
minority rights, some of the issues in the Western Balkans have been
more intractable. For example, the EU made full cooperation with the
ICTY a precondition for moving forward, usefully lending out its lev-
erage but also stalling the accession process with Croatia and Serbia for
several years until ruling elites complied. Serbia’s progress has also been
stalled by the imperative of regulating relations with Kosovo. EU lead-
ers have learned from admitting a divided Cypress in 2004 that, many
years later, continues to bedevil regional cooperation and economic
development. In response, the EU, led by Germany, has prioritized the
resolution of issues bearing on national sovereignty, territory, and iden-
tity, especially in recent years the Kosovo issue (Balkan Insight 2013).
It took many years and several governments before the current Serbian
government chose to move forward decisively—and here the EU’s for-
eign policy team enjoyed a needed triumph in 2013 by brokering a deal
between Belgrade and Pristina that boosted perceptions that the EU acts
competently in trying to solve outstanding issues related to sovereignty
and territory in the region.
In its relationship with some Western Balkan states, the EU has also
been inconsistent in specifying and enforcing the requirements for mov-
ing forward in the pre-accession process—and this lack of consistency
and also clarity has undermined incentives for elites to pursue reform.
In the most difficult cases, Bosnia and especially Macedonia, the EU—
or certain EU member states—have compounded problems of legit-
imacy with inconsistent conditionality that can reasonably be blamed
for sidetracking reform. The most shocking has been the Greek veto of
Macedonia’s progress due to the tragicomic name dispute that empow-
ered and unmoored Macedonia’s nationalist parties and gave them
more scope to reverse political reforms. Another example was when the

4 Fora timeline of these milestones, for Serbia, for example, see:

http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/countries/detailed-country-information/serbia/
index_en.htm.
80  M. A. VACHUDOVA

EU cast a unitary police force as a part of the acquis instead of accu-

rately as a special requirement for Bosnia, and then walked away once
it ran aground. More recently in Bosnia the EU has walked back from
some of its requirements for the entry into force of the Stabilization
and Association Agreement (SAA)—not because it is trying to relegate
Bosnia to second tier membership, but because it is desperate to see
Bosnia move forward in the process since an SAA should give the EU
more tools to influence Bosnian politics. The problem, however, is that
Bosnian elites believe they have learned to manipulate the EU to get
around its requirements, and some argue that EU interference may have
retarded the growth of the Bosnian state (Bassuener and Weber 2013;
see also Štiks 2013).

Conclusion: Supporting the EU and Defending

the Nation in Post-communist Europe

I have argued in this contribution that the underlying motivation for con-
tinuing the enlargement process have not changed: it remains in the EU’s
interest to secure and stabilize its backyard. Fears of instability in the
Western Balkans have made the EU especially keen to apply its leverage
there, while recent setbacks have underscored the importance of using
more extensive and consistent conditionality well before accession. This
has created a complicated dynamic: on the one hand, EU leaders have
insisted more sharply on compliance on critical issues, such as solving
territorial problems, fighting corruption, and upholding the rule of law;
on the other hand, EU leaders have looked for ways to keep troubled
states such as Bosnia from falling out of the process altogether while
seeming to tolerate illiberal power grabs by governments in Serbia and
Montenegro.
The motivation for eligible neighboring states has also not changed:
The benefits of joining the EU create incentives for governments to sat-
isfy the EU’s extensive entry requirements. Major political parties in all
of the Western Balkan states have changed their positions to support EU
membership. Only some of them, however, have implemented extensive
reform: The short-term interests of political elites who have captured
the state may be at odds with European integration. Conditionality is
only credible because the EU is willing to stop the process when a gov-
ernment is not making progress on crucial domestic reforms. For this
 4  EU ENLARGEMENT AND STATE CAPTURE IN THE WESTERN BALKANS  81

reason, the enlargement process must sometimes come to a standstill for

some candidates—and this is not necessarily a sign that it is being poorly
managed. That said, in certain areas, the EU grapples with problems of
expertise, legitimacy, and consistency that have, for example, helped to
undermine the incentives for reform in Bosnia and Macedonia.
Looking back at nearly three decades of post-communist transition,
we see that often it is the post-authoritarian parties that enact diffi-
cult reforms in pursuit of EU membership, in part to lend credence
to their new identity. But what exactly do they have to do to earn a
pro-European identity? In dealing with the governments of Serbia and
Montenegro, the EU is in a double bind: It places great importance on
the security and regional stability that Vučić and Dukanović are deliv-
ering. And it lacks credibility and experience in enforcing democratic
standards. That would mean requiring Vučić and Dukanović to reverse
their illiberal tools for concentrating power—and this is made all the
more difficult by the presence of the Orban regime in the EU.
Across the region, post-communist EU members and candidates that
have suffered from democratic backsliding have tended to share one
characteristic: the embrace by parties of intense if not extreme appeals
to safeguard the interests of “the nation.” These parties have been well-
established and ostensibly mainstream conservative groupings. They win
big in elections by capitalizing on popular frustration with corruption,
austerity or the uneven benefits of growth. Once in office, they call for
a return to national grandeur and conservative social values, and prom-
ise to defend the nation from its enemies—among which liberals, the
ex-communist left, foreign-owned big business and the EU can all take
center-stage. It is by claiming to defend the nation that the leaders of
these ruling parties can build the political cover to concentrate power
and dismantle checks and balances. What we see, however, is variation
in how well domestic institutions and domestic oppositions counter
such a power grab—and for at least some candidate states in the Western
Balkans, the EU can still moderate party positions and incentivize
domestic reform.

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 CHAPTER 5

EU Rule of Law Conditionality: Democracy

or ‘Stabilitocracy’ Promotion in the Western
Balkans?

Marko Kmezić

Introduction
The top-down institutional promotion of the rule of law employed by
the European Union (EU), empowered by the golden carrot of full
membership, has generated unique, broad-based, and long-term support
for reform and progress toward EU membership in the Western Balkans.
However, the results of the ongoing efforts relating to the rule of law
have thus far led to redistributive, capacity-related, and short-term out-
comes rather than sustainable and transformative change in the current
EU aspirants—Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro,
Macedonia, and Serbia (Kmezić 2017). The EU itself has recently recog-
nized this fact, as it has confirmed that all the Western Balkan countries
“show clear elements of state capture, including links with organized
crime and corruption at all levels of government and administration”

M. Kmezić (*) 
Centre for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz, Graz, Austria
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 87

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_5
88  M. KMEZIĆ

(European Commission 2018). This study investigates why the EU’s

promotion of the rule of law has thus far failed to deliver effective and
desired political transformation across the Western Balkan (potential)
candidate countries.
The prominence of the rule of law within the accession process is
best observed in the European Commission’s 2011 enlargement pack-
age, which announced its increased focus on ‘good governance’ cri-
teria, particularly the maintenance of the rule of law, an independent
judiciary, and an efficient public administration (European Commission
2011). The innovative EU approach on Chapters 23 and 24, dealing
with ‘Judiciary and fundamental rights’ and ‘Justice, freedom and secu-
rity’ respectively, introduced for the first time in the Croatian nego-
tiating process, is now fully integrated into the EU’s negotiations with
Montenegro and Serbia, and will most likely apply to all future accession
talks in the region. In this novel approach, the Western Balkan countries
are expected to get a head start on the most difficult aspect—rule of law
reforms—in order to allow enough time to build solid track records of
implementation before opening other negotiating chapters.
The state of affairs in the ongoing accession talks with the six remain-
ing non-EU Western Balkan countries confirms the central position
of the rule of law within the process of EU enlargement. While the
Stabilization and Association Agreements (SAAs) have now entered
into force for all six countries, only Montenegro (28 chapters opened,
3 provisionally closed) and Serbia (12 chapters opened, 2 provision-
ally closed) continue their accession negotiations. Yet, even the current
frontrunners experience considerable shortcomings in their rule of law
systems. In the meantime, Albania awaits the opening of its first nego-
tiating chapters, conditioned by a convincing track record in the imple-
mentation of judicial reform. Despite being the first Western Balkan
country to sign an SAA with the EU already in 2001, following the end
of a deep and prolonged political crisis, Macedonia must implement
Urgent Reform Priorities concerning the functioning rule of law and
the Pržino Agreement in order to open accession negotiations. Bosnia
and Herzegovina has filed its accession application, and the EU began
preparing the subsequent Opinion in September 2016 and is await-
ing responses to the Questionnaire. The EU and Kosovo held their
first Stabilization and Association Council meeting in November 2016.
However, the country remains in a political deadlock that obstructs the
functioning of the Special Court for War Crimes. It becomes obvious
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  89

from this overview that underperformance in the field of the rule of law
remains the main impeding factor for the advancement of the Western
Balkans to the EU.
Contrary to initial hopes that the ongoing approximation of the
Western Balkans to the EU will gradually introduce the liberal demo-
cratic form of government, based on the rule of law, to the six non-EU
Western Balkan nations, serious backsliding in terms of democracy and
the rule of law can be observed throughout the region over the past dec-
ade (Freedom House 2018; BTI 2017). Concerns relating to the status
of the rule of law in the Western Balkans have been voiced in reports
from the EU, most notably the Senior Experts’ Group Report (here-
inafter the Priebe report, 2015) and the US State Department Report
(2014) which signal excessive political control over the main state insti-
tutions such as the judiciary, the public administration, the media, and
even the electoral process. The most obvious example of government
malpractice was leaked wiretapped materials1 suggesting that the gov-
ernment in Macedonia not only had complete control over the judiciary,
including the election and career advancement system, but has also mis-
used it for the prosecution and intimidation of its political opponents.
In addition, recent assessments of the situation concerning media free-
dom in the Western Balkans have been sobering. The region is brewing
with incidents of media freedom violations, attacking not just the basic
right to freedom of expression, but also the state of democracy as such.
Dunja Mijatović, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) former Representative for the Freedom of the Media,
recently declared that the state of media freedom in the Western Balkans
is “worse today than after the 1990s wars” (Mijatović 2015).
So why does Europeanisation by rule of law promotion trigger
such rather “surface-thin reforms” (Elbasani and Šelo Šabić 2017,
p. 1) across the Western Balkan aspiring Member States? Several impor-
tant studies have analyzed this question, focusing on the much-needed
domestic pre-conditions for effective rule of law reforms, namely the
obstructing role of ‘gate-keeping’ elites and the existence of internal
agents of change. Zubek and Goetz (2010) established that in compar-
ison to the relative success of the EU’s impact on the rule of law in the

1 For more information: “Interactive Overview of Macedonia’s Largest Wire-Tapping

Scandal”, Al Jazeera. Available at: http://interactive.aljazeera.com/ajb/2015/makedoni-

ja-bombe/eng/index.html.
90  M. KMEZIĆ

2004 enlargement round, which had to do with the internal pressures

stemming from the requirement to formulate a negotiating position with
the EU rather than an intentional effort by the EU to modify its struc-
ture, this element is strikingly missing in the subsequent enlargement
waves. Dimitrova and Toshkov (2009) emphasized the crucial role of the
domestic elites by disclosing the direct correlation between far-reaching
changes of national executives and judiciaries’ organizational structures
with the change in governments. The high number of domestic formal
and informal ‘gate-keeper’ elites, who continue to control the state in
an effort to preserve their private economic interests and their grip on
political power, was highlighted in several studies (Dallara 2014; Kmezić
2017). Most recently, Elbasani and Šelo Šabić (2017) established the
importance of civil society and specialized investigative institutions in
political resistance against the political corruption that paved the way for
the EU’s successful rule of law promotion in Croatia.
However, where most of the previous studies fall short is in critically
investigating the perceptible role of the EU in promoting the rule of
law in the candidate countries. Given the long period before the actual
accession date, is the EU currently willing to trade its own rule of law
conditionality for other interests, specifically stability in its immediate
neighborhood, as suggested by the recent study on the EU’s ‘stabilitoc-
racy promotion’ (BiEPAG 2017)? Building on the established state of
the art, this study conceptualizes and investigates the factors that explain
the reasons for (non-)compliance with the rule of law conditionality set,
focusing mostly on the supply side of the enlargement. Operationally,
by taking stock of the identified gap between norm adoption and imple-
mentation, I highlight the lack of accountability of the political ‘elites’ in
charge of the enlargement process—EU actors mostly from the Member
States and domestic elites—as well as omissions in the EU’s strategy
for the rule of law external promotion in order to explain the (d)evo-
lution of rule of law transfers. Specifically, I test the domestic ‘life’ of
EU-promoted rule of law criteria, focusing on the ongoing reform of the
judiciary in Macedonia and the state of media freedom in Serbia.
The empirical analysis draws on in-depth case studies of Serbia and
Macedonia. Both cases display critical similarities in terms of poten-
tial explanations—they are targeted by the same policy of enlargement,
premised on similar institutional settings, and driven by the same pack-
age of incentives as well as attention to the rule of law. In addition, over
the past decade, they have both featured a deep-rooted system of state
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  91

capture that impedes the consolidation of liberal democratic society

based on the rule of law. Finally, in both countries the EU membership
is a high priority for political elites, despite the steadily declining support
among the citizens. Yet, these two countries currently find themselves in
different stages of the EU accession process, as Serbia is already nego-
tiating its membership, while Macedonia lags behind mostly because of
bilateral conditionality imposed by Greece due to the ongoing name dis-
pute issue. Furthermore, bearing in mind the fluid concept of the rule
of law phenomena, and particularly the lack of EU rule of law standards,
this study tests two different areas of the EU rule of law promotion,
namely the reform of judiciary and the media freedom. These two areas
are specifically chosen for this study as both are closely scrutinized by the
European Commission in its progress reports, and because their screen-
ing clearly debunks apparent contradiction between candidate countries
approximation to the EU on the one hand and backsliding in the rule
of law performance on the other. Hence, the combined comparative
insights from these specific cases make it possible to trace the poten-
tial patterns in explaining the deficiencies in EU rule of law promotion
within its enlargement policy to the Western Balkans.
The results of the research presented in this study are based on a com-
bination of two methodological strands. First, I will employ a normative
approach by means of a content-analysis of the legal rules and admin-
istrative regulations which were adopted and implemented as a basis
upon which to raise the standards of the region’s judicial sector and
media freedom, tested against the external demands established within
the EU accession process. Second, through a problem-oriented empirical
approach, I will assess the practical aspects of enforcing the rule of law,
analyzing progress, and singling out gaps between legislation and imple-
mentation of reforms. In particular, I will highlight the political and soci-
etal context in which these dynamics operate.

Theoretical Approaches to Europeanisation by Rule

of Law Implementation

Since the 1990s, the EU has used the attractiveness of its membership
incentive for the post-communist countries to promote “the external
projection of internal solutions” (Lavenex 2004, p. 695), manifested in
a broad range of political and economic membership criteria. The con-
cern of scholars of EU integration thus shifted toward evaluating rule
92  M. KMEZIĆ

transfer from the EU to the candidate countries and the variation in its
effectiveness. This led to the creation of the Europeanisation of candi-
date countries as a separate subfield of the Europeanisation agenda that
looks not only at the instruments and the degree of the EU’s impact on
domestic politics and policies, but also analyzes how this impact takes
place and how compliance with the EU norms can be induced (see, e.g.,
Schimmelfennig 2010, 2012; Sedelmeier 2006, 2011; Noutcheva 2015).
The informed literature can be seen as arriving at two principal expla-
nations about why candidate countries adjust to the EU norms, namely
the “logic of consequentiality” based on “rationalist institutionalism” and
the “logic of appropriateness” based on “constructivist i­nstitutionalism”
(March and Olsen 2004).
Rationalist institutionalism presupposes cost-benefit calculations by
both EU institutions and domestic elites. It deals with particular ques-
tions such as the clarity of EU demands, which is particularly problem-
atic in the field of rule of law and the credibility of conditionality in
general. It assumes that actors choose the behavior that maximizes their
utility under the circumstances. The ‘logic of consequences’ goes on to
claim that the cost-benefit calculations of the candidate country can be
successfully manipulated by the EU through external incentives. The
predominant mechanism for the Europeanisation of candidate coun-
tries is conditionality based on the strategy of reinforcement by reward
(Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004).
Constructivist institutionalism, on the other hand, deals with the pro-
cess of ‘norm socialization,’ in which domestic elites and populations at
large internalize EU norms which they regard as legitimate. Instead of
directly manipulating or indirectly influencing the cost-benefit calcula-
tions of the candidate countries, constructivists suggest that rule trans-
fer can only be effective if elites and populations in candidate countries
identify with the EU and are thus open to behavioral change by “social
learning” through ‘soft’ mechanisms for the EU’s domestic impact—
socialization and persuasion (Checkel 2005). Thus, Europeanisation in
this case works when the domestic actors are convinced of the legitimacy
and appropriateness of EU demands.
The mushrooming literature on the Europeanisation of EU candi-
date countries confirms that credible conditionality has indeed played
a significant role in the EU integration process, as it has successfully
induced pressure on candidates (see, e.g., Elbasani 2013; Keil 2013;
Noutcheva 2015). At the same time, the overall success of conditionality
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  93

remains dependent on the level of adoption costs for domestic author-

ities. Alternatively, other instruments for promoting EU norms, such
as the socialization of domestic elites and persuasion, do not appear
to have been effective substitutes for political accession conditional-
ity (Sedelmeier 2006), even though they are described as unique EU
strategies.
Empirical findings show that although the Acquis Communautaire
is at the core of Europeanisation in candidate countries, the contents
of Europeanisation are “of a more general character” (Schimmelfennig
2012, p.  22). This particularly relates to the ‘core goals’ of
Europeanisation, such as democratization and the rule of law. The
Europeanisation, therefore, has a differentiated impact not only across
countries, but also across various issues (Schimmelfennig 2012).
While enlargement has “considerably contributed” (Lavenex 2004,
p. 695) to political transformation in Central and Eastern Europe by
exporting the rule of law, recent trends are raising concerns about the
effectiveness of the EU’s mechanisms to influence current EU candi-
dates. This study contributes to the emerging Europeanisation theory
literature by analyzing the impact of the EU rule of law promotion in
the Western Balkan candidate countries via assessment of the resonance
between EU demands (conditions) and domestic rules (implementa-
tion). Specifically, I suggest that the Europeanisation through rule of law
promotion in the Western Balkan candidate countries does not function
beyond the norm adoption phase, due to the lack of clarity and credibil-
ity of the EU imposed conditionality, as well as due to the obstructing
role of legacies of the past and self-preserving interest of political elites in
the region.

Grasping the Essence of EU Rule of Law Conditionality

Alongside the principles of human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality,
and human rights, the rule of law is defined by Article 2 TEU as a value
upon which the Union itself is founded and which is “common to the
Member States”. Yet, the rule of law was not defined by the founding
fathers of the EU. It has instead become a predominant organizational
model of contemporary constitutional law, a dynamic “meta-­principle”
(Pech 2009) providing a firm foundation for the functioning of the
EU. As such, the rule of law in the context of the EU never appears
as a “stand-alone” principle but rather as an “umbrella-principle”
94  M. KMEZIĆ

(Päivi 2002) usually accompanied by the other principles enshrined in

Article 2.
Functionally, the rule of law exercises two main tasks. The first is to
impose restraints on government officials by requiring compliance with
the existing law, as their acts must have positive legal authorization and
must not contravene a legal prohibition or restriction, while also impos-
ing limits on law-making power. The second function of the rule of law
is to maintain and coordinate behavior and transactions among the cit-
izens (see in particular Shklar 1987; Tamanaha 2004). In this regard,
we observe that the establishment of a lasting and effective rule of law
requires not only the presence of independent institutions, but also a
widely shared conviction among the society—citizens and political and
economic elites—that people identify themselves with law.
Operationally, the rule of law stands as a pillar in four distinctive areas
of EU identity and activity: (1) as a fundamental value upon which the
EU itself is founded, (2) as a requirement of the trust indispensable for
the functioning of the Internal Market, (3) as an important element in
the Union’s external relations, and (4) what is of particular interest for
this study—as an eligibility criterion for EU membership (Magen 2016).
Although the requirements for the rule of law within the accession
context were first addressed in respect to the Mediterranean enlarge-
ments of the 1980s for the three post-authoritarian countries, which
were acceding to the EU within the wider framework of their respec-
tive democratic transitions, it was not until the fall of the Iron Curtain
and the prospect of Eastern Enlargement that the EU enhanced its rule
of law membership requirement. In regard to the CEEC, the European
Commission defined its political criteria in Agenda 2000 as a combina-
tion of free and fair elections, political pluralism, freedom of expression
and freedom of religion, the need for democratic institutions, and inde-
pendent judicial and constitutional authorities. Even so, this approach
was criticized for its rather “simplistic sum” (Tatham 2009, p. 209) of
the rule of law, and the lack of “actual substance” (Leino 2002, p. 80).
Only with the prospect of enlargement to SEE did the EU become
more aware of the need to provide content criteria, or benchmarks, with
which to measure success or failure in fulfilling the principle of democ-
racy and the rule of law for EU-acceding countries (Smilov 2006).
Hence, in its April 1997 Conclusions, the General Affairs Council
declared the political criteria that SEE countries need to fulfill to con-
clude an SAA—which marks only the beginning of the contractual
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  95

relationship between the EU and the candidate country. This time, the
Council made express reference to the rule of law, as it concluded that
each SEE country must be ready to demonstrate (1) the separation of
executive, legislative and judicial powers, (2) effective means of redress
against administrative decisions, (3) access to courts and the right to a
fair trial, (4) equality before the law, and (5) freedom from inhumane
or degrading treatment and arbitrary arrest. Additional clarifications
aimed at each potential candidate country individually were voiced by
the European Commission in its Progress (previously Regular) Reports
(Kochenov 2008). By analysis of these documents it can be observed
that the EU requires the Western Balkan countries to demonstrate a
credible track record of a properly functioning judicial system, an effec-
tive fight against corruption, and the protection of fundamental rights—
including inter alia freedom of expression.
The EU’s 2011 ‘new approach’ concerning the prioritization of the
rule of law reforms in candidate countries was seen as an attempt to learn
the lessons of previous enlargements and to avoid having to initiate a
Cooperation and Verification Mechanism after accession (see Strelkov
2016). The new approach rests on the principle that issues relating to
the judiciary and fundamental rights and justice, freedom, and security
“should be tackled early in the accession process and the corresponding
chapters opened accordingly on the basis of action plans, as they require
the establishment of convincing track records” (European Commission
2011, p. 5). Furthermore, the ‘new approach’ envisages an interim
benchmarking system that would assess the country’s preparedness to
open and close a negotiating chapter, and introduces safeguard measures,
most notably the overall balance clause, intended to stop negotiations on
other chapters if progress on chapters 23 and 24 begins to lag behind.
More broadly, the Commission continues to use all other available
instruments to strengthen the rule of law in candidate countries, includ-
ing through its regular monitoring via joint bodies under the SAA,
expert assessment missions, and structured dialogues that currently
exist in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Macedonia.
The ‘new approach’ has placed particular emphasis on the involvement
of local stakeholders, including civil society organizations, in dialogue
and monitoring. These actions are paired with generous financial assis-
tance with a major focus on the rule of law under the Instrument for
Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) II. In addition, the EU supports institu-
tion and human capacity building through the European Commission’s
96  M. KMEZIĆ

Technical Assistance and Information Exchange instrument (TAIEX)

and twinning projects which bring public administration officials and
other experts in law enforcement from the Member States into direct
contact with their Western Balkan counterparts. Finally, the rule of law
is supported through other EU instruments through projects that sup-
port democracy and human rights at country-specific, regional, or global
level, namely the Instrument Contributing to Peace and Stability, the
European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights, and the the-
matic programs of the Development Co-operation Instrument.
Nevertheless, despite its evident prominence in EU enlargement policy,
there is still no uniform ‘European standard’ for institution-building or
monitoring activities by the EU in the area of the rule of law. Hence, the
EU rule of law promotion that takes place within the field of enlargement
tends to measure alignment with the Acquis against formal legal and insti-
tutional benchmarks with a primary emphasis on the judiciary (Carothers
2006; Magen 2007, 2016; Magen et al. 2009). In the next sections, this
study will show the negative externalities of the specified approach.

A Failure of the Rule of Law Promotion in the Balkans?

The Reform of the Judiciary in Macedonia

A functioning judiciary lies at the core of the idea of a modern state, as it
is a fundamental principle and integral element of all liberal democracies
and all democracy building. It is also an essential precondition for the
establishment of an effective system of governance based on the rule of
law and of critical value in safeguarding the impartiality of judges from
undue external influence(s). In a nutshell, the judiciary is supposed to
impose restraints on government officials by requiring compliance with
the existing law, as their acts must have positive legal authorization and
must not contravene a legal prohibition or restriction. As suggested in
the first part of this study, despite ongoing EU accession talks, this has
not been the case in Macedonia over the past decade, as politics exercises
excessive control that threatens the independence of the main state insti-
tutions, most notably the judiciary.
In an attempt to excel at EU integration, the Macedonian govern-
ment already made a comprehensive strategy for judicial reforms in
2004. This strategy introduced required Constitutional amendments and
established the Judicial and Prosecutors’ Councils as well as instruments
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  97

for training and capacity building in the judiciary. In the meantime,

the country’s legislative framework guaranteeing judicial independence
became highly sophisticated, and “if fully observed, should generally
ensure a proper functioning of the judicial system to a high standard,” as
observed in the Priebe Report (2015: 9). However, the evident problem
remains its poor implementation, prompted by specific legal, political,
economic, cultural and historical influences, pressures, threats or inter-
ferences. In order to be able to measure the level of tangible independ-
ence of the judiciary in Macedonia, I will, therefore, primarily focus on
its formal manifestations—such as the main organizational issues of the
judiciary, the economic independence of judges—tested against undue
political influence on the judiciary.
Evidence accumulated on the relationship between the judici-
ary, crime, and politics clearly indicate that the judicial apparatus in
Macedonia has gradually turned into a mechanism facilitating state cap-
ture. From the explosive media reaction to leaked wiretapped materials
revealed in 2015, Macedonians have learned of the lasting influence that
the previous government, led by Nikola Gruevski, had on the judici-
ary. A series of discussions involving top state officials, judges, and pro-
government news editors exposed party patronage and informality as
the main impediments in judicial operations.2 The disclosed wiretapped
materials show, for example, how a former Minister of Justice and mem-
bers of his immediate family bluntly interfered with court processes
(Marušić 2015). The public learned of the selective justice applied to the
government’s political opponents. In addition, the judiciary persistently
obstructed and ultimately closed cases of high-level abuse of power for
various procedural reasons, which is another indicator of political influ-
ence over the judicial system (Kmezić 2017). So far, none of the high-
level cases of abuse of power have been brought to their closure, while
a handful of judgments on political corruption concerned lower ranking
state secretaries, heads of sectors, and local government officials (Taleski
et al. 2016). The government abused the judiciary in an attempt to pre-
vent unforeseen costs to the state budget by instructing judges not to
reward compensation for damages when the state was sued (ibid.).

2 For more information: “Interactive Overview of Macedonia’s Largest Wire-Tapping

Scandal”, Al Jazeera. Available at: http://interactive.aljazeera.com/ajb/2015/makedoni-

ja-bombe/eng/index.html.
98  M. KMEZIĆ

Clearly, such practice was echoed in the lack of popular trust in the
judiciary: according to an IRI nationwide survey, more than a half of
Macedonians considered courts to be susceptible to political influences
(IRI 2015, p. 31). Experts corroborate such findings as perceived in a
survey involving judges and rule of law professionals, whereby the major-
ity of the respondents indicated undue political influence as the main
impediment to the independence of the judiciary in Macedonia (Taleski
et al. 2016).
How did Macedonia get here, and why did the judiciary become an
enabler of widespread corruption and abuse of office? Indeed, this man-
ifestation did not occur overnight. A historical overview of the evolu-
tion of the judicial branch in the country tells a story of fundamental
cultural predispositions shaped by the strong legacy of communist rule
in the administrative sphere, whereby various formal and informal insti-
tutions were traditionally in a dominant role over justice regardless of
legal guarantees of its independence (Kmezić 2017). Embarking on a
democratic transition, the judiciary was already vulnerable and open to
infiltration by party cronies belonging to the new political elites. In addi-
tion to the initial placing of loyalists with insufficient professional quali-
fications throughout the system, the establishment managed to keep the
judicial appointments and promotions in control, thus creating an infor-
mal institutional network that carried out the party patronage line. The
Judicial Council—an autonomous body established to achieve the inde-
pendence and self-government of the judiciary—was effectively subdued
to the government-appointed Judicial Council, while the administrative
evaluation of judges’ performance, which may result in election, pro-
motion, or removal from office, was performed by politically appointed
court presidents against quantitative criteria, such as the percentage
of repealed decisions under legal remedy and the number of resolved
cases per year, thus creating fertile ground for nontransparent decision-
making. In addition, inadequate funding of the judiciary has hampered
court operations as government-imposed budgetary constraints were
used as a mechanism of control over the judiciary (US State Department
2014: 6). Furthermore, covert political influence was also exercised from
within the judiciary through the role of the court’s administration, which
manipulated the assignments of politically sensitive cases and influenced
the court budgets.
From the above overview, it can be observed that, despite the EU’s
long-term involvement in initiating, negotiating, and financing major
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  99

institutional reforms in Macedonia, the country’s judicial system has

failed to create favorable conditions for the personal independence of
judges. The Judicial Council was unsuccessful in building its integrity
using the existing legislative framework, while political influence over the
judiciary—seen particularly in the content of judgments on high profile
or politically sensitive cases—reinforced elements of state capture.
Instead of focusing on the perceived negligence toward constitutional
and legal guarantees for judicial independence and its instrumentaliza-
tion for political oppression, the EU’s rule of law efforts focused mostly
on the technical capacities of the judiciary (Mandelski 2013, 2015), such
as the improvement of infrastructure, initial and continuous training
of judges, reducing the backlog of cases, etc. Hence, most of the EU’s
interventions remained of a superficial character, failing to investigate
historical processes and the main actors of corruption and informality
behind the façade of judicial independence.
Most importantly, the Macedonian case has clearly shown the com-
plete lack of determinacy of EU officials to publically name and shame
corrupt individuals responsible for the lack of progress in rule of law
reforms. Even when confronted with concrete evidence, as in the case
of the wiretapping scandal, the EU has remained rather silent on demo-
cratic backsliding in the country. By choosing to strengthen formal insti-
tutions in unconsolidated democracies, the EU’s top-down institutional
approach failed to fulfill its primary purpose—to create a system in which
citizens trust the law and state institutions.

Media Freedom in Serbia

Freedom of expression is a fundamental right of every human being. It is
guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
and defined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
as the “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all
kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the
form of art, or through any other media of choice.”3 Media freedom is
often seen as a corollary of the general right to freedom of expression
(see Amos et al. 2012). This comes as no surprise since a diverse and

3 United Nations. 1948. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19, General

Assembly Resolution 217 A (III).

100  M. KMEZIĆ

impartial media is, in fact, a crucial promoter, but also a protector, of

freedom of expression (Lichtenberg 1991).
As elaborated above, within the context of enlargement, the European
Commission tests candidate countries’ commitment to promoting media
freedom. Given the apparent lack of definition of media markets in the
Acquis, the Commission has produced a number of objectives used to
test the state of the media in aspiring Member States. These include the
creation of an enabling legal, regulatory and policy environment for the
exercising of rights of freedom of expression, freedom of the media, and
media integrity; increased resilience of the media against external pres-
sures; securing qualitative and trustworthy investigative journalism that
is available to citizens; and increasing the capacity and representativeness
of journalistic professional organizations capable of taking responsibility
of sector-relevant issues in dialogue with authorities as well as providing
services to their members (European Commission 2014b). These objec-
tives are paired with tangible benchmarks such as the annual assessments
of existing legislation affecting media, the number of rulings related to
media and their consistency with European Court for Human Rights
case law, the number of statements by public officials that have a self-
censorship effect on the media, the number of physical attacks, threats
and other forms of intimidation of the media, transparency in dispatch-
ing state aid, and financial assistance provided by state-owned companies,
etc.
In order to foster media reforms, the Commission offers a combina-
tion of political and financial support to meet the aforementioned objec-
tives. Political support foresees the involvement of the media and civil
society in the accession process, including in the monitoring of sector
strategies for EU financial assistance, while economic support focuses
on advocacy and capacity building, aiming primarily at decreasing media
organizations’ dependency on international donor funding, including
funding from the EU.
However, despite all the EU’s efforts, media freedoms are still in con-
tinuous deterioration across the board in Serbia. According to Freedom
House’s annual Freedom Press Report, Serbian media is considered
only partly free (2018). The Media Sustainability Index, produced by
IREX, reports on the “collapse of law, ethics, professionalism, and social
norms” (IREX 2016) which marked the previous year in the media field.
The Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index (2017) ranks
Serbia as 66th out of the 180 countries considered in its latest report.
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  101

In absolute numbers, the latest Reporters Without Borders index demon-

strates a slight rise in Serbia’s ranking, but this comes rather as a result
of an overall deterioration in respect to media freedom in Europe and
the rest of the world, not due to the improvement of the media scene
in Serbia. According to each of these sources, Serbian press freedom has
declined for seven years in a row, with setbacks registered in the legal,
political, and economic environments.
Addressing the EU objectives relating to the media sphere, the
Serbian Government adopted an ambitious five-year Media Strategy Plan
(National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia 2011) focusing on a new
set of legal acts adopted in 2014 which deal with public media systems,
media ownership and financing, the Regulatory Body for Electronic
Media, and privatization, as these are regarded as the key issues con-
cerning media diversity, freedom, and pluralism. Although the EU has
praised Serbia for putting in place legal and institutional conditions for
creating an enabling environment for freedom of expression (European
Commission 2014a), the fact is that the media scene in Serbia has yet
not improved, mostly due to political influence on the media.
By taking a broader historical perspective into account, it can be
observed that backsliding in media freedom in Serbia is not a recent
trend nor an exception, but rather the rule. Following 60 years of com-
munist rule marked by the absolute control of the media (Jović 2008),
it was in the early 1980s (while still part of Yugoslavia) that the Serbian
press gradually acquired limited freedom, only for this to be curtailed by
the emerging nationalist and authoritarian politics that began in the late
1980s. This media landscape presented a picture that was formally plu-
ralist, but remained government-controlled. Even after the democratic
changes introduced in 2000, the new government was more oriented
toward political reform and lacked wide-ranging control over the media,
but continued to use the control mechanisms of their authoritarian pre-
decessors (Vogel 2015). Furthermore, the economic vulnerability of
independent journalists provided an opportunity for economic interfer-
ence in the media, including influence exercised by the representatives of
foreign capital.
The new legislative framework has failed to break the clientelistic
chain and prevent political influence on the media. First, the law has
completely omitted the regulation of state advertising while at the same
time allowing for the cofinancing of media projects of common inter-
est as a permissible form of state aid. These categories, therefore, remain
102  M. KMEZIĆ

unregulated, and nontransparent, and as such they remain potential

tools for the creation of clientelistic relations between state bodies and
the media. According to a study prepared by the Balkan Investigative
Reporting Network (BIRN) in 2012 and 2013, the government, its spe-
cialized agencies, and public companies have spent approximately 12.5
million EUR on media. Half of this sum was shared between only four
media outlets, while the other half was divided among 500 other recipi-
ents (Maksić 2015). In addition, the pressure on media comes from mar-
keting agencies that are connected to the ruling elite (Tadić and Šajkaš
2016). After the change of power after the 2012 elections, the Mediapool
marketing agency run by Goran Veselinović, the former employer of the
current Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, became the most influential
actor in the advertising business despite having a relatively low profile
until then (Georgiev and Đorđević 2014).
Furthermore, the 2015 media privatization was marked by numer-
ous controversies, including the purchasing of media by party cronies.
The most prominent of these cases features the privatization of Niška
Television, where Vladan Gašić, son of the former defense minister and
senior member of the ruling Serbian Renewal Party, has become one of
the owners (Dobrašinović 2016). In addition, at least nine cases were
identified in which privatization has been implemented by a legal entity
wholly or partly financed from public funds (ibid.). Thus political influ-
ence and control of the media has survived the transformation of owner-
ship, only to reappear in a new shape.
The Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media is nominally independ-
ent of government bodies, both functionally and financially, however its
employees remain included in the corps of civil servants and as such are
subjected to governmental oversight. Although the government took no
visible actions that could qualify as interference in the independence of
the broadcasting regulator, Matić (2016) notes continuous manipulation
by informal, rather than direct, political influences.
Particularly worrisome are political influences on public media broad-
casters. Recent events involving the dismissal of the entire editorial team
and several journalists at Radio Television Vojvodina (RTV), coinciding
with a change in power in the northern Serbian region following the
most recent provincial elections, raise serious concerns about the proper
implementation of the Law on Public Service Media. In an open letter,
77 journalists and editors from RTV condemned the wave of dismissals
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  103

and demanded an explanation as to whether the dismissals were politi-

cally motivated (Dragojlo 2016).
Particularly worrisome is the trend of the abuse of state bodies in
order to prevent the work of journalists. In a 2015 incident involving
the Belgrade communal police, journalists working for two independent
news organizations, KRIK and Istinomer, were prevented from report-
ing on the controversial Belgrade Waterfront project (Radišić 2015).
Criminal law remains a significant potential pressure mechanism on the
media, in particular, through using open-ended concepts such as pub-
lic disturbance, incitement to hatred or security-related standards. In
addition, Serbian judges remain unaccustomed to key international legal
documents relating to freedom of speech, as well as the practice devel-
oped by the European Court of Human Rights (Kmezić 2015a). As a
result, it happens that, as in the case of Stojan Marković, journalists are
held responsible even for satirical articles about public officials (NUNS
2014). As seen in the case of Zrenjaninske novine, the government selec-
tively uses its tax policies so that critical media may be shot down as a
reprisal for their critical journalism, while loyal media, as can be observed
in the case of TV Pink, are allegedly allowed to owe millions of euros in
unpaid taxes (Barlovac 2015).
Finally, government officials are involved in formal manifestations of
media abuse observed in direct pressure on the media. Matić (2016)
establishes that pressures on the editors-in-chief are more powerful than
any legal pressure to respect the rights of others. In such cases, the edi-
tors serve as brokers in the clientelistic chain. Their dependency is based
on the previously established pattern of politically driven appointments
of chief editors in the remnants of the state-owned media, and their low
incomes under private ownership. Over the past five years, government
officials including President Aleksandar Vučić repeatedly engaged in
transparent confrontations with journalists and media outlets.4 Remnants
of publicly owned media and mushrooming tabloid journals are used to
back up such attacks and continue smear campaigns against independent
news outlets and critical NGOs, but also against independent state insti-
tutions, such as the Ombudsman.
Considering the set of newly adopted media laws and features of
the crisis of press freedom over the past five years in Serbia, it can be

4 “Serbian PM Slams EU, Alleging BIRN Lies,” Balkan Insight (10 January 2015).
104  M. KMEZIĆ

concluded that, despite the ongoing Europeanisation process, media

freedom in Serbia still remains deficient owing to shortfalls in norm
implementation and the political restraints imposed on journalists. The
absence of an independent, efficient, and accountable judiciary and
police force additionally aggravates the position of journalists. Media
freedom is guaranteed if media outlets are financially viable, free from
intervention by owners and the state, and if journalists are guaranteed
reliable and efficient protection. In Serbia none of these are the case. Yet
it seems that, despite its importance for the democratic functioning of a
country, media freedom is “not necessarily the most central element of
establishing compliance with EU norms,” as concluded in the European
Parliament’s study (2014: 7). In this regard, it is no surprise that non-
compliance with this part of the Copenhagen political criteria had only
a “negligible effect” (Vogel 2015: 10) on Serbia’s standing in Brussels.
This is perhaps best observed in a statement by Johannes Hahn, the
Commissioner for the European Neighborhood and Enlargement, who
claimed he needed “proof, not rumors” (BIRN 2015) in order to react
to alleged violations of media freedom in Serbia. By failing to name and
shame officials responsible for breaching media freedoms, EU officials
have lost the credibility of the media freedom conditionality in Serbia.

Conclusion
This study set out to explore structural impediments and limitations to
rule of law promotion in EU candidate countries. Despite the evidence
of limited progress in the rule of law reforms, this research highlights
serious and persistent gaps between European standards in the judi-
ciary and media freedom and the realities on the ground in Serbia and
Macedonia. Pursuing the theoretical framework of Europeanisation
studies, this Chapter has identified two sets of obstructing factors
­
explaining the apparent gap between the adoption and implementation
of the rule of law reforms in the Western Balkans. On the supply side,
i.e., on the side of the EU processes and strategies, these are the lack of
clarity and credibility of EU conditionality, while on the demand side,
concerning the domestic drive for reforms, these relate to the obstruc-
tionist potential of gatekeeper elites and legacies of the past.
First, I have confirmed that the accession system is only loosely rooted
in the EU Treaties, which hinders the clarity of EU conditions. An addi-
tional predicament arises from the difficulty of quantitatively verifying
 5  EU RULE OF LAW CONDITIONALITY: DEMOCRACY …  105

the achieved level of compliance in regard to the Copenhagen political

criteria. In contrast to economic reform, little can be established with
accuracy in the field of the rule of law due to the very nature of this
concept. Hence, during the accession process, the EU mostly engages
in technical issues related to legislative improvement and the smart
design of formal institutions aiming to improve the rule of law reforms
in candidate countries. However, as this study has demonstrated, the
legal-institutional measures alone cannot engineer the firm political
and societal support needed to succeed in the transformation process.
Moreover, the credibility of conditionality is closely linked with the
ability of the EU to efficiently monitor the fulfillment of its require-
ments. Although the transparency of the overall monitoring process has
recently increased, with the adoption of recalibrated progress reports, the
observed practice of repeatedly ignoring evident shortcomings in rule of
law implementation, and the failure to publicly “name and shame” politi-
cians responsible for the obstruction of democracy in candidate countries
considerably impedes the credibility of the EU’s accession conditionality.
On the demand side, which concerns the drive for reforming the rule
of law from within the accession countries, I observed problems relat-
ing to the obstructive role of domestic ruling elites and legacies from the
past. The main obstacles to rule of law reform in the Western Balkans are
not technical or financial, but rather political. The political transforma-
tion promoted by the EU indirectly aims at extending the accountability
of individuals to the legislation of the state. This endeavor threatens the
rent-seeking interests of domestic political elites by increasing the pros-
pects of them losing their position in power, and possibly even resulting
in them facing criminal indictment and imprisonment, as seen in the case
of former Croatian former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader. Hence, despite
their declarative commitment to reforms, the actions of political elites
are predominantly focused on the refusal to cede traditional impunity
and vested interests, manifested in regularized patterns of delaying key
reforms that would lead to a substantive development of the independ-
ence of the judiciary and media freedom in the Western Balkans.
The way forward for the EU in the engagement with these countries
is reaching deeper beyond the institutional (state) structure in order to
empower and provide the wider public with the skills necessary to hold
elites accountable. The crucial issue is bolstering EU’s credibility by
focusing on the strict monitoring of aspiring members in their progress
toward stable and prosperous democracies governed by the rule of law.
106  M. KMEZIĆ

Eventually, this process will enable the social and cultural continuity of
the transferred norms, particularly by providing every responsible mem-
ber of society with rules for their implementation. Otherwise, as the
performance of the judiciary in Macedonia and the functioning of the
media in Serbia disappoint, the fear is that the rule of law in the Western
Balkans will disappoint as well, while democracy in the region will remain
an empty shell despite the ongoing EU accession process.

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 CHAPTER 6

The Europeanisation of Minority Policies

in the Western Balkans

Simonida Kacarska

Introduction
The role of the EU in shaping national minority policies has been a sub-
ject of academic interest since the Eastern enlargement when the Union
included the respect for and protection of minorities in its accession criteria
without an agreed definition and common standards for its member states
(De Witte 2002). Two main trends can be determined in this literature. On
the one hand, research has supported the EU’s role in relation to democ-
ratisation in the conditions of post-communism specifically with respect to
national minority rights (Vachudova 2005; Kelley 2004). In the opposite
direction, Hughes et al. (2005) criticised the tendency of academic litera-
ture to “mythologize the positive relationship between conditionality and

This article was in part completed during a policy fellowship at the School of
Transnational Governance at the European Policy Institute in Florence. The
author kindly acknowledges the support of the school, the staff and other fellows
with thanks.

S. Kacarska (*) 
European Policy Institute, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

© The Author(s) 2019 111

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_6
112  S. KACARSKA

enlargement” calling for more empirical-based studies of the application of

conditionality. Ensuing empirical studies put into question the success of the
role of the EU as a democratising force responsible for the improved minor-
ity policies and concluded that in some cases the EU has fostered intereth-
nic cooperation, whereas in others it has increased polarisation (Tesser
2003; Schwellnus et al. 2009; Sasse 2009). Hence, in relation to national
minority policies, the “europeanising effect of EU conditionality has so far
been generally assumed rather than empirically proven, while deep diver-
gences across national and policy contexts persist” (Rechel 2008, p. 171).
Whereas, most of the research on the role of the EU in the acces-
sion process and minority policies originated in relation to the Eastern
enlargement, nowhere has the minority issue been as prominent as in the
former Yugoslav countries. The status and rights of national minorities
stood at the core of the Yugoslav wars in the first half of the 1990s as well
as the Kosovo and Macedonia conflicts of 1999 and 2001 respectively.
With the independence of Montenegro and Kosovo, the significance of
the minority issue has been further amplified. In response, academic lit-
erature has been in agreement that the democratisation of this region
depends on the management of minority issues (Gordon et al. 2008;
Blitz 2008). In light of its significance, EU conditionality on national
minorities was introduced as early as 1997 with the Regional Approach
as a mechanism of structuring conditionality towards the Balkans. Since
then, the instruments of conditionality have evolved and included the
2001 Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP) as well as the 2003
Thessaloniki Agenda. Specifically, in relation to national minority policies,
the EU in the Western Balkans enlargement further formalised its con-
ditionality policy through the establishment of a separate chapter in the
accession negotiations in 2005. Chapter 23 in the accession negotiations
deals specifically with judiciary and fundamental rights, the latter includ-
ing national minority rights as well. Besides setting up an additional chap-
ter in the negotiating structure, the Commission also employed a new
approach in terms of introducing the tool of “benchmarking” as a meas-
urable tool meant to “improve the quality of the negotiations, by provid-
ing incentives for the candidate countries to undertake necessary reforms
at an early stage” (EC 2006b, p. 6, emphasis added).
Despite the strengthened conditionality and monitoring, the findings
on the role of the EU conditionality in the Western Balkans have also
been inconclusive, dependent on country by country case and policy
area. Freyburg and Richter (2010) national identity determines the logic
of action that governments will follow when responding to the Union’s
 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  113

conditionality criteria (p. 266). Furthermore, “if the conditionality cri-

teria pertain to an issue area perceived as problematic for national iden-
tity, a different line of reasoning will be triggered than in cases where
the criteria are considered unproblematic” (Freyburg and Richter 2010,
p. 266). Thus, in these policy areas, the generalisation across countries
has proven to be much more difficult due to the “context-dependent
influence of the EU as an actor” (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005,
p. 223). Overall, there is largely consensus that “the EU conditionality
has had limited success in the Western Balkans; however, the more the
EU has sought to set conditions in those policy areas that are concerned
with symbols and the fundamental structure of the state, the more its
transformative power has been limited” (Bieber 2011, p. 1780).
In light of these findings, this chapter examines the Europeanisation
the national minority policies in the pre-accession process focusing on
the cases of Croatia and Macedonia.1 The case selection is based on the
contractual relations with the Union and the significance of the minor-
ity issue at the national level.2 Looking at these two cases, the chapter
approaches conditionality by tracing the construction of the specific con-
ditions and studying their application and understanding at the national
level and its development over time. It does not understand condi-
tionality as a fixed variable, but as a process amenable to change, thus
aims to unpack its operation. In terms of the policy areas under exami-
nation, the chapter focuses on two policy areas in which the European
Commission has attempted to use national legislation as elements of EU
conditionality. The research is based on process tracing of official EU
documents and interviews with EU and national officials and civil society
representatives conducted in Brussels, Skopje, and Zagreb.3 In relation
to the former, the chapter analyses the European Commission Reports

1 With the Ohrid Framework Agreement and the subsequent constitutional changes set-

ting up a largely consociational system, the neutral term “non-majority communities” was
introduced both in the constitution and relevant legislation in the country, replacing the
previously contested nationalities. While recognising this specificity, for the purpose of uni-
formity of terminology, this chapter will predominantly use the term minority. When dis-
cussing Macedonia post-2001, the thesis uses the term “non-majority communities”.
2 The two countries were the first official candidates for EU accession in the Balkans since

2004 and 2005 respectively, thus, providing a sufficient time period and data for analysis in
a comparable period of EU instruments. For more on case selection, see next section.
3 The interviews for the research used in this chapter were conducted in 2010/2011 with

a follow up in Macedonia in 2017.

114  S. KACARSKA

as well as the corresponding national planning documents4 to pro-

vide for the formal understanding of conditionality between 2005 and
2017 for Macedonia and 2013 for Croatia, as the year of its accession.
The interviews as the latter source of data are used to grasp the infor-
mal understanding of conditionality by the key stakeholders. The chapter
contributes to the study of the role of conditionality in national minority
policies in accession by demonstrating its flexible nature over time and
the potential for polarisation in areas which are not strictly regulated by
the EU acquis.
The chapter consists of three major sections. This introduction is fol-
lowed by a short conceptual background on Europeanisation and con-
ditionality in relation to national minority policies as a policy area not
covered by the acquis. The empirical analysis that follows is divided into
three sections. First, it analyses the context and the rationale for the case
selection. Second, it analyses two key policies related to the national
minorities in each of the two countries: the national minority councils in
Croatia and the law on languages in Macedonia. The chapter in its con-
clusion reflects on the empirical findings for the study of the role of the
EU in the acceding countries of the Western Balkans.

Europeanisation of National Minority Policies

The Europeanisation of the (potential) candidate states for EU accession
has been managed primarily through the instrument of conditionality
defined as “the use of positive incentives (ultimately EU membership)
as rewards for states that the EU specifies” (Sedelmeier 2006, p. 9). The
mechanism of conditionality was most extensively developed in the case
of the Eastern enlargement of the EU, since prior to the 1990s there
was no proper monitoring of conditions for accession to the EU, espe-
cially in relation to the political criteria (Pridham 2007). Similarly, “con-
ditional accession following the fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria”
has been the “main thrust of EU policy in the [Western Balkans] region”
(Elbasani 2009, p. 5). Hughes et al. (2005) have argued that EU con-
ditionality “includes not only the formal technical requirements on can-
didates but also the informal pressures arising from the behaviour and

4 These include the National Plans for the Adoption of the Acquis, as well as official gov-

ernment reports. For Croatia, these include the documents related to the accession nego-
tiations as well: Screening Reports, Interim Reports as well as corresponding benchmarks.
 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  115

perceptions of actors engaged in the political process” (p. 2). Whereas,

the former “embodies the publicly stated preconditions […] of the
‘Copenhagen criteria’ and the […] acquis”, the latter “includes the oper-
ational pressures and recommendations applied by actors within the
Commission […] during their interactions with their CEEC counter-
parts” (p. 26). Pridham has similarly argued that we should study “con-
ditionality contextually, since how it has developed and been handled is
shown to be a dependent variable both on the EU side in terms of moti-
vation and on the domestic side in terms of implementation” (Pridham
2007, p. 447).
Minority policies are an element of EU political conditionality, which
emphasises “respect for and the furtherance of democratic rules, proce-
dures and values” (Pridham 2002, p. 956). At the Copenhagen summit
in 1993, the EU member states decided that in order to join the EU,
a new member state must first ensure the stability of institutions guar-
anteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and
protection of minorities.5 Still, the “Copenhagen criteria do not define
the benchmarks or the process by which EU conditionality could be
enforced and verified” (Hughes et al. 2005, p. 25). The lack of a com-
mon understanding in this policy area in the EU is also reflected in the
variety of terms that the European Commission uses in its reports, i.e.
minority rights, rights of persons belonging to minorities, which are
mostly linked to the national definitions of the country in question.6
In order to deal with this challenge in this specific policy area, the
EU has relied on other international organisations or has supported
the implementation of national legislation and policies. As to the for-
mer, Sasse (2006) argues that “while the EU borrowed the link between
democracy and human (and later) minority rights from the Council of
Europe, the OSCE provided the EU with the security-based ration-
ale for minority protection” (p. 65). In the latter, which is in the focus
of this chapter, the European Commission has considered domestic con-
stitutional provisions and legislation have been taken as points of ref-
erence, interpreting them as self-commitments of an acceding country

5 The second and third criterion concerns the functioning market economy and ability to

take on the responsibility of Union membership.

6 Author’s interview with European Commission official, Brussels, 8 December 2010.
116  S. KACARSKA

(Brusis 2003).7 While “relying on domestic rules and agreements is

advantageous as it enables the EU institutions to focus their policy on
the specific local situation, but it risks that the parameters of the situa-
tion determine the standards […] underlying EU policies” (Brusis 2003,
p. 4). Nancheva criticises this approach by arguing that “when it did
engage with the [minority] issue, the EU simply re-produced and trans-
posed legal instruments, policies and practices that had been conceived
within the normative realm of national governance and national sover-
eignty and in view of the minority problems associated with it” (Nancheva
2016, p. 138).
Overall, in light of the conceptual challenges presented above, minor-
ity policies are usually considered to be the ultimate test for EU condi-
tionality (Sasse 2005) due to the lack of a common policy at the EU level
and the high political salience of the issue. Thus, they are a fertile ground
for studying the role of the EU in shaping policies at the national level,
as the main objective of this book. At the same time, because of the EU’s
lack of competence, they are significant for studying the implementation
and consistency of conditionality, presented below through an analysis of
cases when the European Commission used national legislation as an ele-
ment of EU conditionality.

Europeanising National Minority Policies

in Macedonia and Croatia

Contextual Background
Croatia and Macedonia were selected for this analysis primarily due to
their contractual relations with the Union and the significance of the
minority issue at the national level. In relation to the former, the two
countries were the first official candidates for EU accession in the Balkans
since 2004 and 2005 respectively and were the first cases in which
extensive national minority conditionality was used with the same EU
instruments at disposal (see below for discussion). Despite the formal
similarities between the two case studies, their experiences of the pre-ac-
cession process have also been unique and different. Croatia negotiated

7 As to the use of international instruments as elements of EU conditionality, see

Kacarska (2013b).
 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  117

its EU membership from 2005 until mid-2011 when a date for accession
was set for mid-2013. Macedonia, despite holding the status of a candi-
date country since 2005, still, has not commenced the negotiations. The
Commission’s 2009 recommendation for starting of the negotiations is
conditional upon the resolving the dispute over the country’s constitu-
tional name with Greece, and since 2015 upon progress in the areas of
political criteria.8 Hence, the two countries provide significant insight
into the incentive structures that operate in different contractual relations
with the EU, yet in a comparable period of development in terms of the
EU instruments. In this respect, Avery and Cameron (1998) have argued
that the opening of the negotiations differentiates the status of the coun-
tries because it possibly implies the intention of the Union to conclude
them and accept the country as a member.
As to the latter aspect, in both countries under examination minor-
ity policies are an issue of everyday importance due to the ethnic heter-
ogeneity, the recent experience of conflicts, as well as unresolved issues
such as state and nation building. In Croatia, although numerically
the national minorities comprise less than 10% of the population, the
related policies are significant foremost due to the legacy of the recent
Yugoslav wars that exacerbate the significance of minority accommo-
dation. Similarly, national minority issues have dominated Macedonia’s
political agenda since independence. This tendency has been underlined
by domestic and international analysts, arguing that the main challenge
facing Macedonia in the period of independence has been “the manage-
ment of aspirations, attitudes and expectations of the population, incor-
porating a large minority group” (Miller and Ivanovic 1999, p. 318).
National minorities (non-majority communities) make up around 35% of
the population, including a large 25% Albanian community. In addition,
the EU has been acting as a guarantor of the consociational arrangement
following the signing of the 2001 Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA).9
Moreover, looking at the impact in a unitary state as Croatia and a con-
sociational system as Macedonia provides insight into the impact of EU
in varying domestic arrangements. Overall, in both countries minority
protection policies are of high significance as has been the EU’s role in
their management.

8 For more on this see chapter on contextual background.

9 For more on the EU’s role in Macedonia see Kacarska (2013a).
118  S. KACARSKA

Against this background, the empirical section below aims to unpack

the Europeanisation of national minority policies in both cases studies
focusing on how the EU used conditionality in relation to national legis-
lation and policies in the two countries under examination. First, it looks
at the effective participation in decision-making through a focus on the
local councils for national minorities in Croatia and second, it studies the
adoption of the law on languages in Macedonia.

National Minority Councils in Croatia

The primary framework for the rights of national minorities in Croatia
is the Constitutional Law on National Minorities (CLNM), adopted
in November 2002 largely as a result of the pending ratification of the
Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) and with significant pres-
sure from the EU.10 The law replaced “the legislation previously gov-
erning the protection of minority rights was politically an extremely
controversial and much-discussed law, and was amended and suspended
quite a number of times in its existence of just over ten years” (Petričušić
2002, p. 607). After the adoption, the European Commission closely
monitored the implementation of the law in terms of drafting a plan for
its implementation, establishment, and functioning of the Councils for
national minorities at the local level and the employment of minorities in
state administrative, judicial bodies and the police.11
The introduction of the national minority councils in the direc-
tion of improving minority participation in public life, amplified in the
conditions of post-conflict was one of the most important elements of
the CLNM. Foreseen as a form of local self-government, among other
competences, the councils have the right to make proposals to local
authorities on improving the position of minorities as well as to propose
candidates for local government positions.12 Since the beginning their
establishment has been burdened with problems. The first election for
minority councils held on 18 May 2003, were “called at short notice and
held in the immediate aftermath of a long period of vacation connected

10 Author’s interview with CSO representative, Zagreb, 5 May 2011.

11 On the latter see Kacarska (2013c).
12 Constitutional Law on the Rights of National Minorities, Official Gazette no. 155/2002,

available at: http://www.vsrh.hr/CustomPages/Static/HRV/Files/Legislation__Constitutional-

Law-on-the-Rights-NM.pdf (accessed 10 January 2018).
 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  119

with the Catholic and Orthodox Easter” (Zanotti 2008, p. 241). As a

result, Serbs and Roma were among the minorities that had the lowest
rate of participation.
Given that after the adoption of the CLNM the European
Commission closely monitored its implementation, the local councils
were in the focus of its interest even before the accession negotiations
on Chapter 23 started. In terms of the functioning of the local minor-
ity councils between 2005 and 2007, i.e. before the start of the acces-
sion negotiations on Chapter 23, the Commission largely raises the
concern that local authorities are not aware of the role of the minority
councils (EC 2005b, p. 21; 2006a, p. 11; 2007a, p. 13). Similarly, the
OSCE at the time also remarked that the “local Councils of National
Minorities established by the CLNM as advisory bodies to local and
regional self-government units are, with a few positive exceptions, still
struggling to be recognized as institutional partners” (OSCE 2006,
p. 7). Despite these continuous criticisms from the European Commission,
the national authorities between 2006 and 2008, as well as during the
accession negotiations, i.e. since 2008 do not foresee any specific a­ ctivities
for advancing the role of the councils, besides reporting on their numbers
in strategic documents (Government of the Republic of Croatia 2006,
2007). As of 2007, the government starts reporting as well on the sem-
inars which were delivered to the Councils and also (Government of the
Republic of Croatia 2007).13 Yet, for most of the interviewees of the study
“training has been the immediate and generally least effective common
response to dealing with EU requirements on capacity building.”14
The European commission criticism in relation to the operation
of the national minority councils continue to persist in the Progress
Reports in 2008 and 2009, i.e. during the accession negotiations on
the specific chapter. For example, in 2008 and 2009 the Commission
notes that “CNMs are not sufficiently recognised yet as advisory bodies
by the majority of local authorities. Moreover, their independence and
influence is affected by the fact that they depend on the budget of the
town authority or council” (EC 2008a, p. 13; 2009, p. 14). The Shadow
report to the FCNM prepared by several prominent CSOs in Croatia

13 The support solely in terms of trainings is similar as the case of the FCNM and as was

highlighted by my interviewees, denoted “lack of will” on the national side to deal with the
issues in substance.
14 Author’s interview with CSO representative, Zagreb, 5 June 2011.
120  S. KACARSKA

highlights that these institutions did not succeed in the course of their
second mandate to position themselves in any of the segments related
to decision-making (Center for Peace 2010). Relying upon data from
members of these councils, it reiterates the need to amend the legislation
for their functioning, however, this is not supported in the European
Commission reports in the same period. In 2011, the European
Commission solely mentions that support to the local CNMs increased
and training was provided for local authorities and the new July 2011
elections which took place with very low turnout (EC 2011a).
Even though prior to the official launching of the negotiations on
Chapter 23 the European Commission dealt with the functioning of the
councils, when the negotiations for EU accession started the issue was
sidelined. At the same time, the opening of the negotiations has been
assessed as “the most significant of the different stages of the accession
process [….] [which] creates new situations and new expectations, as
both sides begin to take accession seriously and examine all its practical
consequences” (Avery and Cameron 1998, p. 27).15 The only document
where the issue appears is the 2007 screening report on Chapter 23, in
which the European Commission repeats the remark from the annual
progress report in terms of the unrecognised role of these Councils
by the majority of local authorities and that many of them struggle to
obtain premises and funding (EC 2007b). Even though the screening
report mentions them, the European Commission and the authorities
did not deal with the issue in the negotiations, as confirmed in discus-
sions with stakeholders.
The lack of follow up is evident in the accession process, as the issue
of national minority councils is almost invisible. For example, the func-
tioning of the minority councils was not included in the benchmarks in
the interim report on the negotiations of Chapter 23 issued in March
2011, highlighting the lack of consistency in the requirements (see EC
2011b). The national strategic documents also do not deal specifically
with the role of the local minority councils in the post-2008 period.
The 2011 National Plan for the Adoption of the Acquis (NPAA) only
mentions the intention to organise seminars for the improvement of
the work of minority councils and representatives of national minorities
(Government of the Republic of Croatia 2011). Overall, the issue was

15 Avery and Cameron (1998, p. 27).

 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  121

not dealt with in a structured way in the negotiations process, although

it was a subject of EU interest and also was supported by substantial
financial assistance.
For the stakeholders “these bodies seem as very important because
they were established by the CLNM, but have no specific compe-
tences, nor obligations.”16 A European Commission interlocutor in the
Delegation in Zagreb confirmed that “the minority councils are an orna-
ment and until they become part of the political life there is no point in
their operation, although the EU supports them.”17 A CSO represent-
ative from Zagreb highlighted that because of these critiques from the
EU, the NGOs often “react to these formal changes through applying
for funds to assist the implementation of these activities that the EU
tends to support.”18 On the same note, it was argued:

A lot of effort was put into the educating of the members of these coun-
cils, while recognising that the role and function of these bodies is not
clear. Hence, when I asked the European Commission why they allocate
a lot of money enabling these bodies that ultimately do not have a clear
function; I received an open and cynical reply. The European Commission
confirmed that these bodies are decorum, but as it tried so hard to make
the Croatian government to adopt the CLNM, it is expected that we take
them seriously. Thus, there is double pretence in this case, both on the side
of the EU and the national authorities.19

The analysis of the establishment and functioning of the local minority

councils in the case of Croatia illustrated the lack of consistency in the
EU’s approach to minority conditionality in this specific policy. While
prior to the start of the negotiations the European Commission dealt
in detail with the functioning of the councils, in the negotiations this
issue was not tackled. At the same time, there is an evident discordance
between the regular Progress Reports and the negotiating documents
in relation to dealing with the functioning of the Councils for national
minorities. Thus, the negotiations were in a way a missed opportunity for

16 Author’s interview with CSO representative, Zagreb, 5 June 2011, Author’s interview

with European Commission official, Zagreb, 3 June 2011.

17 Author’s interview with European Commission official, Zagreb, 3 June 2011.

18 Author’s interview with CSO representative, Zagreb, 5 June 2011.

19 Author’s interview with CSO representative, Zagreb, 5 June 2011.

122  S. KACARSKA

advancing this specific policy, although literature has commonly shown

that the EU’s influence in supporting policy change and implementation
is the highest during the accession negotiations.

Law on Languages in Macedonia

The national minority policies in the case of Macedonia have been mostly
linked to the implementation of the Ohrid framework agreement (OFA)
of 2001. The implementation of the OFA became an element of EU
conditionality among other reasons due to the EU’s role as a guaran-
tor of the agreement.20 The OFA established a form of power sharing
within the system instituting a minority veto, extending the use of the
languages of the non-majority communities which represent over 20%
at the national and local level, the principle of adequate and equitable
representation and decentralisation. The analytical report of 2005 the
European Commission concludes that “the OFA legislative programme
was completed […] and the remaining task is to ensure continued and
effective implementation, thereby further strengthening the climate of
confidence and stability” (EC 2005a, p. 12). The same document also
notes that “the coalition partners [the Social Democratic Union of
Macedonia (SDSM) and the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI)]
have agreed that, although not formally required by the Framework
Agreement, a law on the use of languages should be adopted to com-
plement the substantial number of existing sectoral laws specifying use
of the Albanian language” (EC 2005a, p. 30, emphasis added). Overall,
while it monitored the use of languages in line with national legislation,
the European Commission left the question as to whether or not there is
a requirement for the adoption of a framework be decided at the national
level. Thus, none of the EU documents between 2006 and 2008 con-
tains a direct reference to this law, indicating that it was not a formal
condition in the case of Macedonia in relation to national minorities.21
On the other hand, the national strategic documents for EU accession
show a mixed record with respect to the (non)-inclusion of the law on
languages for the purposes of EU accession before and after the change
of government in 2006. In the 2005 answers to the Questionnaire

20 For more on this see Ilievski and Taleski (2009).

21 For a detailed overview see Kacarska (2012).
 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  123

for EU membership, the government at the time identifies that “the

only remaining Law to be adopted in accordance with Section 6 [of
the OFA] is the Law on Use of Languages of Communities in the
Republic of Macedonia, which will be adopted in the first half of 2005”
(Government of the Republic of Macedonia 2005). Yet, in the 2006
NPAA the government planned for the adoption of such a law, although
in this document it states that the law on languages is not an OFA obli-
gation (Government of the Republic of Macedonia 2006a). A formal
obligation for adoption of the law is also (for the last time) found in the
2006 Action Plan for the European Partnership (Government of the
Republic of Macedonia 2006b). Overall, until 2006 the outgoing gov-
ernment at the time demonstrated largely the intention to adopt such a
law with evident different interpretations of whether the law is an obliga-
tion of the OFA which continue until present.
Following the change of government in the summer of 2006, there is
an evident change as to the national understanding and position whether
this law constitutes an element of EU conditionality. In 2007 and 2008
the law is not included in the planning documents for EU accession. The
non-inclusion of the Law on languages in the primary planning docu-
ment for EU accession indicates that the law was not accepted by the
new coalition government [VMRO-DPMNE and DPA] as an obligation
for the EU integration purposes. This was confirmed by my interviewees
who have underlined that “the strategic documents for EU accession are
also very political in their essence having in mind that in non-acquis areas
they also represent the government will.”22 In practice, the new govern-
ment was attempting to resolve the language issue solely in terms of the
use of the Albanian language in the Parliament, by amending the rule-
book of the Parliament (Mehmeti 2007).
However, in the summer of 2008 the Parliament adopted the Law on
the Use of Language Spoken by at least 20% of citizens in the Republic
of Macedonia and in the Local Self-government Units (hereinafter
Law on the use of languages) upon proposal of members of DUI, the
Albanian party that entered government in the same year. The DUI
which as a party originated in the 2001 conflict, was also in government
in the period 2005–2006 when the strategic documents for EU acces-
sion as explained above pledged the adoption of a law on languages as

22 Author’s interview with high level civil servant from the Secretariat for European

Affairs, 22 December 2010.

124  S. KACARSKA

a self-imposed obligation. The adoption of such a law was a part of an

informal agreement between the ruling party VMRO-DPMNE and
DUI, so-called May Agreement—made for the return of the DUI in
Parliament following several months of boycott in 2007.23 The political
sensitivity of the law was evident as the president at the time used his sus-
pensive veto and did not sign it after its first adoption. The second vote
in Parliament took place during the month of August 2008 when the
Parliament was not in session and without the participation of the second
biggest Albanian party. An interviewee of mine explained that the law
was significant because “the Albanians, DUI especially, since the signing
of the OFA needed a symbol that this issue was resolved.”24
Following the adoption of the law on languages, its implementation
has become a matter of monitoring by the European Commission and
also an issue on which the national government reported. In this way,
in practice, the national legislation (not required by the EU directly
prior to 2008) became an element of EU conditionality after 2008. In
line with its approach of including national commitments as elements of
conditionality, in 2008 the European Commission included an assess-
ment on the law in its Progress Report. For the Commission, it “clarifies
and extends the scope for the use of non-majority languages at all levels
of state and local self-government” […], noting that “the law does not
sufficiently address the use of languages of the smaller ethnic communi-
ties” (EC 2008b, p. 19). With the assessment of the Law in its Progress
Report, the European Commission in effect included it in the condition-
ality on national minority policies. The last direct reference to the law
from the EC is in 2014, when the European Commission notes that it
still not been properly implemented (EC 2014). Similarly, the national
documents for EU accession also reflect on its implementation since
2009 (Government of the Republic of Macedonia 2009). In 2010, the
Macedonian Government underlines that efforts will be made to extend

23 As was reported by a local newspaper, the preparation and adoption of the law on the

use of languages was a part of this understanding. The Agreement is not available in public,

and DUI hide the Agreement [ВМРО-ДПМНЕ и ДУИ го затскриваат договорот] Dnevnik
but its main points are summarised by a newschapter article at the time, VMRO-DPMNE

daily newschapter, 30 May 2007: http://www.dnevnik.com.mk/?itemID=C13A64D4221

58841A5A52709A2C06E08&arc=1 (accessed 22 June 2010).
24 Author’s interview with Member of Parliament, Skopje, 23 December 2010, emphasis

added.
 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  125

the use of this law to state institutions where this was not possible due
to the lack of technical equipment (Government of the Republic of
Macedonia 2010).
National and European Commission officials hold contrasting views
on the role of this law as an element of the EU accession conditionality,
which as will be seen below persists until today. For national civil serv-
ants “the law has become part of conditionality”, and they stressed “the
change of the European Commission approach from considering the
issue to be outside of its competences to its gradual inclusion in con-
ditionality.”25 On the one hand, European Commission interviewees in
Brussels highlighted that “they expect this law to be one of the main
issues which will be included in the benchmarks in the accession nego-
tiations”, thereby illustrating that the issue has firmly entered the array
of EU political criteria.26 On the other hand, European Commission
interviewees in Skopje, which are more attune to the domestic context
stressed that “the law is not an issue of interest to the Commission in the
accession process.”27 This conflict within the Commission itself under-
lines the problems of stipulating conditionality in absence of clear EU
rules, as is the case with national minority policies and the reliance of
national legislation in such instances. Furthermore, this case, therefore,
illustrates the lack of clear understanding of conditionality within the
Commission, between Brussels and the delegations in the candidates,
in addition to the horizontal fragmentation of the Commission proven
extensively in academic literature primarily in relation to different DGs
(Nugent 1997; Morth 2000).
The use of languages once more topped the agenda of the
Macedonian political space in 2017 with the creation of the new govern-
ment following the 2016 elections. Several stakeholders have confirmed
that the language use and reaching a common agreement on this deter-
mined the political party that was going to be in power at these elec-
tions.28 At this point, the DUI was requesting that the right of use of
Albanian to be extended beyond the existing legislation. Quite similar as
in 2008, a new draft law was once more placed on the agenda by DUI

25 Author’s interview with high level civil servant in the Ministry of Justice, Skopje, 18

January 2011.
26 Author’s interview with European Commission official, Brussels, 11 October 2010.

27 Author’s interview with European Commission official, Skopje, 27 January 2011.

28 Author’s interview with Macedonia based diplomat, Skopje, 15 June 2017.

126  S. KACARSKA

as a party member of government. In addition, the respective Ministry

of Justice headed by DUI decided to present the law as part of the leg-
islation related/required for EU integration, or as one marked with an
EU flag.29 Similarly, when discussed in Parliament, the law was sent to
the Committee for European Affairs with much debate in Parliament
by the opposition requesting that it would be sent to the Commission
on political system. In practice, the use of the EU flag on this law was
used by the government as a way to increase the legitimacy of this legis-
lation, although without an explanation of the specific EU requirements
in mind. The opposition party in this period VMRO-DPMNE in effect
argued that the linking of this law with EU requirements was an abuse of
the EU flag by the government.30
In these circumstances, European Commission and member state
­representatives were placed in a rather peculiar condition asked by poli-
ticians and media in the country to reflect on whether the law was an
element of EU conditionality. The EU ambassador in the country in a
TV statement underlined that “the government had decided on its own
to include an EU flag on the law in question.”31 The Commissioner for
enlargement stated that the law was not part of the priority legislation for
EU accession especially since in 2018 it was a reason for a several weeks
blockade of the parliament.32 Last, the French ambassador to Macedonia
clearly stated that “placing the EU flag on the Law on languages was not
desirable.”33 On the opposite end, the national government representa-
tives, foremost of DUI, upon the adoption of the law presented it as a
key step in the direction of European integration, as a goal supported by
the majority of the population. The Deputy Prime Minister responsible

29 See: The Law on Languages is to be adopted with an EU flag [Законот за јазиците ќе

се усвојува под европско знаме], Alsat M, 26 July 2017, https://goo.gl/sBTUpB, last

accessed 25 January 2018.
30 VMRO DPMNE Press Release, https://vmro-dpmne.org.mk/pres-centar/aktuelno/

parlamentarnoto-mnozinstvo-so-sila-i-nasilstvo-go-turka-zakonot-za-jazici.
31 http://www.telma.com.mk/vesti/zhbogar-vladata-da-ne-gi-povtori-greshkite-na-pre-

thodnicite.
32 Sinisa Jakov Marusic “Macedonia Parks Language Law to Focus on EU Priorities”, 4

November 2017, BIRN, available at:  http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/eu-sought-re-

forms-postpone-macedonia-s-language-law-11-23-2017, last accessed 16 March 2018.
33 Interview with French Ambassador to the Republic of Macedonia, MAKFAX, 8 March

2018, available at: https://goo.gl/Jt3dJa, last accessed 16 March 2018.

 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  127

for European integration further argued that “those that are against the
law are against NATO and EU and against this country.”34 Following its
adoption which stirred a political crisis, the Government committed itself
to send the law to the Venice Commission of the Council of European for
an assessment of its constitutionality, and this move was largely supported
by the European Commission.35
The discussion above illustrates how the reliance on national legislation
as self-commitment complicates the tracing of conditionality and its impact
on national minority policies. The adoption of a separate law on lan-
guages on Macedonia was contested as to its inclusion in the OFA and the
self-commitment has largely depended on the participation of the minority
party in government as was illustrated above. After its adoption, the law
and its implementation were included by the European Commission in its
regular reporting and monitoring in practice becoming part of EU con-
ditionality. While at the time the adoption of the first law in 2008 there
was no major discussion as to whether the law was an element of EU con-
ditionality, in 2017 when a new law was placed on the agenda there was
evident discordance between the EU and national authorities on this topic.
While the law by the national government was presented as a step towards
EU integration, representatives of EU institutions and member states did
not support this position fully, or as was shown above even opposed it.

Conclusion
This chapter examined the transformation of the national minority
policies in the Western Balkans focusing on the cases of Croatia and
Macedonia in the context of EU accession. The case selection was based
on the contractual relations with the EU, as these two countries were the
first in the region to gain candidate status and to prepare strategic doc-
uments for European integration since 2005. Given the lack of a specific
definition of the national minority criteria at the EU level, the chapter

34 Meta MK, Osmani: Those Who Are Against the Law on Languages Are Against NATO

and the EU and Against the Country, 22 February, 2018, http://meta.mk/en/osmani-

those-that-are-against-the-law-on-languages-are-against-nato-and-the-eu-and-against-this-
country/, last accessed 16 March 2018.
35 European Western Balkans, 15 March 2018, EC Expect Language Law to be Forwarded

to Venice Commission, available at: https://europeanwesternbalkans.com/2018/03/15/

ec-expect-language-law-forwarded-venice-commission/, last accessed 16 March 2018.
128  S. KACARSKA

has looked into the use of national policies and legislation as elements
of EU conditionality as a self-commitment of the countries in question.
The chapter adopted a process-based definition of conditionality which
underlines its changing nature over time and the need to analyse the spe-
cific conditionalities over time focusing on the relationship between the
EU and the national level. The chapter combines the analysis of EU and
national documents with data from stakeholder interviews in order to
grasp both the formal and informal dimensions of conditionality.
In terms of the use of national policies as elements of EU condition-
ality, the chapter focused on two major policy areas: the operation of the
national minority councils in Croatia and the adoption of legislation on
language use in Macedonia as two of the most prominent policies in each
of the countries. First, the analysis of the establishment and functioning
of the local minority councils in Croatia illustrated the lack of consistency
and follow up in the EU’s approach to minority conditionality in this
specific policy. While prior to the start of the accession negotiations the
European Commission dealt in detail with the functioning of the coun-
cils, during the accession negotiations this issue was not tackled, as was
illustrated by the document analysis and stakeholders’ views. The analy-
sis also showed discordance between the progress reports and the nego-
tiating documents although they’re both prepared by the Commission
officials, once more highlighting the problem of stipulating consistent
conditionality in the absence of the acquis.
Second, the example of the law on languages in Macedonia illustrates
the role domestic actors and politics play in the creation and imple-
mentation of conditionality, i.e. its bottom-up dimension. In this case
namely, an issue which was initially, i.e. in 2005 not a part of EU condi-
tionality, after its adoption at the national level became subject of mon-
itoring of the EU and one of the elements of the EU accession criteria
since 2008. The re-opening of this issue in 2017 once again highlighted
the existing inconsistencies and the instrumental use of EU conditional-
ity by national actors. The debates over the adoption of the new law in
2017 show a clear lack of consensus, even opposing views as to whether
the EU conditionality includes standards on language use which are
required from Macedonia. The support for adopting the law in the case
analysed was, in fact, dependent on the minority party and its participa-
tion in government, i.e. ability to realise its own agenda. Moreover, the
actors involved both at the EU level and national authorities had differ-
ing views of the inclusion/non-inclusion of this law as a condition of EU
 6  THE EUROPEANISATION OF MINORITY POLICIES …  129

accession, illustrating clearly the existing lack of consensus between and

within these two groups of stakeholders. Lastly, the law on languages
illustrates the largely informal channels the European Commission used
in its communication on conditionality and the informal processes taking
place which determined the outcome of the policy.
Both case studies and policy areas illustrate the difficulties in stip-
ulating conditionality in the area of minority policies when relying on
national legislation as self-commitment. The analysis above largely con-
firms the findings of authors such as Brusis (2005) that emphasise the
importance of domestic factors in the outcomes of conditionality in areas
not regulated by the acquis. In terms of the methodological approach
and the framework of analysis, this research has demonstrated that con-
ditionality needs to be analysed as a process due to the changes over
time and the multitude of actors involved in its application. Since issues
and policies can become elements of conditionality at different points
in time, an examination over a longer period is indispensable for under-
standing its complexity and operation. While generally, the chapter con-
firms the persistence of the “conditionality gap” (Hughes et al. 2005,
p. 174), it also highlights the flexibility of the included criteria, both in
the EU and national documents and among stakeholders.

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 CHAPTER 7

Ethnicisation vs. Europeanisation:

Promoting Good Governance
in Divided States

Cvete Koneska

Introduction
One of the most popular arguments behind European Union (EU)
enlargement—and EU integration in general—is that it reduces the
potential for national and ethnic conflicts. Whether ending a long history
of Franco-German wars or preventing a renewal of ethnic conflicts in the
Balkans, the EU is credited with reducing the animosity between coun-
tries and groups by binding them closer together (Dinan 2005; Urwin
2014; Dedman 2006). While various European integration theories dif-
fer in their accounts about the process—ranging from economic inter-
ests relating to the single market to identity change through embracing
of social norms—virtually none disputes the outcome, the strengthened
peace and cooperation (Rosamond 2000; Schmitter 1969; Moravscik
1993; Börzel and Risse 2003).

C. Koneska (*) 
St Antony’s College, Oxford University, Oxford, UK

© The Author(s) 2019 135

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_7
136  C. KONESKA

There is much evidence to support this argument. As is often cited

in discussions about EU integration, after centuries of perpetual wars,
the European continent (or at least large parts of it) has enjoyed a long
period of peace and cooperation since the onset of the European integra-
tion project. Even in the Balkan region, where ethnic conflicts took place
as recently as two decades ago, mutual disputes between the formerly
warring parties are being addressed only through diplomatic means
(Tocci 2007; Coppieters 2004). For instance, after Kosovo’s declaration
of independence in 2008, the Serbian government ruled out any use of
force in resolving the dispute with its former province. And this was only
ten years after the conflict which led to NATO intervention and eventual
establishment of international administration in Kosovo. With EU’s assis-
tance, Serbia and Kosovo in 2013 reached an agreement to “normalise”
relations and resolve the practical issues, such as customs, property rights
and telecommunications (Government of Kosovo 2013).
However, there are cases when the EU, or the process of adapting
to and adopting European policies and norms, leads to unintended and
often opposite outcomes. Not only does the EU’s growing involve-
ment in domestic and inter-group issues not lead to reduced tensions
and animosity, but in some cases the EU, as an external actor, becomes
‘ethnicised’—used as a token in domestic inter-ethnic debates. Rather
than acting to reduce “ethnicisation” and promote more cooperation
between ethnic groups, the EU becomes part of the ethnically coloured
domestic political rhetoric.
The inability, or the reduced ability, of the EU to induce change in
the Western Balkans has already been noted and examined (Anastasakis
2005; Börzel 2011). From weak statehood (Noutcheva 2009) to EU
inconsistency (Vachudova 2014) to diverging identities (Subotic 2011),
several compelling reasons have been offered to explain the failure
of the EU to ‘Europeanise’ the aspiring member states in the Western
Balkans, to elicit convergence in policies, aspirations and behaviours with
the European mainstream. Failure to successfully transform domestic or
cross-border ethnic disputes can be seen as one of the several ways in
which the EU’s conditionality and/or soft power have failed to achieve
the stated aims.
In the context of enlargement, the EU’s stated aims are articulated
in explicitly non-ethnic terms. EC Enlargement Strategy does not list
inter-ethnic relations or minority rights among key priorities. Rather,
the EU takes the approach of emphasising good governance—looking
7  ETHNICISATION VS. EUROPEANISATION: PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE …  137

to assist the strengthening of the rule of law, transparency and account-

ability in domestic politics (European Commission 2016). Therefore,
at the immediate level, reducing inter-ethnic tensions does not appear
to be a direct objective for either party in the EU accession process.
However, the two concepts are not fully independent within the enlarge-
ment framework. While good governance is the immediate objective of
EU-required reforms, these reforms are expected to lead to more than
better governed institutions. EU leaders and officials implicitly expect
that better overall governance will lead to improved management of
inter-ethnic relations (Ashdown 2006). Why else would governments
be required to implement a series of legal and institutional reforms be
expected to demonstrate progress in reducing ethnic tensions in politics?
This is a problematic assumption, even if it may prove correct in some
cases. And because it often goes unchallenged, it requires a closer look
and more attention in studies of Europeanisation and EU integration.
This is especially relevant when studying the Western Balkans, where the
conceptual link between Europeanisation and reduced ethnicisation of
politics has been most pronounced. And perhaps even more pertinently,
if this relation can be inverted and if so, under what circumstances.

The EU: Actor and Object in Ethnicisation

This chapter proposes to look beyond the ineffectiveness of the EU in
inducing desired change in the Western Balkans. It looks into how and
why the EU can turn into a subject of ‘ethnicisation’ rather than an actor
to tackle it. This is an under-researched aspect of the process of EU inte-
gration of ethnically divided states and one that can offer a unique per-
spective on its effects. Not only will it provide additional insight into the
limits of the EU’s transformative power (Tocci 2008; Smith 2014) but it
will also help elucidate the complex links between the integrationist logic
of Europeanisation and the divisive logic of ethnicisation.
The double-prism, agent-object approach to the EU’s involvement
in Western Balkans’ reforms has the additional advantage of inverting
the common assumption of the EU as the agent that defines and shapes
the dominant view of candidate states (for example, as developing, cor-
rupt, divided societies). It shows the capacity of local actors, often seen
as either compliant or non-compliant receivers of stimuli by the EU, to
shape the image and rhetoric around the EU within their states. This
can provide additional depth to understanding the relationship between
138  C. KONESKA

the EU and candidate states in the accession process, beyond the “asym-
metric interdependence” assumption of candidate states accepting
EU-required reforms.
The below discussion of Europeanisation and ethnicisation is based on
a comparative empirical study of the EU’s role in police reform in Bosnia
and Herzegovina and Macedonia. Both countries are aspiring to join
the bloc and both societies continue to be divided along ethnic lines. In
addition, the two countries undertook police reform with significant EU
intervention in the negotiation process. Hence, they provide a good pair
of cases to investigate the EU’s impact on politically sensitive issues in
ethnically divided states. The divergent outcomes—moderately successful
intervention for reform in Macedonia and a failure to secure compromise
over reform proposal in Bosnia and Herzegovina—provide a conven-
ient space to examine the factors that can limit and even invert the EU’s
input in reducing ethnic tensions.

Europeanisation and Ethnicisation: Conceptual Remarks

Europeanisation literature is largely positive about the effect that
enlargement has had on new member states (Lejour et al. 2001; Mattli
and Plumper 2002). Even before full membership, the processes of insti-
tutional and policy change needed to prepare the country to take over
the obligations of EU membership tend to strengthen democracy and
the rule of law as well as lead to improved economic performance and
investment in infrastructure. Enlargement literature suggests at least
three distinct areas in which the EU positively affects developments in
aspiring members.
First, in the area of the market economy, by helping the country pre-
pare for competing in the single market, usually accompanied with a
substantial increase of foreign investment flows. The attractiveness of
accession states as investment destinations tends to increase as inves-
tors realise that their economy and regulatory frameworks will remain
anchored in the EU (Bevan and Estrin 2004; Brenton et al. 1999).
Second, political and institutional reforms prior to EU accession tend
to strengthen democracy and rule of law. The EU has been instrumental
in providing assistance, both financial and technical, to former commu-
nist countries in Central and Eastern Europe to help them successfully
transition to democratic political systems. While it remains difficult to
establish what trajectory democratisation in Central and Eastern Europe
7  ETHNICISATION VS. EUROPEANISATION: PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE …  139

would have followed without the involvement of the EU, it is safe to

assume that without the EU’s encouragement and assistance the former
communist states that joined the EU between 2004 and 2013 would not
have done any better than without the EU’s help.
The political and institutional reforms is the area closest related to
the ideas of good governance. Good governance ideas were explicitly
introduced when in the EU accession process domestic political elites
re-designed the political and legal foundations of the new, democratic
systems. However, all of the EC’s evaluation criteria during the pre-
accession and negotiation stages are also implicitly based on good gov-
ernance ideas (Kochler-Koch and Rittberger 2006). When assessing the
progress each aspiring member has achieved, the EC does not only com-
ment on the progress with passing required legislation and establishing
related institutions. It also looks at how these are implemented and oper-
ate, whether they achieve their objectives and contribute to the overall
improvement of governance in society.
Third, there is the EU’s role in helping transitional societies adopt a
set of new social and political norms (Schimmelfennig 2001). After the
fall of communism, the normative foundation of former communist soci-
eties was discredited. This opened space for the adoption of new political
and social norms (Sjursen 2007). And while most East European socie-
ties sought to become like their western neighbours, the internalisation
of the political and social norms that underpin democracies in Western
Europe was not necessarily swift or unproblematic. Throughout the
accession process, the EU engagement with the applicant states was such
that their political leadership was regularly socialised into norms of dem-
ocratic political behaviour and competition, while the pre-accession pro-
cess demanded the adoption of policies and establishment of institutions
that would promote and ensure the respect of norms of transparency,
accountability and human rights.
While the lasting impact of the EU in any of the three areas has been
questioned by many (Schimelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004; Jacoby 2006),
the positive intentions have not been disputed. However, further to the
south-east, establishing the EU’s positive influence has proven even more
difficult. In particular among the post-conflict successor states of the
former Yugoslav federation, most of which remain divided along ethnic
lines, the power of the EU to elicit change appears to be limited. The
EU has been comparatively less successful in eliciting economic as well
as political reforms, but perhaps more importantly, it has often failed to
140  C. KONESKA

curb ethnic tensions and encourage political competition along alterna-

tive, cross-cutting lines. As a result, the former Yugoslav states have been
slow to join to the queue for EU membership—although the EU itself
has also become stricter and less willing to accept new members since the
early 1990s.
There are several reasons for the EU’s weakening influence in pro-
spective member states. As Noutcheva and Bechev (2008) suggest,
the newly independent states in the Balkans have weaker state capacity
to respond to the EU’s pressures and requests, leading to consistently
weaker delivery of required reforms. Weak post-conflict institutions and
poor record of rule of law make it difficult for these states to adopt and
uphold EU norms of political and democratic competition. In addi-
tion, the EU’s own requirements and monitoring mechanisms have
significantly evolved in the past two decades, making the accession pro-
cesses more formal and assessment of membership readiness stricter.
Lessons learned in previous rounds of enlargement, especially those
from Romania and Bulgaria’s accession in 2007, have been implemented
to ensure similar mistakes are avoided in future enlargement (Pridham
2007). For example, the European Commission now is more demanding
on evidence of successful judicial and anti-corruption reforms, opening
the related negotiating chapters (23 and 24) first and closing them last
during the negotiation process. All of this implies a substantially higher
threshold for new aspiring members, which makes it more difficult to
achieve the desired outcome.
Acknowledging the value of the academic debates about the effective-
ness of the EU as a normative actor and its success in eliciting change
in aspiring members, this paper proposes to go one step further. This
chapter looks at two cases of failed EU attempts to propel reforms in
aspiring member states. Rather than only looking at the reasons for the
EU’s failure to convince domestic actors to adopt the proposed reforms,
this chapter further investigates the effects of this failure. In particular,
it looks at how as a result of the failed reform efforts, and in particular
because of its perceived inconsistency in the reform negotiations, rather
than being a factor to overcome ethnic divisions, the EU itself becomes
subject to domestic, ethno-nationalist rhetoric and tokenism in the polit-
ical economy of ethnic politics in divided states.
In this context, “ethnicisation” refers to the defining of politi-
cal issues in terms of their impact on ethnic groups in society, follow-
ing Millikowski’s definition of ethnicisaton as a process of creating
7  ETHNICISATION VS. EUROPEANISATION: PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE …  141

boundaries aimed to protect the integrity of ethnic-cultural groups

(2000). In the coming sections, when discussing ethnicisation I refer to
the political process which casts issues—in this case police reform—as
an issue of inter-ethnic relations. Ethnicised policy debates look at pol-
icy proposals through the prism of their potential impact on the ethnic
groups, while alternative logics, such as that of good governance, are
seen to be of lesser importance.
The potential “ethnicisation” of the EU is an important outcome to
consider because of at least two reasons. First, it allows reflecting on the
success of the EU as a normative actor, given its commitment to pro-
moting multi-ethnic cooperation and overcoming ethnic divisions. If the
EU not only fails to prevent ethnic divisions from dominating politics in
potential member states, but also becomes embroiled in domestic eth-
nopolitical disputes, its potential as a normative actor in these societies
appears significantly reduced. Second, the record of the EU, as an exter-
nal actor in the post-conflict context in the former Yugoslav states, pro-
vides valuable insight about the potential of external actors to influence
domestic divisions and shape post-conflict politics. The limits to EU’s
capacity to shape post-conflict politics are of particular interest because,
unlike other international actors involved in post-conflict military and
civilian missions, EU’s involvement through enlargement policy is signif-
icantly more extensive and deeper, so its failures indicate the limits for
the most ambitious peace-building and reconstruction projects.

Post-conflict Police Reforms

To explore the balance between ethnicisation and Europeanisation
forces in the Balkans, this chapter focuses on two cases: police reform
(attempts) in Macedonia in 2005–2006 and in Bosnia and Herzegovina
in 2006–2008. Police reforms—as part of the wider post-conflict move
to reform the security sector—are a particularly good case to investi-
gate the EU’s role in the reform processes in ethnically divided states.
As police reform is not strictly part of the EU acquis and as such, not a
requirement for EU membership, it provides a good test study for the
EU’s overall normative influence and its ability to induce reforms in
aspiring member states. Being able to influence domestic policy argu-
ments and outcomes in aspiring members, without strictly referring to
EU law, indicates the EU’s broader normative appeal. In addition, police
reforms are a sensitive policy topic in the post-conflict context in both
142  C. KONESKA

countries, thanks to the legacies of violence and oppression implicating

police forces in ethnic violence during the conflicts. As a result, police
reforms are likely to be heavily contested by domestic political actors on
ethno-political grounds, making them a particularly challenging case for
Europeanisation.
To explore the limits of Europeanisation in the Western Balkans, the
sections below examine two attempts at police reform in Bosnia and
Herzegovina and in Macedonia. Both cases are investigated in the con-
text of Europeanisation, because the EU played a major role in designing
and negotiating the reform proposals. Looking at the design, negotia-
tion, decision-making and implementation stages of the policy process,
I trace how the EU’s arguments for good governance in police were
inverted and ethnicised. In the process, in the local context the EU was
transformed from a neutral, expert actor to an ethnicised one, a player in
the local inter-ethnic competition.

Bosnia and Herzegovina
Good governance in the police was not a top item on the political
agenda in Bosnia and Herzegovina immediately after the end of the
conflict in 1995. Instead the focus was on stabilisation and transitional
justice. So after the conflict, the International Police Task Force (IPTF)
UN mission was established to screen the police forces for war criminals
and human-rights abusers. However, its mandate did not extend beyond
that. In the next few years the need for further reforms of the regular
police in Bosnia became ever more pressing and obvious. The police
forces in the two entities and ten cantons were ethnically divided, heavily
politicised, overstaffed and refused to cooperate with each other (Mayer-
Rieckh 2007).
Almost a decade after the end of the conflict, the need for further
reforms in law enforcement was first clearly articulated and promoted
by the then High Representative Paddy Ashdown. In June 2004, an
EU-financed report on the financial, organisational and administrative
assessment of the police in Bosnia was published as part of the func-
tional review of the Bosnian public sector. The assessment presented the
strength and weaknesses of the police and pointed to the areas in need of
immediate reform in order to improve rule of law and police efficiency.
It called for establishing nationwide ties to hold the whole police sys-
tem together and to ensure efficiency, coherence and interoperability.
7  ETHNICISATION VS. EUROPEANISATION: PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE …  143

Moreover, to run the reform the assessment recommended the establish-

ment of a police restructuring commission, to draft the necessary legis-
lative and policy changes, after political consensus on the status quo and
need for reform had been established (European Commission 2004).
Therefore, from the very beginning, the idea of police reform was
cast in “good governance” language and ideas. The assessment report
focused on improving the rule of law and of police efficiency, interopera-
bility and coherence. There was very limited reference to ethnic divisions
and lack of trust across ethnic lines or of who would command and fund
the newly reformed police (the central or the entity and canton govern-
ments). The EU appears to have been looking to achieve political con-
sensus among the divided ethnic elites by intentionally referring to the
non-ethnic arguments behind police reform, an attempt to set the rheto-
ric around police reform in terms of potentially non-controversial values,
such as efficiency and rule of law.
However, securing domestic consensus among Bosnian politicians
proved a challenging task. While Bosniak politicians were in favour of a
more centralised model of police, Croat and especially Serb politicians
sought to maintain the status quo, which allowed them substantial con-
trol over the police at entity and canton levels. Although in principle no
one objected to the EU’s stated goals of police reform, alternative, eth-
nic concerns drove political elites’ resistance to the proposed reforms.
Given such disagreements, and the inability of the police restructuring
commission to reach a compromise, the High Representative sought
to leverage the EU to encourage more concessions and reach agree-
ment over police reforms. He sought to provide additional incentives to
domestic politicians to reach an agreement—he linked the progress of
police reform (Ashdown 2006).
There was no precedent of the EU designing the model of police
reforms. The EU has no competences in the area of policing and law
enforcement, as evidenced by the wide range of different policing mod-
els used among EU member states. Nonetheless, the EU issued a list
of three conditions that police reform needed to fulfil before Bosnia
could start Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) negotiations:
(1) exclusive state-level competency on budgetary and legislative matters;
(2) local policing regions designed on effectiveness criteria not politics;
and (3) no political interference in policing (OHR 2004). Ashdown and
EU representatives expected that the pull of signing the SAA, combined
144  C. KONESKA

with the informal negotiations setting of the new reform commission,

would lead to compromise over police reforms.
However, the EU’s three conditions were not accepted by local pol-
iticians. The most problematic was the redesigned local police areas not
mirroring the existing canton and entity boundaries. This was seen to
subtract from entity powers, a particularly problematic issue for the Serb-
dominated Republika Srpska (RS) entity. In addition, because of the lack
of EU legal and policy grounding of the EU’s three-point proposal, the
EU’s credibility in the process was weakened, especially among the RS
leaders. Therefore, the RS parliament rejected three different versions of
the police reform proposal. This forced the High Representative and EU
to go back on their initial conditions and demands, further undermin-
ing the seriousness of their own conditions. As a result, the local Serb
resistance intensified. Even more problematically, the EU’s input in the
reform process became increasingly seen as non-expert and partisan, pro-
moting a certain—centralised—idea behind police reform, despite the
good governance rhetoric.
To avoid a complete failure of the reform process, the High
Representative (HR) abandoned the incentives-led approach and applied

in RS President, Dragan Čavić, producing a new watered-down proposal

sanctions against the governing party in the RS. The pressure resulted

on police reform, which was accepted by all actors: the HR, the EU and
political elites in a bid to avoid a total failure.
What this first failed attempt showed was that the EU lacked the cred-
ibility to set the agenda on police reform. While its conditionality—the
threat to withhold SAA agreement—was not questioned and the threat
was seen as credible, its efforts to cast the reform in exclusively non-
ethnic, governance terms were less successful. This worsened when the
EU went back on its own three conditions, signalling that it was not will-
ing to uphold its own rhetoric and ultimately failing to de-ethnicise the
police reform debate.
Two years later in 2008, a second attempt at police reform had a sim-
ilar outcome. The new High Representative, Miroslav Lajčák, revived
the ideas for police reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He also resolved
to restore the EU conditionality as the key tool to motivate domes-
tic politicians to agree over police reforms. Lajčák even used the next
step in the SAA process initialling—as the reward for success in agree-
ing on the proposed reforms. The new proposal included timelines and
deadlines for implementation, it was significantly more detailed than the
7  ETHNICISATION VS. EUROPEANISATION: PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE …  145

initial three-point guidelines from the EU. All it required was political
leaders’ approval and official parliamentary adoption, but it faced resist-
ance again.
This time there were two opponents, one in the Serb Republic—the
Union of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) and its leader Milorad
Dodik, and in the Bosniak-Croat federation, Haris Silajdžić’s Party for
Bosnia and Herzegovina (SBIH), both governing parties in the entity
governments. Dodik opposed any further transfer of competencies of RS
to the state, while Silajdžić advocated abolishing the entities and creating
a centralised Bosnian state. Both controlled sufficient votes at entity- and
state-level institutions to be able to prevent any proposal being adopted
without their approval. Although with completely opposing agendas and
thus very unlikely allies, in their resistance Dodik and Silajdžić’s positions
were complementary in undermining the compromise solution offered
by Lajčák.
The debate on police reform was linked to discussions on constitu-
tional reforms in Bosnia. These were becoming increasingly pressing
because the Dayton Constitution was seen as limiting Bosnia’s capacity
to function in an efficient way and proceed with reforms necessary for
EU integration. Again, the language and rationale behind major insti-
tutional reforms were articulated in terms of government efficiency and
accountability. That the proposed constitutional and police reforms
would have significant impact on the competencies of entity institutions
and powers of ethnic politicians governing the entities and cantons was
not openly discussed. Yet, these effects were at the top of the domes-
tic politicians’ agenda, as Dodik’s and Silajdžić’s reactions show. They
appear not to have been convinced that the good governance gains
would outweigh the losses of their ethnicity-based political power.
But RS politicians opposed any constitutional change that would
reduce entity powers. With the lack of agreement on constitutional
changes, police reform was also blocked. Lajčak tried an alternative solu-
tion by introducing measures that would relax veto and quorum require-
ments in the BIH Parliament and make adopting legislation easier.
However, this only served to strengthen the resistance among Serb poli-
ticians. It confirmed to them their fears that police reform was not about
reforming the police to improve public security and cut public spending,
but that the real aim was to dismantle the RS by stripping all its com-
petencies. Moreover, the EU with its actions was complicit in trying to
146  C. KONESKA

reduce RS powers and ultimately the political and governance tools avail-
able to the ethnic Serb community in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Finally, by late 2007, the leaders of the major political parties of the
three groups agreed on a declaration about police reform. The Mostar
Declaration, as it became known, confirmed the commitment to the
three EU principles for police reform. However, it tied any further pro-
gress of police reform to the success of constitutional reform without set-
ting any time frame for it. Again, while falling short of the stated aims
of police reform, the European Commission accepted this document as
a sufficient signal of commitment to police reform and the SAA was ini-
tialled on 4 December 2007.
The Mostar Declaration was followed up with an Action Plan for its
implementation and in April 2008 two laws envisaged in the Action
Plan and the Declaration were adopted by the BIH Parliament. Their
adoption and the establishment of the additional state-level institutions
aimed at co-ordination and supervision of entity-level police forces was
accepted by the EC as a sign of progress in implementing the agreed
reforms. Noting this progress, the EC ratified the SAA in June 2008,
thus ending the protracted process of conditionality-driven police
reforms in Bosnia.
No further progress has since been achieved on police reform in
Bosnia. The Bosnian state still does not have legislative and budgetary
control over police forces and LPA boundaries remain unchanged. The
thirteen different police forces and ministries of interior have not been
abolished, but instead supplemented with additional state-level insti-
tutions. Despite significant involvement by the EU in both rounds of
attempted police reform, no substantial progress was achieved in agree-
ing reforms along the lines of EU demands. Domestic politicians resisted
the EU pressure and effectively secured the rewards from the EU with-
out committing to any of its requirements. Their behaviour throughout
the process displays none of the norm-led actions that would be expected
from elites in aspiring members of the EU. If anything, ethno-political
concerns appear to have consistently been more important than comply-
ing with EU requirements.

Macedonia
The ethnic conflict between Macedonian security forces and eth-
nic Albanian rebels in the six months during spring and summer 2001
7  ETHNICISATION VS. EUROPEANISATION: PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE …  147

opened a window for wide-ranging reforms of the state. Although by

itself it was neither as destructive nor as long as the Bosnian conflict, it
revealed the extent to which Macedonian politics had become ethnically
divided since independence in 1991. Ethnic Albanians rebel groups—
many with prior warfare experience from Kosovo (1997–1999)—took
violent means to demand more rights and access to political power for
their ethnic community. By this stage in 2001, Macedonia had already
been considering joining the Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP)
with the EU, as a first step to EU accession. The EU was becoming an
increasingly vocal and influential actor in Macedonian domestic politics.
The Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA), brokered by the EU and
US mediators, which was signed on 13 August 2001 by the leaders of
the four largest political parties in Macedonia (two ethnic Macedonian
and two ethnic Albanian parties), provided for major reforms of the
public sector, including security sector reforms (OFA 2001). The short
and relatively effective negotiations on the OFA demonstrated the EU’s
influence in Macedonia was indeed growing. The promise of potential
EU membership made most Macedonian political actors willing to listen
to EU demands and advice.
Similarly to Bosnia and Herzegovina, there was no significant popu-
lar demand for these reforms, apart from the decade-long demands of
the ethnic Albanian population for greater inclusion in the public admin-
istration. The post-conflict security sector reforms, including police
reform, were externally driven, even though some among the political
elite became aware of the need for reforms. The external involvement in
the reform process continued (and perhaps even increased) as Macedonia
expressed serious aspirations for joining the European Union.
As part of a broader, post-conflict move to reform the country’s secu-
rity apparatus, police reforms were launched in 2002. However, reform-
ing the police proved more difficult than expected, even though the
EU contributed to police reforms through its police mission (EUPOL
Proxima) (Ioannides 2009). EUPOL Proxima was meant to evaluate the
need for reforms and assist the Macedonian government with expertise
on police reforms, but many of the proposed reforms were politically
sensitive and were stuck in the legislative or implementation process.
For example, decentralising police competences and transferring police
authorities to the local level were controversial in the post-conflict con-
text as trust in the police was still low. Conflict veterans from the para-
military units joined the police after short training courses. This did not
148  C. KONESKA

add to the better quality of the services provided by the police or to the
greater citizen trust in the police, which remained the same despite the
ongoing reforms during these years (UNDP 2004–2007).
There were fears among the Macedonian political elites that in local
governments dominated by ethnic Albanian politicians, the police would
be used as a tool against ethnic Macedonians. Moreover, devolving
policing competences to the local level meant ceding an important cen-
tral government power potentially to ethnic Albanian politicians in local
governments. Consequently, the 2006 Police Law, as well as the later
2009 Police Law, was politically contentious and securing support in
Parliament for it was a major challenge for the government and its part-
ners in the EU.
The rhetoric and policy rationale concerning police reforms were
influenced by the EU’s emphasis on efficiency and accountability, not
directly focusing on improving ethnic minority rights. This had been
done with other reforms in post-conflict Macedonia, such as decentrali-
sation and public administration reform, where ethnically sensitive issues
were addressed through technical and institutional solutions. In line
with that, the 2006 Police Law introduced new principles of work in
the police, such as new human resources management practices of more
transparent recruitment and evaluation, while significant authority was
given to the local government in decisions related to local policing and
local security including a say in the selection of local police chiefs.
Like in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the EU used conditionality to
encourage Macedonian politicians to agree on the proposed reforms
(Law 2007; Ioannides 2009). The Police Law proposal was one of the
last of the reforms package introduced by the OFA in 2001. Because of
its sensitive nature and the proposed delegation of police competences to
local governments, the adoption of police reforms was postponed until
2006. Following the award of EU candidacy status in late 2005, positive
attitudes towards the EU and its values as well as reform priorities were
widespread among the Macedonian political elites of all ethnic commu-
nities. So the time was right to proceed with police reform. But it was
an ambitious reform proposal, including provisions to professionalise
the police and especially the recruitment and promotion procedures—to
shield it from undue political influences—and to decentralise its control
to local governments. The latter was aimed to address the key shortcom-
ings of the pre-2001 police, its failure to include and equitably repre-
sent all ethnic communities in Macedonia. As such, the police reform
7  ETHNICISATION VS. EUROPEANISATION: PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE …  149

proposal was aimed to indirectly help improve inter-ethnic coopera-

tion and inclusion, through technical solutions and public management
mechanisms.
The centre-left government coalition between the Social Democrats
(SDSM) and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Union for Integration
(BDI) had prepared a draft bill aimed at police reform. The draft pro-
posal was prepared with significant input from the EU and was seen
to embody EU standards of good governance in the security sector. It
allowed for more professional, transparent and locally accountable police
force. However, the SDSM-BDI coalition did not manage to adopt it
before the July 2006 elections, which they lost.
When the new government took office, it immediately amended the
police reform proposal. The new governing parties, the centre-right,
nationalist VMRO-DPMNE and the ethnic Albanian Democratic Party
of Albanians (PDSH), did not subscribe to the previously agreed con-
tents of the reform. Moreover, they were less inclined to follow the EU’s
guidance on police reform. Among the new government’s amendment
was a change to water down some of the provisions for professionalisa-
tion of the police, lowering the requirements for promotion to senior
police posts. In addition, BDI’s demand for use of Albanian language
in the police was rejected. This led to heated debate in parliament and
attempts by BDI deputies to prevent the adoption of the amended pro-
posal. They also appealed to external actors in the country—Western
ambassadors and the EU’s representative—to support them in seeking a
wider political consensus over police reform that would honour the ear-
lier agreement between SDSM and BDI.
Nevertheless, and despite diplomatic pressure on the VMRO-
DPMNE-led government to seek broader consensus over the issue, no
agreement was reached. Although broadly within the OFA framework,
the Police Law was not directly linked to Macedonia’s EU integration.
The government was aware there were no EU provisions on how the
police should be structured and managed. And it treated EU’s sug-
gestions not as obligatory requirements. As a result, after more than a
month of parliamentary debates and pressures by foreign ambassadors
and EU representatives, the government adopted its amended version of
police law in October 2006, dismissing the initial EU-sponsored version
of the proposal (Pravo 2006).
In addition to diluting some of the initially proposed measures, the
new police law was not passed through the double majority mechanism
150  C. KONESKA

in parliament. The ‘double majority’ requires both an overall majority

and a majority of all ethnic Albanian deputies in parliament before a leg-
islation is adopted. It was introduced after the conflict, as part of wider
constitutional reforms in 2002, to prevent minority ethnic communities
from being outvoted in parliament on topics sensitive and important for
them. As a policy topic particularly sensitive to ethnic relations, police
reform was expected to gain double majority, even if such was not strictly
required by the constitution. However, this was not the case, which fur-
ther increased resistance to the reform.
As a result, the implementation of police reform encountered prob-
lems. Several mayors, elected as BDI candidates, refused to implement
the new law (Radio Free Europe 2006). In addition, the effects on the
broader political stability and inter-ethnic cooperation were negative.
The adoption of the law set a precedent for getting round the require-
ments for a double majority in parliament, which even if not strictly
obligatory, would have helped the government build a stronger cross-
party and cross-community support for the reforms. This would have
helped with the implementation of the agreed reforms, but also, and per-
haps more importantly, ensured that police reforms ceased being an eth-
nically divisive issue.
Despite persistent EU input and pressure on the domestic political
elites to reform the police along EU good governance standards, police
reform in Macedonia proved a divisive issue (Cierco 2016). Attempts to
increase the professionalism and representativeness of the police were
watered-down in favour of narrower, political party interests. Over the
past decade, since the Police Law was passed, governance standards in
the police, as elsewhere in the public sector, have been slow to improve.
The police remained a tool at the disposal of the government—and polit-
ical parties in it—to use for political purposes. Despite the conditional-
ity the EU threatened to apply, there were no adverse consequences for
the domestic political elites when the amended Police Law was adopted.
Again, like in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the ethnic politicians in
Macedonia this signalled a lack of credibility and a partisan, non-neutral
interference by the EU.
After 2006 Macedonia’s progress towards EU accession stalled. As
a result, the EU’s influence in domestic politics has gradually waned.
The declining EU power to incite domestic change is particularly nota-
ble in areas sensitive to inter-ethnic relations. Rather than mobilis-
ing elites around ideas of tolerance and compromise, it appears to have
7  ETHNICISATION VS. EUROPEANISATION: PROMOTING GOOD GOVERNANCE …  151

contributed to solidifying ethnic divisions. Unlike policy areas, such as

requirements for visa liberalisations, where the EU’s standards were clear
and equal for all, on issues outside the scope of EU law and policies,
the EU’s influence remains weak, suggesting a rather limited normative
power to alter how political actors behave in aspiring member states.
Regarding police reform, the issue has not been reopened since 2009.
Although the current legislative solution does not measure up to the ini-
tial EU recommendation, no political subject in Macedonia has raised
the issue of police reforms on the agenda. With the EU increasingly
withdrawing from its engagement with the Western Balkans, and focus-
ing on its own internal challenges, the EU is unlikely to seek to repeat its
efforts from 2006.

Conclusion: Europeanisation vs Ethnicisation

The case with police reform in Bosnia also demonstrates the limits of
conditionality as an instrument for propelling domestic reform in aspir-
ing member states. Contrary to claims in the literature on the “trans-
formative power” of the EU, conditionality often fails to trigger the
desired transformation in the aspiring state. The case of Bosnian police
reform shows that this process can run in both directions and instead
of the EU de-ethnicising domestic issues, ethnic divisions can spill into
EU integration and make the process an ethnically divisive issue. RS pol-
iticians appear to have resented the role the EU played during repeated
attempts for police reform and their trust in and commitment to the
EU integration process has waned as a result. They interpreted the EU’s
actions, especially its lack of consistency in the reform negotiations, as
a signal that the “real” aim of the EU was not better governed police,
but to intervene in the balance of inter-ethnic relations in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. They saw the EU as part of the local ethnic landscape—
ultimately “ethnicising” the EU.
Casting the EU in ethnic rhetoric can undermine the commitment to
EU membership as a shared goal among all groups in society and can
remove a powerful lever that these organisations had at their disposal.
Moreover, the ethnicisation of EU integration removes a significant
potential cross-cutting cleavage in politics that can reframe policy debates
in terms other than gains and costs for ethnic groups.
The Macedonian case sheds additional light on those instances, where
a policy is adopted, but the EU’s input is diluted or omitted. This case
152  C. KONESKA

illuminates the potentially adverse effects of the EU overstretching its

reach to areas that are not directly within the scope of EU accession.
When seeking to apply conditionality in areas that are not strictly within
the domain of EU law and membership requirements, the EU’s credibil-
ity as a negotiating and normative actor is reduced. The domestic elites
in Macedonia did not find the EU’s proposal on police reform as binding
as other EU-related reforms, for example visa liberalisation requirements,
which were fully and thoroughly implemented. Instead, they disregarded
it, and adopted a version that better suited them and their political
interests.
Taken together, the two cases show that EU’s normative and political
power in the Western Balkans is neither even nor uncontested. Rather,
they point to a more complex and granular picture. While in some
areas—notably those directly related to EU law and EU accession—the
ability of the EU to get local actors to comply with its requirements
remains strong, in other areas this is not the case. Attempts to use con-
ditionality in other policy areas, such as police reforms, are not always
accepted as credible by local actors, who then refuse to comply. This sug-
gests, that the nature of the EU accession process for Western Balkans
elites remains largely instrumental and transactional, instead of based on
values. When the EU seeks to extend good governance values to areas
outside direct EU law and accession criteria, it is seen to be meddling in
domestic, inter-ethnic issues, and consequently rejected.
Finally, in the broader discussion about Europeanisation and contin-
ued ethnicisation in the divided states in the region, this implies limited
room for the EU to use the accession process and tools to transform eth-
nic tensions in the region. Persisting ethnic divisions, though potentially
not intractable, cannot always be addressed through technical and insti-
tutional solutions. While the quality of governance may increase through
the EU accession process, ethnic divisions are likely to continue to divide
the Western Balkans’ states, internally and bilaterally.

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 CHAPTER 8

Tolerating Semi-authoritarianism?
Contextualising the EU’s Relationship
with Serbia and Kosovo

Branislav Radeljić

The relationship between the European Union (EU) and Serbia and Kosovo
has never been straightforward. Numerous questions in relation to policy-
making processes or possible alternatives during the Yugoslav state crisis1

1 Florian Bieber, Armina Galijaš and Rory Archer (eds.), Debating the End of Yugoslavia,

Farnham: Ashgate, 2014; Lenard J. Cohen and Jasna Dragović-Soso (eds.), State Collapse
in South-Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on Yugoslavia’s Disintegration, West Lafayette,
IN: Purdue University Press, 2007; Josip Glaurdić, The Hour of Europe: Western Powers
and the Breakup of Yugoslavia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011; Charles
Ingrao and Thomas A. Emmert (eds.), Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars’
Initiative, West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2012; Branislav Radeljić, Europe
and the Collapse of Yugoslavia: The Role of Non-state Actors and European Diplomacy,
London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012; Sabrina P. Ramet, Thinking about Yugoslavia:

B. Radeljić (*) 
Department of Social Sciences & Social Work, Cass School of Education and
Communities, University of East London, London, UK
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 157

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_8
158  B. RADELJIĆ

and then in the post-Yugoslav context2 have encouraged diametrically

opposing views and interpretations among academics, politicians, and the
media. Back in the early 1990s, soon after the outbreak of full-scale fight-
ing and the consequent recognition of the republics of Slovenia and Croatia
as independent states in January 1992, the then European Community
(EC) concluded that “responsibility for the conflict lay mainly with Serbia
and Montenegro” (European Commission 1993, p. 283). As a matter of
protest, EC officials (apart from Greek) did not attend the ceremony pro-
claiming the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), a new state established
by Serbia and Montenegro (Bethlehem and Weller 1997, p. xxxv). Still, this
did not mean that the Europeans had any clear idea with regard to their
future moves: “It was not preordained that EC countries be so short-sighted
about the dangers of Yugoslavia’s dismantlement and the ethnic passions
it liberated; nor that they act fitfully and, too often, too late in trying to
bring their influence to bear; nor that they cast the die for Bosnia through
the ill-considered, premature recognition of Slovenia and Croatia; nor that
they respond to the Bosnia catastrophe with hollow threats whose unfulfill-
ment gave courage to the intransigent; nor that they refrain from interdic-
tion measures to enforce the economic embargo or bring sustained pressure
to bear on key European violators” (Brenner 1993, p. 31). In the case of
Kosovo, following Slovenia and Croatia’s declarations of independence in

Scholarly Debates about the Yugoslav Breakup and the Wars in Bosnia and Kosovo,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy:
Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press,
1995.
2 Mieczysław P. Boduszyński, Regime Change in the Yugoslav Successor States: Divergent

Paths toward a New Europe, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010;
Máire Braniff, Integrating the Balkans: Conflict Resolution and the Impact of EU
Expansion, London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2011; Lenard J. Cohen and John R.
Lampe, Embracing Democracy in the Western Balkans: From Post-Conflict Struggles toward
European Integration, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, and Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011; Arolda Elbasani (ed.), European Integration
and Transformation in the Western Balkans: Europeanisation or Business as Usual? Oxon:
Routledge, 2013; Robert M. Hayden, From Yugoslavia to the Western Balkans: Studies
of a European Disunion, 1991–2011, Leiden: Brill, 2013; Soeren Keil and Zeynep Arkan
(eds.), The EU and Member State Building: European Foreign Policy in the Western Balkans,
Oxon: Routledge, 2015; and Branislav Radeljić (ed.), Europe and the post-Yugoslav Space,
Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  159

June 1991, the Kosovo Albanians decided to hold an unofficial referendum

in September to secure their own independence; unofficial elections fol-
lowed in May 1992, leading to the proclamation of the Republic of Kosovo
(Krieger 2001, p. 522). Given that the EC was primarily concerned with
the individual republics and not provinces, the Kosovo question seemed
rather marginal. Furthermore, the fact that EU representatives did not use
the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords to also address the autonomous status
of Kosovo was a serious matter of concern among the Kosovo Albanians,
interpreted as European disinterest to deal with their needs (Laakso 2006,
p. 152; Sell 2002, p. 274; Toje 2008, p. 52).
The economic sanctions, although severely affecting the local citizens,
actually helped the regime of Slobodan Milošević to consolidate further.
It largely benefited from black market economy and different media,
which kept accusing the West as well as the democratic opposition of
being anti-Serbian. Moreover, when Milan Panić, elected prime minister
in mid-1992, requested Western support for the emerging democratic
force in order to oust Milošević and prevent additional violence, his
efforts were ignored.3 Both this and the approach adopted by the EU’s
representatives in late 1996—not to respect the opposition Zajedno alli-
ance’s municipal victories but to side with Milošević’s decision to annul
the results and request that elections be repeated—were interpreted as
the West’s intention to assist Milošević to stay in power, often seeing him
as the key factor in the whole process (Spoerri 2015, pp. 46–47). Later,
with the progress of the Kosovo crisis and the 1999 NATO interven-
tion, the West started to promote a narrative suggesting that the time to
get rid of Milošević had come.4 In contrast to previous years, substantial
3 In his memoirs, Panić explained: ‘I pledged to give the West everything it wanted,

but the diplomats, too savvy and cynical by half, could not help looking the gift horse in
the mouth … [T]he Europeans wanted to talk with Milosevic. He was still seen as the
region’s only true power broker … All [the West’s] working with Milosevic did was under-
cut my position and undermine the political groups in Serbia dedicated to the dictator’s
overthrow.’ Milan Panić (with Kevin C. Murphy), Prime Minister for Peace: My Struggle for
Serbian Democracy, Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2015: 78.
4 For example, TIME reported on the CIA’s strategy: ‘Agency computer hackers will

try to disrupt Milosevic’s private financial transactions and electronically drain his overseas
bank accounts. (Intelligence officials suspect he has money socked away in Switzerland,
Cyprus, Greece, Russia and China.) The CIA also hopes to funnel cash secretly to opposi-
tion groups inside Yugoslavia as well as recruit dissidents within the Belgrade government
and the Yugoslav military … [Secretary of State] Albright met with the German, French,
British, and Italian foreign ministers in New York City last week to plot how each country
160  B. RADELJIĆ

foreign aid was allocated to the democratic opposition, which seemed to

have become more united, accompanied by decline in popular support
for the regime (ibid., pp. 55–120).
So, throughout the whole decade, the West paid much more atten-
tion to its own dealings with the Milošević regime as such and, more
relevantly, to what it could eventually gain by allowing it to stay in place,
than to the regime’s detrimental policies employed at home. However,
once Milošević was overthrown in October 2000, the West welcomed
the new democratic forces. Although initially cooperative, the coalition
leadership faced several internal conflicts, with various members trying
to promote their separate visions for the country’s future. While the new
prime minister, Zoran Djindjić (Democratic Party), was of the opinion
that Serbia had no alternative but to cooperate with the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and extradite war
criminals (including Milošević) and insisted on the need for a rapid
resolution to the status of Kosovo, so that EU integration could prop-
erly move forward, the newly elected president, Vojislav Koštunica
(Democratic Party of Serbia), believed that Serbia actually had to look
for an alternative solution capable of letting it preserve the province
of Kosovo as its constituent part.5 The politics of alternatives or other
opportunities as well as an ever-present struggle with the processes
of democratisation and Europeanisation,6 provided enough space for

might exploit its ties with dissident elements in Serbia.’ Douglas Waller, ‘Tearing Down
Milosevic: Washington Resorts to a Bag of Tricks to Try to Get Yugoslavia A New Leader,’
TIME, 5 July 1999, http://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/07/05/
milosevic.html (accessed 28 June 2017).
5 For an analysis of the obvious discord between Djindjić and Koštunica, see Obrad

Kesić, ‘An Airplane with Eighteen Pilots: Serbia after Milošević,’ in Sabrina P. Ramet and
Vjeran Pavlaković (eds.), Serbia since 1989: Politics and Society under Milošević and after,
Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2005: 95–121; and Vesna Pešić, ‘State
Capture and Widespread Corruption in Serbia,’ CEPS Working Document, No. 262, 2007.
6 On different democratisation and Europeanisation challenges, see James Dawson,

Cultures of Democracy in Serbia and Bulgaria: How Ideas Shape Politics, Farnham: Ashgate,
2014; Spyros Economides and James Ker-Lindsay, ‘“Pre-accession Europeanization”:
The Case of Serbia and Kosovo,’ Journal of Common Market Studies, 53(5), 2015:
1027–44; Ildiko Erdei, ‘IKEA in Serbia: Debates on Modernity, Culture and Democracy
in Pre-Accession Period,’ in Tanja Petrović (ed.), Mirroring Europe: Ideas of Europe and
Europeanization in Balkan Societies, Leiden: Brill, 2014: 114–34; Mladen Mladenov and
Bernhard Stahl, ‘Signaling Right and Turning Left: The Response to EU-Conditionality
in Serbia,’ in Soeren Keil and Zeynep Arkan (eds.), The EU and Member State Building:
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  161

opposition—many of whose members sided with and played important

roles under the Milošević regime and were never subjected to a lustra-
tion afterwards7—to organise and challenge the political elite (Radeljić
2014a, 2017).
The Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) was established in 2008 by
Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić, the former deputy president
and general secretary, respectively of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical
Party, whose leader Vojislav Šešelj was on trial at the ICTY at the time.
As soon as the former Radicals turned into Progressivists, they started
to place an emphasis on their apparently new profile and, even more so,
on expected outcomes, including military neutrality, greater social jus-
tice, worldwide cooperation and EU membership. The reasoning behind
all this is that they would appear to differ significantly from their pre-
vious affiliation.8 Also in 2008, Kosovo proclaimed independence, with
a large majority of EU member states recognising it shortly thereafter,
although it was clear that the newly established state was struggling to
meet various standards, both locally, in relation to democratic govern-
ance and protection of human rights, and internationally, in relation to

European Foreign Policy in the Western Balkans, Oxon: Routledge, 2015: 122–39; Jelena
Stojanović, ‘EU Political Conditionality towards Serbia: Membership Prospects vs.
Domestic Constraints,’ in Arolda Elbasani (ed.), European Integration and Transformation
in the Western Balkans: Europeanization or Business as Usual? Oxon: Routledge, 2013:
54–69; Marko Stojić, Party Responses to the EU in the Western Balkans: Transformation,
Opposition or Defiance? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017; Jelena Subotić, ‘Explaining
Difficult States: The Problems of Europeanisation in Serbia,’ East European Politics and
Societies, 24(4), 2010: 595–616; and Andrew Taylor, Andrew Geddes and Charles Lees,
The European Union and South East Europe: The Dynamics of Europeanisation and Multi-
level Governance, Oxon: Routledge, 2013.
7 For a good overview of the lustration dilemma, see Vesna Rakić-Vodinelić, ‘An

Unsuccessful Attempt of Lustration in Serbia,’ in Vladimíra Dvoráková and Andjelko

Milardović (eds.), Lustration and Consolidation of Democracy and the Rule of Law in
Central and Eastern Europe, Zagreb: Political Science Research Centre, 2007: 169–82.
8 For in-depth analyses of the trend among politicians to join and leave parties in order

to join other or form some new ones, see Nikiforos P. Diamandouros and Richard Gunther
(eds.), Parties, Politics and Democracy in the New Southern Europe, Baltimore, MD: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2001; Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming the Communist
Past: The Regeneration of Communist Parties in East-Central Europe, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2002; Petr Kopecky (ed.), Political Parties and the State
in Post-communist Europe, New York: Routledge, 2008; and Věra Stojarová and Peter
Emerson (eds.), Party Politics in the Western Balkans, London: Routledge, 2010.
162  B. RADELJIĆ

representation in different intergovernmental organisations. Moreover,

the process of political elite renewal proved complicated, if not impossi-
ble, with individuals such as Hashim Thaçi and Ramush Haradinaj, both
involved in various crimes during the Kosovo war as members of the par-
amilitary Kosovo Liberation Army,9 coming to occupy the positions of
president and prime minister.
The literature tackling Western support of corrupt, military and
authoritarian regimes is voluminous. For example, during the Cold War,
the West (the USA, in particular) supported such regimes in its fight
against Communism and the Soviets tended to support undemocratic
regimes against the West. This suggests that “[t]he international system
can play a permissive role, as well as a very active role, in democratiza-
tion, and it can support or block democratic change” (Bunce et al. 2010,
p. 10). The present EU has regularly collaborated with countries whose
regimes are authoritarian (Babayan and Risse 2015) and, furthermore, its
recent involvement in the Arab Spring has been questioned as to whether
it has eventually assisted authoritarian instead of democratic rule (Börzel
and van Hüllen 2014). Even more recently, we have seen how mutual
interests in the Russo-Hungarian case can alienate an existing EU mem-
ber state from the Brussels authorities (Buzogány 2017), which logically
encourages a debate about possible alternatives and regime preferences,
as authoritarians are likely to oppose and negatively affect support for the
EU (Tillman 2013). This is even more striking if we consider projections
suggesting that authoritarianism is likely to rise (Bloom 2016; Diamond
2008; Puddington 2008),10 accompanied by more international collabo-
ration among authoritarian regimes, with the aim to maximise domestic
survival (von Soest 2015). Looking at the Balkans, “[m]any countries in
the region have a record of electing persons who behave in an authoritar-
ian way after the “democratic” election” (Farkas 2007, p. 65).

9 Dick Marty, ‘Inhuman Treatment of People and Illicit Trafficking in Human Organs

in Kosovo*,’ Council of Europe, 12 December 2010, http://assembly.coe.int/

CommitteeDocs/2010/20101218_ajdoc462010provamended.pdf (accessed 16 June
2017).
10 For a different view, see Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way, ‘The Myth of Democratic

Recession,’ Journal of Democracy, 26(1), 2015: 45–58; and Wolfgang Merkel, ‘Are
Dictatorships Returning? Revisiting the “Democratic Rollback” Hypothesis,’ Contemporary
Politics, 16(1), 2010: 17–31.
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  163

This chapter examines the EU’s position vis-à-vis the increasing semi-
authoritarianism in post-Democrats-led Serbia and post-­ independence
Kosovo. In her seminal work, Marina Ottaway defines semi-­authoritarian
regimes as “ambiguous systems that combine rhetorical acceptance of
liberal democracy, the existence of some formal democratic institutions,
and respect for a limited sphere of civil and political liberties with essen-
tially illiberal or even authoritarian traits. This ambiguous character, fur-
thermore, is deliberate. Semi-authoritarian systems are not imperfect
democracies struggling towards improvement and consolidation but
regimes determined to maintain the appearance of democracy without
exposing themselves to the political risks that free competition entails”
(Ottaway 2003, p. 3). With this in mind, the elites’ behaviour in Serbia
and Kosovo is undoubtedly semi-authoritarian and the EU has largely
refrained from confronting it. While welcoming the respective leaders,
the Brussels authorities have regularly suggested that they expect a lot
in terms of regional developments (primarily in the case of the Kosovo
status question, but also in terms of Serbia’s problematic ambition to
position itself between the East and the West), which in turn could be
interpreted to mean that as long as they were prone to respond to the
EU’s demands, a whole range of domestic policies, some more detrimen-
tal than others, would be of secondary concern. Aware of the expected
dynamics, the regimes have used every opportunity to further reinforce
their power.

The EU and the Former Radicals Turned Progressivists

Following Tomislav Nikolić’s victory in the 2012 presidential elections,
some EU officials noted that Serbia was “at a crossroads”; his victory
“proved that the country’s political landscape had become more com-
plex and that the EU needs to be involved in an intensive dialogue with
Serbian authorities and all political leaders from the very first moment”
(Lajčák 2012). Indeed, some president’s statements generated imme-
diate concerns as to whether he genuinely abandoned the times when
he was a hard-core nationalist in favour of the Greater Serbia idea
and Milošević’s war campaigns. For example, Nikolić told different
media that there was no genocide in Srebrenica in 1995, contrary to
the findings of international tribunals, and that Vukovar, a town in
Croatia, which was heavily bombed by the Serb-led army in 1991, was
164  B. RADELJIĆ

actually a Serb town.11 However, José Manuel Barroso, President of the

European Commission, welcomed Nikolić to Brussels, interpreting his
choice for first official visit abroad as “a clear sign of the priority the
President and Serbia attach to their European reform agenda” (Barroso
2012).
In the case of Aleksandar Vučić’s transformation, who became the
First Deputy Prime Minister of Serbia, after the 2012 parliamentary
elections, and subsequently the most exposed member of the Serbian
political elite—despite being a very strong opponent of reformist Zoran
Djindjić before and after his assassination in 2003 (he posted a fake
street plaque with the name of war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladić on a
Belgrade boulevard named after Djindjić in 2007)—he has altered his
position to the extent that he started recalling and expressing appreci-
ation for Djindjić’s pro-EU stance and vision of Serbia’s future. He is
even on record as saying that he actually felt flattered when compared to
him (B92 2013), and in an interview to the German daily Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ 2014), he tried to defend his drastic transfor-
mation by claiming that he misinterpreted the post-Cold War trends for
a long time and thus developed wrong ideas.
Overall, by analysing the period after the 2012 elections, it is possible
to argue that the Progressivists have decided to switch their focus from
an advocacy of life for politics to a life from politics—a tendency largely
confirmed by the growing intention to replace political figures with a
different political affiliation with the most trustworthy members of the
Serbian Progressive Party. Securing a whole range of positions in public
administration institutions has meant direct influence on those institu-
tions and cross-sectoral collaboration, but also involvement in numer-
ous private sector endeavours, whose approval and realisation directly
depend on state permission. Accordingly, influence and power stem from
collaborative relationships that are cultivated among individuals, away
from institutions. Thus, in contrast to democratic countries, which tend
to have strong institutions, which are above the individuals, in semi-
authoritarian regimes, it is the individuals that dominate institutions and
dictate speed of processes and eventual reforms, with power to suspend

11 See, for example, Dušan Stojanović, ‘Serbia’s New President Revives Balkan Tensions,’

Associated Press, 4 June 2012, http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/06/04/ser-

bia-new-president-revives-balkan-tensions.html (accessed 1 July 2017).
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  165

them once their position is potentially threatened.12 Writing about the

mutual impact of interaction between democratic and semi-authoritarian
regimes, Ottaway (2003, p. 16) rightly concludes that the latter “cannot
develop the institutions they would need to perpetuate the allocation of
power without causing the democratic facade to crumble. Nor can they
allow the democratic institutions to function without hindrance without
putting the continuation of their control in jeopardy. Semi-authoritarian
regimes thus constantly undermine their own institutions.”
By the 2014 snap elections, viable opposition in Serbia had vanished,
with political plurality being seriously endangered. According to the
Serbian Government’s website, new Prime Minister Vučić, saw Serbia “as
an organized, modern European country, regional leader in economy,
politics, infrastructure, energy, overall stability, affirmation of human
rights and freedoms” (Serbian Government 2014). The Brussels author-
ities welcomed him as someone truly new who could be trusted. For
example, Commissioner Barroso said that “[he is] confident that under
[Vučić’s] determined guidance, Serbia will succeed in addressing the
key challenges ahead” (European Commission 2014a). And, when EU
foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton told him that the EU was “deter-
mined to help and support Serbia in its efforts to ensure a strong eco-
nomic path for its people”, Vučić reassured her: “We are not poor people
seeking charity, we need support for true reforms” (RFE 2014). German
Chancellor Angela Merkel also congratulated Vučić on his election and
invited him to visit Berlin, which he eventually did. On this occasion, she
praised his efforts and assured him that Germany would support Serbia
on its road to the EU, though she also underscored the significance
of reforms, the rule of law and further normalisation of relations with
Kosovo (Mitrović 2014).
The EU’s welcoming stance and signature of the 2013 Brussels
Agreement, between the governments of Serbia and Kosovo on the
normalisation of relations between the two, as well as the consequent

12 Discussing reconstruction in the post-Yugoslav context, Steve H. Hanke observed back

in 1999: ‘[T]he job of reconstruction is going to be extremely difficult. The establishment

of the rule of law or institution-building is the key to establishing trust and economic pros-
perity in the region. You have to realize that the Balkans have never had the rule of law.’
Hanke cited in Paul J.J. Welfens, Stabilizing and Integrating the Balkans: Economic Analysis
of the Stability Pact, EU Reforms and International Organizations, Berlin: Springer, 2001:
16.
166  B. RADELJIĆ

opening of negotiations for Serbia’s EU accession in 2014,13 provided

Vučić with more credibility and potential for manoeuvre at home and
vis-à-vis the EU. So, Western governments have intentionally avoided
adopting a firmer stance against any government policies going against
so-called Western values. They expect much from the Vučić government
that would not only serve the West’s geopolitical and geoeconomic inter-
ests in Serbia, but also in the Western Balkan region as a whole. Different
European Commission statements about Serbia’s progress have com-
municated a highly problematic message that the status quo, with some
occasional baby-steps, is actually acceptable. For example, one statement
in 2014 indicated that “[t]here is a strong political impetus to fight cor-
ruption’ and ‘[t]he new government remains fully committed to EU
integration” (European Commission 2014b, pp. 1, 8), and then, a
year later, the Brussels technocrats agreed that “Serbia’s institutions for
preventing corruption broadly meet international standards and have
shown good potential” with sporadic suggestions as to what should be
improved (European Commission 2015a, p. 52).
In reality, the government failed to enhance the business climate,
downsize the public sector or come up with measures that would intro-
duce meritocracy in the public sector. More precisely, the Vučić regime
took control of it and poured enormous subsidies into public enter-
prises, the so-called big budget losers.14 Altogether, they have employed
13 On the Brussels Agreement, see Leandrit I. Mehmeti, ‘Perspectives of the

Normalization of Relations between Kosovo and Serbia,’ in Leandrit I. Mehmeti and

Branislav Radeljić (eds.), Kosovo and Serbia: Contested Options and Shared Consequences,
Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016: 216–42.
14 See, for example, Miša Brkić, ‘Heavenly Serbia,’ Peščanik, 3 February 2014, http://

pescanik.net/heavenly-serbia/; Dosta je bilo, ‘Vučić duplirao broj partijskih nameštenika

na aerodromu,’ 14 May 2016, http://dostajebilo.rs/vucic-duplirao-broj-partijskih-name-
stenika-u-aerodromu/; Saša Dragojlo, ‘Vučić Not Tackling Serbia’s Corruption, Experts
Say,’ Balkan Insight, 8 April 2016, http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/vucic-s-
government-made-no-promised-progress-on-tackling-corruption-04-07-2016; Istinomer,
‘Javni dug Srbije,’ N1, 26 January 2016, http://rs.n1info.com/a129283/Vesti/
Istinomer-tajmlajn-Javni-dug-Srbije.html; Lily Lynch, ‘Inside Serbia’s Anti-corruption
War,’ Balkanist, 22 December 2013, http://balkanist.net/inside-serbias-anti-corrup-
tion-war/; Ministarstvo prostora, ‘Beograd na mutnoj vodi,’ Peščanik, 25 January 2014,
http://pescanik.net/beograd-na-mutnoj-vodi/; Miroslav Prokopijević, ‘Can Serbia Avoid
Debt Crisis?’ Peščanik, 17 April 2014, http://pescanik.net/can-serbia-avoid-debt-crisis/;
Vladimir Radomirović, ‘Aerodrom zaposlio skoro 800 ljudi bez konkursa,’ Pištaljka, 11
May 2016, https://pistaljka.rs/home/read/554; Vojislav Stevanović, ‘Stojiljković: SNS
je najveća socijalna organizacija u Srbiji,’ N1, 29 February 2016, http://rs.n1info.com/
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  167

thousands of new party members, many of them in fictional jobs. The

German sociologist Max Weber—whom Vučić paradoxically tends to
quote when saying that the Serbian people should adopt the protestant
work ethic and be more like Germans15—used to write about the benefit-
inspired relationship between leaders and their supporters: “The party
following, above all the party official and party entrepreneur, naturally
expect personal compensation from the victory of their leader – that is,
offices or other advantages … They expect that the demagogic effect of
the leader’s personality during the election fight of the party will increase
votes and mandates and thereby power, and, thereby, as far as possible,
will extend opportunities to their followers to find the compensation for
which they hope” (Weber 2009 [1919], p. 103). So, many new members
may join the SNS purely because of available benefits and not because
of the party’s programme and ideological doctrine; they often have a
rather limited knowledge of these, if any at all. The more the leadership
succeeds in proving that party membership leads to benefits (such as
employment, career change and promotion, additional capital accumu-
lation, etc.), the stronger the interest in being affiliated with the party is
likely to be.

The EU and Kosovo’s Independence

In contrast to the early 1990s, when both the EC and its member states
managed to come up with a common position regarding the future of
the Yugoslav federation, the developments surrounding the Kosovo sta-
tus have been far more complicated. For example, the 2003 “standards
before status” policy, inaugurated on behalf of the UN administration in
Kosovo and approved by the EU with the idea to establish democratic
institutions and rule of law as well as to develop market economy and
dialogue with Belgrade authorities, and the 2005 Vienna talks, bringing

a138911/Vesti/Vesti/Stojiljkovic-SNS-je-najveca-socijalna-organizacija-u-Srbiji.html; and
Tony Verheijen, ‘Serbia: State Employees Galore, But Where Is the Private Sector?’ 2 April
2014, http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2014/04/02/serbia-state-employ-
ees-galore-but-where-is-private-sector (all accessed 18 July 2017).
15 Nebojša Malić, ‘Is NATO Sprawl Aggravating a “Serbian Spring”?’ RT, 24 Febraury

2016, https://www.rt.com/op-edge/333456-nato-sprawl-aggravating-serbian-spring/
(accessed 26 July 2017).
168  B. RADELJIĆ

the Serbian and Kosovo Albanian representatives together with the aim
to resolve the final status of Kosovo, failed to reconcile the two sides’
standpoints and bring about durable solutions. However, the Brussels
administration continued to insist on the processes of democratisa-
tion and Europeanisation, which for the locals, given the pending sta-
tus of the province, had no significance whatsoever. Simply put, the gap
between internationally promoted wishes and actual needs could not
lead to structural reforms, economic prosperity, and employment, even
though they were widely acknowledged as a powerful motivating force
for future membership in the EU; instead, the province continued to
preserve its image of a black hole in the Balkans, extremely corrupt and
involved in transnational organised crime (Radeljić 2014b).
Following Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008, a
large majority of EU members decided to recognise the newly self-
proclaimed state, with some of them fully ignoring their previously
adopted position. Looking back, the United Kingdom used to argue
that satisfaction of the aforementioned standards represented “the only
way forward towards final status,” and insisted that “[t]here was nothing
automatic about the process. If Kosovo made the necessary progress in
meeting the standards, it would continue to the next stage. But if not, it
would have to undergo a further review” (UNSC 2004). Similarly, the
German government, although clearly aware of the scale of organised
crime activities and its detrimental effect on the stabilisation of post-
1999 Kosovo (IEP 2007), abandoned the idea of standards and recog-
nised Kosovo. Again, Italian official understanding of the situation in
Kosovo was very much like the previous two, but still, it also supported
independence (Farnesina 2013). Accordingly, the existence of inconsist-
encies concerning the overall EU standpoint has left space for specula-
tion about how and why it has been impossible to speak with a single
voice. At the same time, the post-2008 EU Progress Reports have por-
trayed Kosovo as extremely problematic—an aspect that easily questions
the individual recogniser’s approach. As one of the reports observed,
“Kosovo has to make further progress in establishing and consolidating
the rule of law and needs to improve the functioning and independence
of its judiciary. It needs to establish a track record in the fight against
corruption, money laundering and organized crime, demonstrating
concrete results … Kosovo needs to improve the protection of Serb
and other minorities and enhance dialogue and reconciliation between
the communities” (European Commission 2009, p. 5). Similarly,
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  169

the subsequent reports outlined a whole range of problems, ranging

from ‘weaknesses in tax and expenditure policies and, in law enforce-
ment, including the fight against corruption and organized crime’
(European Commission 2011, p. 31) to the lack of capacity “to
improve implementation of the existing legal framework and enforce-
ment of decisions remedying human rights infringements” (European
Commission 2013, p. 14).
Locally, authoritarian practice is not a new feature. Back in the early
1990s, Ibrahim Rugova, leader of the Democratic League of Kosovo,
while advocating a non-violent resistance to the Yugoslav rule, used his
experience to win the presidential elections of 1992 and shape Kosovo
Albanian nationalistic agenda. As assessed in the literature, “[a]lthough
his speeches gave the impression of a modest and gentle politician, in
essence he created a system of authoritarian personal power, based on
a variant of the cult of personality. He became the distinct and peerless
leader” (Maliki 2012, p. 58). Later, the existence of different politi-
cal parties did not really mean more democracy and liberal behaviour.
They have represented “authoritarian pyramids of power,” without the
ideological platforms and party programmes that would distinguish
them (Sörensen 2009, p. 239). Furthermore, the continuous pres-
ence and dependency on international representatives produced even
more dependency, mismanagement, and dysfunctionality; in the words
of Gezim Visoka (2017, pp. 8–9), “the fragmented position of differ-
ent international organisations on Kosovo’s independence significantly
undermined efforts for an effective implementation of a peace settlement
alongside the semi-authoritarian governance of ethno-nationalist elites
backed by the international community.” For example, the EU Rule of
Law Mission in Kosovo was accused of high-scale corruption in October
2014, as bribery led to continuous dropping of cases involving senior
Kosovo officials (Guardian 2014) and even though bribery allegations
were dismissed in late 2016,16 the whole case provoked a lot of discus-
sion and suspicion regarding the international involvement.

16 According to the Joint Statement on Termination of Investigation on Alleged

Corruption within EULEX of 7 November 2016, there was no evidence ‘of solicit-
ing or accepting a bribe. EULEX Mission and EU Office/EUSR are confident that the
integrity of EULEX affected staff is hereby fully restored’ (http://www.eulex-kosovo.
eu/?page=2,10,518).
170  B. RADELJIĆ

So, while, on the one hand, the overall international performance

proved to be quite handicapped, it became very difficult for the
Albanians to identify themselves with their own independent state, on
the other. Simultaneously, the local elites have felt free to continue with
their practices. As warned in the literature, “unfavourable conditions—
including weak democratic institutions and political organisations,
persistent authoritarian traditions, major socio-economic problems,
and ethnic and religious conflicts—create formidable obstacles to the
establishment and, above all, the consolidation of democracy” (Ottaway
2003, pp. 4–5). Accordingly, the Kosovo leadership has been respon-
sible for Kosovo getting the lowest democracy score in the Western
Balkan region and its system being described as ‘a semi-consolidated
authoritarian regime’ (Freedom House 2015). Still, the EU signed a
Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Kosovo in October 2015,
even though five of its member states reject to recognise its independ-
ence. Given the aim of such an agreement—to promote political dia-
logue and cooperation in a wide range of sectors and policy areas—it
could be argued that the Brussels administration’s decision was a tacti-
cal move.
Like in the case of Serbia, EU authorities have welcomed and sup-
ported Kosovo Albanian leaders, regardless of their previous affiliation
and controversial involvement in the Kosovo conflict. As one detailed
analysis has rightly suggested, “[Hashim] Thaçi and other members of
Kosovo’s political elite who have been named in Western intelligence
reports as organized-crime figures are, the diplomats say, sacrificing the
best interests of the Republic of Kosovo and the Kosovars in order to
protect themselves from criminal prosecution” (Sudetic 2015). Thus, by
accepting criminals turned state representatives at the forefront of the
so-called democratisation and Europeanisation initiatives, the Brussels
leadership has sent a clear message that semi-authoritarian practices
would be acceptable for as long as the direct interests of the EU or its
individual member states—in the region as well as from the region—are
not threatened. Should this seem to be the case, immediate criticism is
inevitable, expected to warn the local elites of their inappropriate com-
portment. While within the former arrangement, local citizens and what
is in their best interest are of secondary relevance, within the latter,
their role can be upgraded to occupy the focal point behind externally
adopted policies and eventual regime change.
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  171

What Freedom?
Since 2012, the dominant media in Serbia have generally tended to sup-
port Aleksandar Vučić’s actions and reactions at home and abroad. By
avoiding criticism and, even more worryingly, applying auto-censorship
due to warnings and pressures as to what can be reported and what not,
the media have indirectly facilitated the continuation of well-embedded
practices. One analysis uses a pyramidal structure to illustrate the trend;
in this case, “[m]anipulations under the mask of free media help the pyr-
amid to expand in ways [in which] it sustains itself. The most obvious
sign of it is a quite unusual situation where the leader is very frequently
present in the media. Moreover, there are more and more journalists
and celebrities joining the pyramid. These are exactly the conditions
for self-censorship and inferiority to the leader … Many people choose
to obey the rules of practice in order to preserve their positions and
benefits” (Kelić 2016). It is also worth remembering that Vučić was in
charge of the Ministry of Information in the late 1990s when Slobodan
Milošević was in power: “[He] was the hatchet man for the media
who defended the vast ethnic cleansing by paramilitary police of more
than 60% of the 90%-majority Albanians living in the Serbian province
of Kosovo” (Pond 2013, p. 7). Back then, newspapers were regularly
fined or, even worse, closed, so that the public would primarily gather
information from the state-controlled media or other media work-
ing in favour of the ruling elite. In fact, as Timothy Garton Ash (2009,
pp. 6–7, 16) has put it, “[t]he single most important pillar of [the
Milošević] regime was the state television, which he used to sustain a
nationalist siege mentality, especially among people in the country and
small towns who had few other sources of information … Milošević’s
dictatorship was a television dictatorship. And television was equally
­central to the revolution. From teledictatorship, via telerevolution, to
teledemocracy.” Thus, aware of this and the ever-increasing relevance of
the media in information age, the Vučić regime has been determined to
secure support from as many channels of communication as possible.
If we consider some of the European Commission’s assessments
regarding the media situation in Serbia, we can see that the former has
been conscious of the problems. For example, in 2012, the annual pro-
gress report stressed that “violence and threats against journalists remain
of concern, although their frequency has decreased slightly. The Serbian
172  B. RADELJIĆ

authorities have continued to provide police protection for journalists

and media outlets which have received threats. Investigations into mur-
ders of journalists dating back to the late 1990s/early 2000s and into
recurring threats against journalists have so far failed to identify the per-
petrators … Access to advertising in the media remains under the con-
trol of a few economic and political actors, entailing a significant risk of
influence on the media and of self-censorship” (European Commission
2012, p. 14). Two years later, the Brussels administration seemed even
more concerned; this time around, it supported its findings by citing the
OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, accord-
ing to which, “media reporting was insufficiently analytical and was influ-
enced by the political parties in power, including through public funding,
which led to widespread media self-censorship” (European Commission
2014b, p. 7). In Commission’s view, “efforts are expected to iden-
tify and prosecute suspects of violations of internet freedoms. Pending
the full implementation of the newly adopted legislative package, the
Serbian media continued to operate in a blurred legal environment which
delayed the state’s withdrawal from media ownership, one of the cor-
nerstones of the 2011 media strategy” (ibid., p. 46). Most recently, the
Commission noted that “[c]ivil society organisations (CSOs) and human
rights defenders, who play a key role in raising awareness of civil, political
and socioeconomic rights, continued to operate in a public and media
environment often hostile to criticism” (European Commission 2016,
p. 8), while “[h]ate speech is often tolerated in the media and is rarely
tackled by regulatory authorities or prosecutors. Statements by state
officials in relation to the investigative work of journalists have not been
conducive to creating an environment in which freedom of expression
can be exercised without hindrance” (ibid., p. 61).
Looking more closely at media performance before the 2016 parlia-
mentary elections, which reconfirmed Vučić’s dominance, there was no
record of a debate between government and opposition: prominent jour-
nalists were fired for reporting about government failures (Autonomija
2016; Balkanist 2016; FoNet 2016; Hadrović 2017; Petrović 2016).
Still, the government’s popularity was not eroded. In fact, in 2017,
Vučić became the president of Serbia, after crushing his opponents in the
first round, by winning 55% of the vote. Looking at the result, while for
Vučić himself, “[w]hen you have results like this, there is no instability –
Serbia is strong and it will be even stronger” (cited in Macdowall 2017),
for some academics, “[t]his election was over before it began, for the
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  173

same reason that last year’s parliamentary elections were. The tight con-
trol that the governing party exercises over media, information, employ-
ment, and the distribution of benefits means that there is no level playing
field and voters are not in a position to freely make an informed choice”
(Gordy 2017).
In the case of Kosovo, the media have also been affected by pres-
sures, resulting in self-censorship and pro-government bias. For example,
in one of its annual reports, the European Commission (2014c, p. 13)
remarked that “[p]ublic statements by politicians about high-level cor-
ruption and war crimes cases have decreased, in particular after an open
discussion in the structured dialogue on the rule of law. Harassment
of judges and prosecutors in the media and the absence of an effective
response from the relevant institutions continue to be a serious con-
cern.” In the following assessments, the Brussels authorities noted their
awareness of intimidation of journalists, accompanied by “serious phys-
ical assaults” and that “26 cases of attacks, threats and obstruction are
under investigation,” but also their scepticism regarding any ­substantial
progress: “The legislative and institutional framework in this area
remains fragmented and ineffective. Journalists’ right to conscientious
objection and the public’s right to reply and correction remain unreg-
ulated” (European Commission 2015b, p. 22). Most recently, an expe-
rienced journalist, after being beaten in front of her home in Prishtina
because of investigative reporting, stated that “[t]he public lynching of
journalists is becoming a normality in Kosovo” (Balkan Insight 2017).
As a matter of reaction to this but also other attacks, new Prime Minister
Ramush Haradinaj also stated that such behaviour was unacceptable,17
trying to convince Brussels of his readiness to protect journalists and
improve the state of the profession.
Given their previous political engagement, Serbian and Kosovo
Albanian leaders have clearly understood what works with domestic
and international audiences and the majority of the media have served
to promote their performance and baby-steps towards EU accession.
Accordingly, multiparty elections are held, the rights of citizens are the-
oretically recognized (although not always in practice), civil society and
non-governmental organizations exist and manage to conduct research

17 See, for example, Radio Free Europe, ‘Investigative Journalist Beaten In Kosovo,’ 13

October 2017, https://www.rferl.org/a/kosovo-journalist-attacked/28793663.html

(accessed 25 October 2017).
174  B. RADELJIĆ

and communicate their findings (usually thanks to foreign financial assis-

tance), the media reporting goes on, with the Internet being loaded with
critical thinking, etc. Alongside this and in the context of semi-authori-
tarianism, ‘incumbent governments and parties are in no danger of los-
ing their hold on power, not because they are popular but because they
know how to play the democracy game and still retain control’ (Ottaway
2003, p. 6). Moreover, the two regimes’ apparent readiness to pursue
economic reforms and market liberalisation are much more attractive to
the foreigners’ ears than them getting involved in discussions over the
local intentions to minimise any competition for power and to suppress
the opposition. The studies on semi-authoritarian regimes also make ref-
erence to the pursuit of economic reforms and reduction of government
control in the context of international pressure: “[S]emi-authoritarian
regimes can undergo market liberalization with little political liberaliza-
tion or separation of economic elites from political elites. The linkage
between economic liberalization and democratization is complex, and
it is dangerous to assume that the former always encourages the latter”
(Ottaway 2003, p. 18).

Conclusion
The European Union has welcomed different Serbian and Kosovo
Albanian leaderships and turned a blind eye in front of numerous moves
and decisions. As pointed out, for as long as they continue to cooperate
or, at least, leave an impression of such an intention, the quality of polit-
ical pluralism, state institutions, electoral procedures, and media report-
ing, among others, can rest with the regime to regulate. This means that
the EU has contributed to semi-authoritarian practices in the Western
Balkans. Whatever the level of support for the EU in the region, its
involvement has revealed hypocrisy towards the EU’s core principles and
values such as the rule of law and human rights. Many from the intellec-
tual elite, who firmly advocated EU accession in the past, are now disen-
chanted with the EU’s lack of reaction to the elites’ alleged undermining
of democratic principles. The result is that the forces underpinning the
pro-EU agenda in public appearances have rapidly diminished, so it has
become quite difficult to find those who would publicly confront the
anti-EU forces.
 8  TOLERATING SEMI-AUTHORITARIANISM? CONTEXTUALISING …  175

The local regimes are known for being prone to sending mixed
­ essages. On the one hand, they have declaratively supported EU val-
m
ues, pledged for EU accession and so on, while, on the other hand,
the slightest external criticism has resulted in a narrative that the West
wants to overthrow them, that big powers are working against them
and that it would be good to explore alternatives. For example, in the
case of Serbia, Russia appears as a more honest friend. As rightly noted
elsewhere, “Russia is positioned as the first friendly Other in the anti-
European debates… [It] is recognized as having historical ties with Serbia
based on economic and energy collaboration, as well as certain cultural
and religious commonalities and a similar language” (Russell-Omaljev
2016, pp. 55, 103–5). With this in mind, it is not possible to exclude the
scenario in which Vučić will turn to Russia upon realising that his pro-EU
agenda is capable of generating more harm than benefit in terms of votes.
In the case of Kosovo, Thaçi has criticised the EU in the context of visa
liberalisation, accusing it of discriminatory approach: “I repeat once again
that the position of the European Union towards the citizens of Kosovo
and the Kosovo institutions is absurd and embarrassing. We did not ask
for anything more than to be treated as other countries of the region”
(Thaçi 2017).
However, while the regimes in place are free to express their views
about the European Union and the West, more generally, it is the
Brussels authorities who play the decisive role in the accession process of
the respective Western Balkan states. Should the regime change become
a priority, the Brussels administration would most likely start applying
pressure on the elites, labelling their domestic policies as detrimental
and not in accordance with the EU’s agenda. At this point, their (semi-)
authoritarian behaviour would suddenly become highly problematic and
the West could claim the need to come up with a new approach so as to
allow Serbia and Kosovo to genuinely pursue processes of democratisa-
tion and Europeanisation. Like in other cases, the foreigners could opt
for sanctions, which are generally ineffective, often causing more prob-
lems than they resolve. Accordingly, the West might decide to take credi-
ble members of the opposition seriously and provide them with necessary
assistance so to overthrow the regime, thus to repeat what it already did
with Milošević. In such a case, the infamous notion of “lessons learnt”
would be defeated and become quite irrelevant for any future EU
involvement in Serbia and Kosovo.
176  B. RADELJIĆ

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 CHAPTER 9

The Europeanisation of Contested States:

Comparing Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Macedonia and Montenegro

Jelena Džankić and Soeren Keil

Introduction
The European Union (EU) is an ever-deepening political project that
has grown from six original members, in 1958, to 28, when Croatia
joined in July 2013. Croatia was the first Member State of the so-called
“Western Balkans” that completed the EU’s Stabilisation and Association
Process (SAP), designed to integrate the conflict-ridden countries that
emerged from the dissolution of the socialist Yugoslav federation.1
1 The term Western Balkans refers to Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia,

Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania. However, after joining the EU, Croatia is
no longer considered a part of this region.

J. Džankić 
Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University
Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy
S. Keil (*) 
School of Psychology, Politics and Sociology, Canterbury Christ Church
University, Canterbury, UK
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 181

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_9
182  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

The integration of the other Western Balkan states is, however, a

challenge for the EU, which currently faces “enlargement fatigue”
­
among most of its members.2 Equally, the lengthy adaptation to the
EU’s requirements caused “accession fatigue”, an emerging integra-
tion challenge for countries faced with weak statehood, underdeveloped
economies and legacies of recent conflict.3
Despite growing interest in the study of the impact of
Europeanisation on the Western Balkans (Bieber 2012a; Noutcheva
2012; Radeljic 2013; Rupnik 2011), there still remains a large gap
in our understanding of how EU integration affects countries in this
region, and to what extent the challenges described above hinder (or
possibly strengthen) Europeanisation trends. We address this question
by focusing on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Montenegro,
three cases which share a number of common features.4 They are all
post-Yugoslav states established in the wake of the Yugoslav dissolution,
although at different stages of the dissolution process. All three states
remain internally and externally contested, notwithstanding considerable
differences among them. This contestation has had an adverse effect on
their democratic consolidation, their EU integration process and their
functioning as independent states and foreign policy subjects. Despite
these commonalities, the three countries are at different stages of the EU
integration process. Montenegro is negotiating, with a number of chap-
ters of the EU’s acquis under discussion and three of them provisionally
closed in February 2018. Macedonia, a candidate country since 2005, is
still waiting for the start of membership negotiations, due to the ongoing
name conflict with EU member Greece. Bosnia has still not been rec-
ognised as a candidate country, despite applying for candidate status in
2016, and (together with Kosovo) lags behind the most in terms of EU
integration in the region.
In order to demonstrate that consolidated statehood is not only key
for effective democratisation, but also a prerequisite for EU accession
and functional EU integration, we first discuss the concept of contested
states. We proceed by unpacking the process of Europeanisation in the

2 Forgrowing enlargement fatigue, see the Eurobarometer (2016).

3 On all of these issues, see Keil and Arkan (2015a).
4 The short form Bosnia always refers to the whole country in this chapter; the term

‘Macedonia’ designates the country and the ‘Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’ is
used when citing directly from sources referring to the country under that name.
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  183

EU’s enlargement discourse and outline its specificities in the Western

Balkans. In particular, we focus on the differentiation between the
direct (Copenhagen Criteria, the acquis) and indirect (impact through
other organisations, such as the Council of Europe) mechanisms of
Europeanisation, and highlight their potential effects in transforming
policy areas in contested states. Building on this, we discuss how these
mechanisms play out in three policy areas, each related to a differ-
ent aspect of the EU integration process: the rule of law, constitutional
reform and citizenship policy. The rule of law is a condition contained in
the Copenhagen Criteria for accession; constitutional reform has become
a part of Chapter 35 of the acquis (“Other issues”); and citizenship
policy is not an EU competence, but meeting the Council of Europe
(CoE) guidelines is required in the context of inclusion/exclusion and
human rights, which have indirectly become a part of the accession pro-
cess. Through such a policy focus, the paper will assess how the effects
of Europeanisation vary around policy areas and how they are affected
by contested state- and nationhood. The Conclusion will assess to what
extent contested statehood needs to be taken into account by the EU
when dealing with the Western Balkans.

Contested States in the Western Balkans

State contestation is a major challenge to the EU’s agenda of enlarge-
ment in the Western Balkans (Börzel 2013). Unconsolidated and
contested states remain crisis-ridden. EU integration can increase inter-
group conflict in societies such as Bosnia and Macedonia, where pow-
er-sharing systems have been able to end violent conflict without putting
a halt to ongoing political confrontation. Furthermore, in unconsol-
idated states multiple transformations often occur simultaneously (eco-
nomic, political and societal), which not only heightens the risk of
violent conflict, but may also result in the establishment of authoritar-
ian tendencies in government structures, as political and economic elites
position themselves to capture the state (Uzelac 2003; Bechev 2012;
Subotić 2013).
Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro are contested states in two
ways. First, they are contested internally by a significant proportion of
their population. This contestation is characterised by groups that chal-
lenge the independence of these states and their inclusion in it. Serbs
and Croats in Bosnia fought between 1991 and 1995 to secede from
184  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

Bosnia and establish their own statelets, which would then join their
respective kin states (Burg and Shoup 2000, pp. 102–184; Silber and
Little 1997, pp. 205–363). Since the Dayton Peace Agreement, which
ended the conflict in Bosnia in 1995, Bosnian Serbs particularly have
challenged the state and continuously threaten to hold a referendum on
their territory’s secession (Toal 2013). In Macedonia, Albanians have
contested the state and the dominance of Macedonian elites in it. In
2000–2001, this resulted in a short conflict between Albanian rebels and
Macedonian security forces, which ended after EU and North Atlantic
Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) intervention and the signing of the Ohrid
Framework Agreement (OFA) (Baros 2003). While the OFA pacified the
country and allowed substantial progress towards EU integration, ten-
sions between Macedonians and Albanians have persisted in recent years,
with violent clashes and continuous risks of a new conflict (BBC 2015).
Finally, in Montenegro, internal contestation is characterised by the con-
tinued rift between parties supporting Montenegro’s independence and
those that have historically supported a strong alliance with Serbia. These
parties differ in their perspectives on Montenegrin nationhood (with
the first arguing Montenegrins are an independent nation and the latter
arguing they are Serbs or strongly linked to Serbs), and they differed in
the past over the question of Montenegrin independence from the state
union with Serbia (Džankić 2014a, b; Jenne and Bieber 2014). While
the parties which opposed Montenegro’s independence have accepted
the outcome of the referendum of independence in 2006 (when 55.5%
of voters opted in favour of Montenegrin independence), the contes-
tation of what the Montenegrin nation is, what language(s) it uses and
what its relations with Serbia and Serbs should be, remain highly con-
tested issues. Discussions about an attempted coup d’etat in the wake of
the 2016 parliamentary elections have further highlighted the contesta-
tion of the Montenegrin state and the polarisation of its political system
(Vuković 2017).
In the case of Bosnia and Montenegro in particular, it is also possible
to speak about externally challenged states. As Mladenov (2014, p. 161)
argues, Serbia’s relations with these two neighbours remain influenced
by the results of the Yugoslav break-up and continued ethnic tensions.
Unlike Croatia, which after 2000 made a clear commitment to Bosnia’s
territorial integrity, Serbia remains a strong supporter of the Bosnian
Serb entity (Republika Srpska) and its elites, even if these have voiced
secessionist tendencies. Likewise, Serbia’s relations with Montenegro
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  185

are complicated, “because of legacies of the divide over statehood and

identity in Montenegro and Montenegro’s recognition of Kosovo as an
independent state” (Džankić 2014a, p. 184). Serbia remains interested
in the internal affairs of Montenegro particularly through political parties
that represent nearly 30% of Montenegrin citizens who identify as eth-
nic Serbs (Vuković 2017). Likewise, the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and
Serbia continue their strong support for each other, even if this under-
mines Bosnia as a state and strengthens secessionist tendencies (Huskić
2015).
The situation in Macedonia is more complex in relation to external
contestation. While both Albania and Kosovo have acted as kin states
for the Albanians in Macedonia, the most problematic contestation to
Macedonian statehood has come from Greece in the form of the name
dispute. Greece fears that the name “Republic of Macedonia” will lead to
territorial claims on its own territory and has therefore vetoed the recog-
nition of the country by its constitutional name. Instead, the provisional
formula “The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” has been used
until a compromise could be found. To this day, this compromise has
not been found and Greece has used its veto power to prevent the start
of EU membership negotiations with Macedonia (numerous times since
2009) and to prevent Macedonia from becoming a member of NATO in
2009.
Internal state contestation has resulted in complex governance sys-
tems in the three states to bring different groups together and aim for
the inclusion of contesting groups in the political process. In Bosnia,
a complex power-sharing system was introduced in 1995, which com-
bined territorial autonomy of the different constituent peoples (Bosniaks,
Croats and Serbs) in their territorial units (entities or cantons) with
grand coalitions, veto rights and proportional representation in the
­central state institutions (Keil 2013, pp. 95–124). Macedonia uses a less
convoluted system of power-sharing in central institutions, although
Macedonian and Albanian parties also have to work together to make
major decisions (Bieber 2008). Since the signing of the OFA, decen-
tralisation has also become a major feature of Macedonia’s quest to
accommodate the autonomy demands of the Albanian population (Lyon
2011). Montenegro has not made any specific institutional provisions to
accommodate the deep divisions within society and among government
and opposition parties. While parties representing politically recognised
minorities have been part of several coalition governments, the divide
186  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

between those parties claiming to represent Serbs (in Montenegro) and

the government, that has consistently pushed for a strengthening of the
Montenegrin identity, has not been bridged through any specific insti-
tutional mechanisms (Bieber 2010). Despite these different institutional
mechanisms to address internal contestation, all three states remain
deeply divided. This is reflected in numerous policy areas and most vis-
ible in those political issues that touch upon fundamental questions of
state- and nationhood, identity and group autonomy.

Concepts of Europeanisation in EU Enlargement

Europeanisation has attracted significant academic attention in recent
years. It goes beyond mere EU conditionality and represents more
broadly “domestic adaptation to EU integration” (Graziano and Vink
2006, p. 7). Even if Europeanisation has its roots in the study of EU
integration, it is nowadays commonly applied to the analysis of the insti-
tutional, political, economic and societal transformation that takes place
in the countries aspiring to become Member States of the EU (Börzel
and Risse 2012; Sedelmeier 2012; Elbasani 2013).
Elaborating on how this transformation takes place, Noutcheva
(2012) identified three interrelated mechanisms of Europeanisation
that bring about change in transitional societies: conditionality, sociali-
sation and coercion. Conditionality transforms the aspiring members
into countries institutionally capable of integrating into the EU by using
both incentives (for compliance) and sanctions (for non-compliance)
(Grabbe 1999; Vachudova 2001; Noutcheva 2012). Socialisation is a
“soft” Europeanisation tool that implies social learning from the EU,
internalisation of norms and the related development of new identities
(Börzel and Risse 2012; Radaelli 2003; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier
2004). Unlike these two mechanisms, imposition, which is becoming
increasingly significant in the study of the challenged and unconsoli-
dated Western Balkan states such as Bosnia and Kosovo (Juncos 2011;
Krasniqi and Musaj 2015), entails elements of direct governance by the
EU. However, these three mechanisms do not have the same impact
per se, and equally, their effect on changing policy areas in the respec-
tive countries differs significantly. In general, socialisation and condition-
ality through incentives are likely to be more effective in consolidated
states and across broad socio-economic policy fields. By contrast, con-
ditionality by coercion and imposition have proven to be more effective
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  187

in transforming contested states, and policy areas that touch upon home
affairs or the constitutional identities. Moreover, these direct mechanisms
of Europeanisation are complemented by a further transfer of norms and
values that are implicitly rather than formally a part of the EU accession
process. These include recommendations of international organisations
(e.g. the CoE, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe
[OSCE], the World Bank) integrated in the conditionality and imposi-
tion mechanisms and their respective values enshrined in the socialisation
mechanism of Europeanisation.
Europeanisation in the aspiring members is based on a relationship
of asymmetry that becomes inherent to the process (Sedelmeier 2012).
By virtue of the fact of not (yet) being EU Member States, candidate
countries do not “upload” but rather “download” the EU’s policies
and institutional practices. The speed and transformative power of this
‘downloading’ will depend on domestic political contexts, the degrees
of requirement of institutional adaptation and the effects thereof on the
power balances among the domestic political players (Schimmelfennig
and Sedelmeier 2005; Sedelmeier 2012; Noutcheva 2012). In addition
to this, we can identify three further context-based specificities of the
process in the contested Western Balkan states.
The first distinct trait of the effects of Europeanisation in this region
is that the key aim of the process is to “foster peace, stability, [and] pros-
perity” due to the history of recent conflict (Börzel and Risse 2012,
p. 195; also Börzel 2013). Different from the Europeanisation that took
place at the time of the Eastern enlargement and was largely based on
the three Copenhagen Criteria (democratic governance, functional
markets and the capability to adapt and implement EU law), the pro-
cess in the Western Balkans also implies stabilisation through rein-
forcement of regional transnational ties. This foreign policy element of
Europeanisation has clearly been enshrined in the accession conditions
as a form of stabilisation through regional cooperation (Council of the
European Union 2003). This additional aspect of Europeanisation is
crucial for understanding the depth of the effects of EU policies in the
Western Balkan states, as it was included to overcome the legacies of the
Yugoslav wars and help address some of the contestation discussed above
by focusing on good neighbourly relations.
The second trait of Europeanisation in the post-Yugoslav region is
that the varying degree of its effects on the policy areas covered in the
acquis is intimately related to the particular nature of sovereignty in this
188  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

region. Europeanisation scholars have linked a country’s effectiveness in

complying with EU requirements to the ability of its leadership to bal-
ance political objectives in circumstances of full and pooled sovereignty
(Noutcheva 2012). In the earlier rounds of enlargement, the pooling of
(uncontested) sovereignty was considered a means to the aim of ‘return-
ing to Europe’. However, in contested states, sovereignty is a far more
complex issue, as it is challenged by either domestic or foreign actors,
or both. Having shaped their political objectives in the circumstances of
such contested sovereignty, political actors object to implementing the
EU’s requirements that collide with the vision of sovereignty against
which they have assumed a position of power. As a consequence, con-
testations of sovereignty have commonly hampered Europeanisation,
either by preventing policy transfer or by causing “fake compliance”
whereby the policy is formally adopted but hardly any implementation
thereof ever takes place (Noutcheva 2012; Bieber 2012b; Freyburg
and Richter 2010). The manifest tension between the aspiration of the
domestic actors to reinforce the sovereignty of the newly emerged states
and the erosive effects of Europeanisation on sovereignty imply that the
absorption of EU policies and institutions envisaged in the acquis in the
post-Yugoslav space faces more obstacles than in the 2004 and 2007
enlargements.
The third distinct trait of Europeanisation in the Western Balkans is
the combination of breadth and uncertainty of the process. The EU’s
enlargement policy changed significantly after the accession of Bulgaria
and Romania in 2007, driven by concerns over these two countries’
preparedness to become members at the time of accession. Despite the
manifest promise of membership in the Thessalonica Agenda, there is no
clear accession timeframe for the Western Balkan states,5 and the condi-
tions for accession now also include indirect requirements such as com-
pliance with standards of international organisations. Trauner (2012) has
considered the uncertain accession timeline one of the major obstruc-
tions of the process, because protracted negotiations reduce the tangibil-
ity of the incentive(s) and the domestic actors’ reward(s) for compliance.
In addition to this, Noutcheva (2012) has noted the changes in the EU’s
approach towards conditionality and Europeanisation, both of which

5 In 2018, the European Commission indicated that Serbia and Montenegro might

become EU members by 2025. However, this timeframe has not been fixed yet and should
be seen as an indication rather than a fixed and agreed framework.
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  189

now entail elements of vagueness through which the EU seeks to oblige

the candidates to do more.6 Yet, this lack of clarity of conditions is also
likely to induce fake or partial compliance in contested states. As the
following sections will demonstrate, the Europeanisation of contested
states is limited by systems in which domestic actors are firmly embedded
politically and institutionally. Its effects are also dependent on broader
regional developments, which shape local actors’ objectives against the
backdrop of limited sovereignty.

Europeanising Contested States: Key Policy Issues

Taking into account the direct and indirect mechanisms of
Europeanisation in the contested Western Balkan states described above,
we analyse the effects of this process on (1) the rule of law, contained in
the Copenhagen Criteria; (2) constitutional reform, as required in the
acquis and (3) citizenship policies, regulated through broader interna-
tional human rights mechanisms.

The Rule of Law

The rule of law is an essential element of the EU’s enlargement agenda
(Kmezić 2017). It is referred to in the Copenhagen Criteria, where it
is stated that “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule
of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities” form
the political criteria for membership in the EU. Moreover, in the EU’s
acquis, the 35 chapters defining the body of EU law that candidate
countries have to implement, Chapter 23 is specifically focused on the
Judiciary and fundamental rights.
It is therefore no surprise that the rule of law also features prom-
inently in the EU’s enlargement strategy for 2014–2015, where it is
stated that “[t]he rule of law is a fundamental value on which the EU
is founded and is at the heart of the accession process. Countries aspir-
ing to join the Union need to establish and promote from an early stage
the proper functioning of the core institutions necessary for securing the
rule of law” (European Commission 2014, p. 10). Likewise, the most
recent enlargement strategy of the European Commission states “The

6 On this issue also see the contribution by Asya Zhelyazkova et al. in this volume.
190  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

Commission will continue to focus efforts on the rule of law, including

security, fundamental rights, democratic institutions and public adminis-
tration reform, as well as on economic development and ­competitiveness.
These remain the fundamentals for meeting the Copenhagen and
Madrid membership criteria”  (European Commission 2016a, p. 2).
Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro share similar deficiencies in the
area of the rule of law. Their legal systems are strongly influenced by the
Yugoslav heritage and by the laws of the former Yugoslav federation.
Hence, establishing a new and independent judicial sector has been, and
remains, a key challenge for these countries. In light of the state contes-
tation that all three countries face, judicial systems have become agents
of certain groups taking control over the state.
In the case of Bosnia, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats have established
their own legal frameworks in territories under their control. While some
progress has been made to unite and integrate them, the massive decen-
tralisation of the state, and resistance, particularly from Bosnian Serb
elites, have limited the push from the EU for a more efficient and inde-
pendent judicial sector. While some reforms had been achieved by 2006,
especially as a result of international pressure and imposition, since then
there has been a continuous process of undermining the establishment
of an independent judicial sector and a stronger role for state courts
and independent appointment of prosecutors and judges through a sin-
gle High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) (Smith-Hrle 2015,
pp. 66–73). The EU’s 2016 progress report confirms this bleak situa-
tion: “The action plan needed to implement the 2014–2018 justice sec-
tor reform strategy was not adopted. […] Politically motivated threats on
the judiciary continued. Judicial independence, including from political
influence, remains to be strengthened” (European Commission 2016b,
p. 13). As a result of Bosnian–Serb pressure to undermine the whole
judicial reform process, in particular the establishment of an independent
state court and the independent appointment of judges and prosecutors,
the EU initiated urgently a Structured Dialogue on Justice. However,
since the first meeting of the people involved in June 2011, this
Structured Dialogue has failed to contribute to any substantial reforms
in the country. Instead, the contestation over the establishment of a
Bosnian State Court, the independence of the Prosecutor’s Office and
the HJPC demonstrates two important dimensions of state contestation
that EU input has been unable to address. First, it highlights the contin-
ued attempts by Republika Srpska authorities to undermine central state
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  191

institutions (and thereby the state itself). Second, it also highlights how
important control over the judicial system remains for political elites.
Since many of them have been accused of corruption, abuse of office and
involvement in acts of organised crime, their influence over the judici-
ary remains vitally important not only because it allows them to continue
their dubious clientelistic networks, but also it ensures their very survival
in office by protecting them from arrest and charges.
A similar picture is visible when looking at the area of rule of law
reforms in Macedonia. Here, the EU’s progress report for 2016 states
that “backsliding [in judicial reform] continued and this constitutes a
serious concern. The reforms of the last decade continued to be under-
mined by political interference in the work and appointment of the judici-
ary” (European Commission 2016c, pp. 12–13). While the EU has been
less involved in judicial reform in Macedonia than it has been in Bosnia,
the EU’s approach has been very similar—focusing on incentives rather
than imposition and punishments for non-compliance. Judicial reform
has been a key element of the EU’s High Level Accession Dialogue,
which was started in 2011 in order to prepare the country for member-
ship talks (Karadjoski 2015). Observers state that the situation has got
worse in recent years, especially since the Gruevski government took
charge of the country (Stojkovski 2015). In fact, events such as the
release of tapes by the opposition, which indicate the involvement of the
government and senior civil servants in corruption, bribery, political mur-
der and other unlawful and undemocratic activities, have highlighted that
Macedonia’s rule of law, and its democracy as a whole, have been very
much put into question (ICG 2015). However, it remains to be seen if
the new government, which came to power in 2017, can overcome the
legacy of its predecessor and ensure the establishment of an independent
and efficient judiciary.
Montenegro, too, faces various challenges in the implementation
of the rule of law. As the progress report for 2016 states that “concerns
remain about attempts at political interference in the judicial process”
(European Commission 2016d, p. 36). A key issue for the developments
in Montenegro has been the dominance of the ruling Democratic Party
of Socialists (Demokratska Partija Socijalista, DPS) party and it’s Prime
Minister, Milo Đukanović. They have been dominant since the DPS split
in 1997, and Đukanović and his close network have been able to take
charge of major segments of the state, including its bureaucracy, the con-
struction sector and even the banking sector (Patrucić, et al., n.d. online;
192  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

Uzelac 2003). Similar to the cases in Bosnia and Macedonia, political elites
that have captured the state and control many of its branches (and even
parts of the private sector) must fear an independent and well-functioning
judiciary, as it threatens their position (Uzelac 2003; Keil 2018).
While judicial reform is at different stages, and has been contested dif-
ferently in all three countries, a number of common features are never-
theless visible. First, stronger involvement of the EU, as is the case in
Bosnia, does not necessarily lead to faster and more sustainable reforms.
The Structured Dialogue, which the EU started in Bosnia in 2011, has
so far not delivered any visible results. The same can be said about the
EU’s Structured Dialogue in Macedonia, which has also demonstrated
very few tangible results. Having said this, there has been some progress
in the establishment of a more independent and efficient judiciary in
Montenegro, which has been linked to EU conditionality (see for exam-
ple European Commission 2016d, p. 7, 48). The reason for this can be
found in the different political systems in Bosnia and Montenegro. The
majoritarian form of governance and the dominance of the DPS-led rul-
ing coalition have enabled certain reforms to be started in order to pro-
gress Montenegro’s accession negotiation. Additionally, there has been
less domestic contestation of judicial reform, as opposition parties tend
to be in favour of supporting reforms aimed at enhancing Montenegro’s
EU accession (Džankić 2014a, 2015b). Macedonia is interesting because
the question of a credible membership perspective is important. As the
EU has been unable to start membership negotiations with the coun-
try as recommended by the Commission since 2009, the EU’s influence
on domestic reforms has been significantly reduced. This explains the
rise of authoritarian tendencies at the time of the Gruevski-led govern-
ment and the escalation of tensions between Macedonians and Albanians
in recent years (Kacarska 2015). In Macedonia’s case it was the Greek
veto that prevented a stronger engagement of the EU (Koneska 2014a).
This has had a substantial impact on domestic discourses, despite con-
tinuously high support for EU membership. It has allowed Macedonian
elites to escape additional pressure from European elites to implement
democracy-enhancing reforms. This leads to the third conclusion: The
EU’s impact on reforms in the judicial sector is strongest when con-
nected to clear principles of reform (as given by the acquis in the case
of Montenegro) and when connected to a credible membership per-
spective. In the early 2000s, the EU had a firm approach towards the
rule of law in all three countries. In Bosnia, it promoted reforms via
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  193

the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and used his imposition
powers to ensure progress. In Macedonia, the rule of law became a key
feature of the OFA, and was strictly monitored by the EU. Similarly, in
Montenegro, an independent judiciary and the rule of law were key cri-
teria for an independent Montenegrin state. Yet, even these methods of
coercion in the area of rule of law have failed to produce functional and
independent legal systems. The EU’s switch to softer approaches of con-
ditionality including the ongoing discussion on rule of law issues as part
of the negotiations with Montenegro so far has not resulted in substan-
tial and sustainable changes.
Furthermore, the above-discussed discourse on sovereignty is very
important. Many political elites in Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro
see their rule as a ticket to impunity, and thereby undermine fundamen-
tal principles such as the rule of law or the separation of powers. Hence,
establishing and strengthening an independent judiciary is a threat to the
authoritarian tendencies that many political elites have had developed in
the three countries (O’Donnell 2004). For them, being in power and
undermining effective rule of law provisions is also their only way to
avoid going to prison for their involvement in corruption, the black mar-
ket and other politically-motivated crimes (Bieber 2014). The EU’s shift
from imposition and punishment for non-compliance towards a more
incentivised support system for rule of law implementation has further
enabled elites to undermine the consolidation of independent judicial
institutions and extend their capture of the state.

Constitutional Reform
While constitutional reform is not a requirement for EU integration per
se, it has nevertheless been common in recent decades that countries that
want to join the EU have to adjust their constitutions. In the acquis,
constitutional issues are discussed as part of Chapter 35, which covers
all “Other issues” in the accession negotiations. In some cases, consti-
tutional changes have been implemented to allow for the supremacy of
EU law, to adjust fundamental and minority rights, or to allow the coun-
try’s accession to the EU.7 In the three countries under examination,

7 In Slovenia and Croatia, the constitutions stated that the states shall not join any other

state unions. This was a result of their struggle for independence and to prevent the re-
creation of a new Yugoslavia.
194  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

constitutional reforms have been a substantial part of the EU’s enlarge-

ment agenda (Keil and Nikolić 2014). In Bosnia, it was recognised that
the Dayton Peace Agreement, which includes the current constitution,
is not the appropriate framework for the country’s EU accession, and
attempts by the EU on constitutional changes have focused on making
the political system less restrictive and in many ways more functional.
Yet, the EU’s initiatives have so far shown little success (Perry 2015a).
While previous attempts of ad hoc reform initiated by the EU failed in
the late 2000s, since 2010 the implementation of the Sejdić and Finci vs.
Bosnia and Herzegovina judgement of the European Court of Human
Rights (ECtHR) became a key cornerstone of EU conditionality for
Bosnia.8 Yet, in late 2014, after four years of trying to get Bosnian elites
to agree to any reform that would somehow address this issue, the EU
postponed this condition (for now) and instead suggested a new work
programme that would focus on economic development (Bassuener
2014). Constitutional reform remains too much of a contested issue,
with Bosniak, Serb and Croat leaders having completely different agen-
das and priorities. While there has been a lively debate in Bosnian civil
society on this issue (Perry 2015b), overall political elites have shown lit-
tle willingness to reform the current system. The EU has been unable to
initiate any substantial constitutional reform, despite a strong focus on
this issue since 2008, including a mix of incentives (promise of candi-
date status) and punishments (freezing of some EU support, no further
progress).
In Macedonia, constitutional reform has been more successful. After
the OFA in 2001, changes to the constitution were required in order
to implement some of the provisions of the Ohrid Agreement. These
changes, which included special majorities for certain decisions in parlia-
ment and a commitment to decentralisation, were implemented between
2002 and 2005, and are generally considered as part of the success story
in the implementation of the OFA (Bieber 2005). Yet, while the OFA
implementation as part of conditionality has resulted in constitutional
changes in Macedonia and some adjustments to the political system, not

8 The Sejdić and Finci judgement refers to a decision of the European Court of

Human Rights (cases 27996/06 and 34836/06) of December 2009, in which the Court
found that Bosnia is discriminating certain citizens because the composition of the State
Presidency and State House of Peoples suggests that only Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats can
be members of these institutions.
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  195

all aspects of the OFA, or of EU-driven reform have been implemented.

Issues such as minority languages remain contested and highlight the
continued tensions between Macedonians and Albanians (Koneska
2014b, pp. 137–156). The more recent revelations about wiretapping
and undemocratic practices of the government have also cast doubt over
the current constitutional framework and the political elites’ willingness
to respect constitutional limits. With a new government in place since
2017, which relies strongly on the support of Albanian parties, it remains
to be seen if key outstanding issues such as the role of minority lan-
guages and the protection of non-Albanian minorities can be addressed
by the new prime minister and his cabinet.
In Montenegro, overall constitutional reform is less of an issue. The
country only became independent in 2006 and adopted a new consti-
tution, which already includes many of the provisions needed for EU
membership, including an accession clause and commitment to EU
integration, the right for foreigners to own property and Montenegro’s
commitment to the fundamental rights and values of the EU. The key
challenge in Montenegro is therefore not constitutional change, but
its implementation and ensuring that all the provisions are actually fol-
lowed. In a country as small as Montenegro (672,000 inhabitants) and
with such a long-lasting dominance of a single political party and a
small number of elites, reforms, including those of the constitution, are
mainly a question of domestic political will. In cases such as voting and
citizenship rights, there has been some success. Legislative amendments
were the direct outcome of the EU’s pressures to enhance democratic
governance and ensure fair and equal access to representation (Džankić
2013). These pressures have been accompanied by concrete promises of
advancement in the accession process. In other areas, particularly those
ensuring the independence of the judiciary, the vague ‘reward’ for com-
pliance with the EU’s requirements has not succeeded in overriding the
will of political elites not to implement reforms.
This short discussion on constitutional changes in the three coun-
tries allows for further comparative conclusions. First, the domes-
tic political system matters enormously when assessing the impact of
Europeanisation on national constitutions. While constitutional changes
require super-majorities in all three countries, the more flexible sys-
tems in Macedonia and Montenegro have allowed for the possibility of
building coalitions between different (often opposing) parties in order
to change the constitution in light of demands from the EU. In Bosnia,
196  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

on the other side, such coalition building has so far been unsuccessful.
Hence, domestic political elites and their willingness to compromise and
work together in the process of EU integration are an essential element
when assessing different stages of EU integration. Second, and similar
to the discussion of the rule of law implementation, more EU engage-
ment does not necessarily lead to quicker or better reforms. In no coun-
try has the EU been more involved in constitutional reform debates
than in Bosnia, yet there have been no major changes to the constitu-
tion since 1995. While some constitutional changes were also required
as part of conditionality packages for Macedonia and Montenegro, both
countries have been able to enact EU-driven constitutional changes.
Hence, the prospect of a credible membership perspective once again is
the identified key driver for reform. While all three states are contested
and have deep-rooted antagonisms between different groups (and par-
ties), in Montenegro and Macedonia (between 2002 and 2005) a cred-
ible membership perspective was able to lead to reforms. Furthermore,
the fact that these reforms were often clearly and coherently formu-
lated and linked to the EU’s acquis has also made it easier for domestic
elites to adopt and implement them. In Bosnia, a wider reform of the
constitution is needed and even the debates about the Sejdić and Finci
judgement suffered from an incoherent discourse, with some arguing
for a more substantial reform of the constitution in order to make the
state more functional, while others focused on a very limited reform
that would just address the Court judgement. Finally, the issue of sov-
ereignty has to be mentioned again. Constitutional changes in light of
EU integration often require a refocus of sovereignty or an adaptation
of more effective governance structures in light of the pending pressures
of EU integration. However, in all three states sovereignty is contested
and political elites have focused on manifesting their grip on power
over territory, which they control (the DPS in Montenegro, Bosniak/
Serb/Croat parties in the different cantons and entities in Bosnia and in
Macedonia Gruevski’s VMRO–DPMNE and different Albanian parties).
Some of the requirements for EU integration in the area of constitu-
tional changes therefore run counter to the interests of political elites,
which pose a major hurdle for their implementation.
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  197

Citizenship Policies
Even though the regulation of citizenship is a prerogative of the
EU Member States and not an EU competence, the process of
Europeanisation has played a significant role in transforming citizenship
policies in the contested Western Balkan states. In addition to the for-
mal adoption of the EU’s acquis, countries aspiring to membership are
required to observe human and minority rights, as defined by interna-
tional standards promoted by organisations such as the CoE. Citizenship
policies, which are not limited here to citizenship laws but also to the
related regulation of matters of inclusion and exclusion, are an essen-
tial component of countries’ human rights regimes, and are also key in
ensuring the adequate compliance with acquis regulated policies such as
the freedom of movement (Kacarska 2015).
In Bosnia, the implementation of the soft norms of Europeanisation
is obstructed by the country’s constitutional setup and the veto powers
that the constituent peoples have in the decision-making process. The
clearest example of this is the Sejdić and Finci ruling, which highlighted
that the post-conflict Dayton constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina
collides with the equality of rights inherent in the concept of citizenship
(Perry 2015a). However, the combination of the fact that the rulings
of the ECtHR are of a prescriptive character, and that the power dis-
tribution among the constituent peoples is robust, prevents any change
emanating from Sejdić and Finci. Even though the implementation of
the judgement and constitutional reform are no longer explicitly a part
of the EU’s conditionality, ensuring the equality of citizens will certainly
re-emerge in the context of Bosnia’s EU accession. While constitutional
reform will be needed in order for Bosnia to progress on its EU route,
the changes to the domestic power equilibrium are not welcomed by
the ethnic elites who object to changing the constitution as the costs of
adaptation outweigh the benefits thereof. Conversely, technical require-
ments of the visa liberalisation process9 have had a major impact in that,
citizenship policies in Bosnia were changed to ensure the proper regis-
tration of the Roma people and the switch from paper to biometric

9 The visa liberalization process eventually enabled the citizens of the Western Balkan

states to travel freely to the EU. It took place between 2008 and 2010 and entailed meet-
ing specific conditions that aimed at ensuring border security, identification, asylum, etc.
For further details, see Kacarska (2012).
198  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

documents (Kacarska 2012). Unlike in the situation of the uneven rights

of citizenship and constitutional reform, visa liberalisation had the most
palpable benefits for the domestic elites (visa-free travel for citizens),
while its requirements have been clear and had time limits.
The clearest effects of Europeanisation of Macedonia’s citizen-
ship policies have been induced by the OFA and the signature of
the European Convention on Nationality (ECN) in 2003. In 2004,
Macedonia amended its citizenship law with the aim of providing safe-
guards against statelessness. The de-ethnicisation of the regulation of cit-
izenship is mirrored in article 1 of the amended law, providing explicitly
that “[c]itizenship is a legal link between the persons and the state and
does not indicate the ethnic origin of the persons” (Law on Citizenship
of the Republic of Macedonia, article 1, para. 2). The signature of the
ECN also reduced the residence requirement for naturalisation in
Macedonia from fifteen to eight years. Hence, despite the ethno-political
divisions in the country, the ECN resulted in somewhat liberalising the
naturalisation requirements in this post-Yugoslav state. However, the visa
liberalisation process had far greater effects, because “the prospect of a
more relaxed visa regime unified the domestic political actors and societal
forces in their efforts to integrate in the JHA sector. By speedily adjust-
ing to EU standards, Macedonian authorities hoped to convince their
European counterparts that the country is capable of effectively guard-
ing its external borders” (Trauner and Renner 2009, p. 457). The major
transformative power of Europeanisation in this respect has been in the
context of Roma registration, which enabled 3100 people to obtain doc-
uments between 2008 and 2010 (Kacarska 2012, p. 9).
The case of Montenegro also shows that technical conditions with
clear rewards have a deeper transformative effect than those that yield
unclear benefits in the future. Similar to the case of Macedonia, after
the signature of the ECN, Montenegro changed its citizenship leg-
islation to facilitate naturalisation for several categories of applicants,
including spouses and children, among others. The country also abol-
ished the previous requirement for the applicant to provide evidence of
military service completion, and enabled renunciation by declaration for
holders of a foreign citizenship that are unable to renounce it in per-
son (Džankić 2015a). However, the effects of the ECN in Montenegro
have had their limitations, which emanate from the domestic and
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  199

external contestations of the state, and in particular the question of

Serbs in Montenegro. So far, Montenegro is the only Western Balkan
state that has placed a reservation on article 16 of the ECN, dealing
with dual citizenship. The reservation allows the country to operate a
single citizenship policy. Montenegro is intolerant of dual citizenship
and enforces this policy particularly as regards Serbia, which, in turn,
offers extraterritorial (and thus dual) citizenship to ethnic kin and the
claimed co-ethnics (such as Montenegrins) (Stjepanović 2015). Hence,
by placing a reservation on article 16, the Montenegrin political elites
sought to prevent the Serbian political influence through citizenship.
The costs of allowing dual citizenship outweighed the marginal bene-
fits from fully aligning the citizenship law with the ECN, a rather soft
instrument of Europeanisation with virtually no palpable benefits
for the domestic political actors. Yet, as was the case with Bosnia and
Macedonia, Montenegro also complied with the requirements of the
visa liberalisation process, particularly as regards document security.
However, the contested statehood of Montenegro, coupled with the
politicians’ desire to keep the current electoral and ethnic balances, have
also shown a negative spill-over of Europeanisation. In complying with
the switch from paper to biometric documents, a number of Roma citi-
zens remained stateless, as they were not previously registered (Džankić
2015a). This indicates that Europeanisation, even at its formal best, can
have unwanted and exclusionary consequences.
The broad range of citizenship policies, which are transforming under
the effects of Europeanisation, reveals that in contested states this pro-
cess has varying and uneven effects (Džankić 2015a). First, the EU’s
influence on citizenship policies was strongest when connected to con-
crete benefits, i.e. during the visa liberalisation process. However, when
the rather vague and complex implementation of CoE and other inter-
national organisations’ policy recommendations is assessed, the effects of
transformation have been much more limited, despite the EU’s adoption
of these recommendations and decisions as part of its own conditional-
ity. Second, when looking at citizenship policies, domestic discourses and
regional issues (such as dual citizenship policies) also influence domestic
elites’ decisions. Finally, as in the cases of the rule of law and constitu-
tional changes, the EU’s influence has been limited because of a lack of
clarity of the accession process.
200  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

Conclusion
This chapter looked at different dimensions of Europeanisation. It
focused on political dimensions of the phenomenon, including the
Copenhagen Criteria of rule of law implementation, the acquis commu-
nautaire issue of constitutional changes and the softer Europeanisation
effects within citizenship policies. It was argued that the transform-
ative power of Europeanisation in contested states does not merely
depend on the interplay between limited statehood and challenged
nationhood. Rather, Europeanisation is also framed within and shaped
by context-specific factors, such as the institutional framework, and
the formal and informal links between the respective countries and the
EU. The examination of the impact of these factors in the underlying
countries has offered ample empirical evidence attesting that the impact
of Europeanisation in contested and divided societies is uneven and
differentiated.
The differences between the effects of Europeanisation in the ear-
lier enlargement rounds and those in the contested Western Balkan
states, as well as the uneven effects of the process within these coun-
tries, are attributable to three context-based specificities of the process.
First, unlike previously, the Europeanisation of the contested Western
Balkan states occurs in the context of weak or limited statehood, chal-
lenged nation-building projects and recent inter-ethnic conflict. As
such, the process itself has the key objective of stabilising these coun-
tries, each of which has a different experience of contestation. Second,
Europeanisation in the Western Balkans takes place against a context in
which (commonly contested) sovereignty plays a far greater role than
it did in the earlier enlargement rounds. While relinquishing sover-
eignty elements for the sake of EU integration was a natural process in
the East European ‘return to Europe’, it is far less so in the contested
states whose domestic elites commonly emphasise the weight of state-
hood against EU integration. The failure of constitutional reform in
Bosnia, and the decade-long stalemate in Macedonia’s EU integration
are the most obvious examples of this. Third, unlike Europeanisation
in the EU’s previous candidates in 2004 and 2007, the lack of a clear
accession timeline and thus palpable rewards for the aspiring members
present a major discouragement for the domestic elites to implement
policies required in the accession process. In light of this, there has also
 9  THE EUROPEANISATION OF CONTESTED STATES …  201

been a normative shift in the discourse about enlargement. While the

enlargement of former Communist Eastern European countries was
hailed as a “return to Europe”, in the Western Balkans, “stabilisation”
is a much more common narrative when discussing the underlying nor-
mative reason for enlargement (Keil and Arkan 2015b). This is cou-
pled with a wider crisis within the EU. As a result of discussions about
the Eurozone crisis, Brexit, the situation in Ukraine and the refugee
crisis, enlargement has become a second or even third-order issue for
the EU. Its foreign policy focus has shifted from enlargement as the
core of its activities to preventing conflict in its neighbourhood, deal-
ing with the consequences of violence in countries such as Syria and
ensuring the EU’s future place in changing global structures in light of
the rise of Trumpism in the USA and China’s accession as a dominant
global actor.
Nevertheless, the experiences of Bosnia, Macedonia and
Montenegro indicate that Europeanisation can have some influ-
ence on overcoming contested politics in these divided societies. In
Montenegro and in Macedonia, larger societal coalitions have been
built in the past in order to pass substantial reforms related to EU con-
ditionality. Furthermore, the strengthening and inclusion of civil soci-
ety in the politics of these countries has also increased transparency and
democratic accountability. However, taking into account the specifici-
ties of Europeanisation and the contexts of contestation in these coun-
tries, we can observe that this happens only in specific circumstances.10
Hence, the Europeanisation of contested states has a major transforma-
tive effect (1) when domestic elites are willing to push for EU integra-
tion; (2) when the EU formulates coherent and consistent reforms in
line with the acquis; (3) when there is a larger alliance of pro-European
forces present in parliament and society to ensure support for deep-
rooted and difficult reforms and (4) when these reforms are connected
to incentives such as further progress and a credible and achievable per-
spective of membership in the EU.

10 In Macedonia, these coalitions managed to force the Gruevski government to stand

down and opened the door to a new government, more inclined to engage in the EU
accession negotiations.
202  J. DŽANKIĆ AND S. KEIL

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 CHAPTER 10

Economic Integration of the Western

Balkans into the European Union:
The Role of EU Policies

Milica Uvalić

Introduction
Recently there has been rising scepticism regarding the Western Balkan
countries’ prospects of membership in the European Union (EU).
Fifteen years have passed since the Thessaloniki Summit in 2003, when
the Western Balkans were promised full membership of the EU, yet only
one country—Croatia—has become an EU member state (in July 2013).
The global financial and economic crisis and the subsequent Eurozone
crisis have deeply affected the EU, with strong spillover effects on the
Western Balkan economies. Slow economic recovery in many EU mem-
ber states, Brexit, the migration crisis and Catalonia’s recent proclama-
tion of independence have added further uncertainties regarding the
future EU integration process. These developments have also dimin-
ished the EU’s attractiveness, leading to declining support of the EU

M. Uvalić (*) 
University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 207

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_10
208  M. UVALIĆ

in Western Balkan countries’ public opinion polls. In the meantime, the

Western Balkan region has also disintegrated further, with Montenegro’s
separation from Serbia (June 2006) and the unilateral declaration
of political independence of Kosovo (February 2008). Although
Montenegro and Serbia are currently negotiating EU membership, the
effective prospects remain uncertain. The overall process of EU-Western
Balkans integration has undeniably been extremely slow.
Yet irrespective of when the seventh EU enlargement may happen,
economic integration between the EU and the Western Balkans has
already taken place. Western Balkan countries have become strongly
integrated into the EU economy through increased trade, foreign direct
investment (FDI), financial flows and banking sector integration, along
with the adoption and implementation of many laws that are in line with
laws, norms and practices in the EU and its member states. Because
of growing EU-Western Balkans interdependence, EU policies in the
Western Balkans region have a fundamental role to play. In order to pre-
pare Western Balkans countries for their future EU membership, it is
important to reflect on the effectiveness of EU policies implemented so
far.
This chapter will seek to evaluate the results of EU policies primarily
for the Western Balkan economies, and related issues of their integra-
tion into the EU. We will focus on the six countries that today represent
the Western Balkan region—Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Former
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (hereafter Macedonia), Kosovo,
Montenegro and Serbia. The chapter will first recall the most relevant
features of EU policies towards the region and analyse the present
degree of EU-Western Balkan economic integration (section “Progress
to Date: Economic Integration of the Western Balkans with the
European Union”). It will then discuss some of the main longer-
term problems of the Western Balkan countries that hamper swifter
EU-Western Balkan economic integration, including labour market
problems, insufficient competitiveness, unfavourable economic structure
and low levels of development (section “Foreign Direct Investment”).
Recent changes in EU policies towards the Western Balkans are also
briefly examined (section  “Long-Term Structural Problems of the
Western Balkan Economies”). Some concluding remarks are given at
the end (section “Economic Governance in Focus: A Step in the Right
Direction?”).
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  209

Progress to Date: Economic Integration of the Western

Balkans with the European Union
Contrary to today’s ten EU member states from Central Eastern Europe
(CEE) and the Baltics,1 which established contractual relations with the
EU by signing association agreements between 1993 and 1996, most
Western Balkan countries were not able to intensify their political and
economic relations with the EU until the 2000s. High levels of political
instability caused by the events of the 1990s—the disintegration of the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), the multiple military con-
flicts, the inward-oriented policies of the newly created states, the UN
and EC sanctions against the FRY throughout most of the decade, the
Greek embargo against Macedonia—have left profound and long-­lasting
economic, social and political consequences. The particularly difficult
circumstances in the region that have prevailed throughout the 1990s
have also substantially delayed the process of economic integration of the
Western Balkan countries into the EU economy.
Only after the end of the Kosovo conflict did the EU fundamentally
change its strategy towards the Western Balkans. The EU Commission
announced its Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP) in May 1999,
which was to offer the Western Balkan countries trade access, financial
assistance, contractual relations through the signing of Stabilisation and
Association Agreements (SAA) and, for the first time, the prospect of
EU membership. The Western Balkan countries were also able to bene-
fit from EU autonomous trade preferences adopted in 2000 even before
signing an SAA. Financial assistance was offered through the Community
Assistance to Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation (CARDS)
programme, which provided over €5 billion of financial aid to the Western
Balkan countries during the 2000–2006 period. The strategy was rein-
forced after the Thessaloniki EU-Western Balkans Summit in June 2003
when additional instruments and programmes were offered (such as
“twining”, TAIEX, ISPA, SAPARD, FP6). After 2006, the Instrument for
Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) replaced the previous financial assistance
instruments, through which all enlargement countries (including Croatia
and Turkey) received €11.5 billion between 2007 and 2013. The current

1 The ten countries are the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania,

Slovakia and Slovenia that became EU Member States on 1 May 2004 (together with
Cyprus and Malta), and Bulgaria and Romania that joined the EU on 1 January 2007.
210  M. UVALIĆ

IPA II programme ought to ensure for the six Western Balkan countries
some €7.246 billion during the 2014–2020 period.2
From a longer-term perspective it is clear that the process of establish-
ing contractual relations between the EU and the Western Balkan coun-
tries has been extremely slow, since only Macedonia and Croatia were
able to conclude an SAA in 2001 (in April and October, respectively). In
all the other cases, a number of country-specific problems have substan-
tially delayed the signing of SAAs.3 In the meantime, EU conditional-
ity has become stricter: in addition to the Copenhagen accession criteria,
the Western Balkans also have to demonstrate willingness to implement
regional cooperation and they must fulfil all their international obliga-
tions (cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the for-
mer Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague, the Dayton Peace Accords, the
Ohrid Agreement, the UN Security Council Resolution 1244). The pro-
cedures for negotiating with the EU have also become longer and more
burdensome.4 Although today all countries have an SAA with the EU,
only Montenegro and Serbia have started EU accession negotiations,
while 2025 as the possible year of entry (as announced by Commissioner
Hahn in September 2017) is not only distant but uncertain.
Irrespective of the issues linked to future EU enlargements, from
an economic point of view the Western Balkan countries have largely

2 The total budget of the current IPA II programme for all enlargement countries,

i­ncluding Turkey, is €11.7 billion for the 7-year period, of which around €4.454 billion has
been planned for Turkey and the rest for the Western Balkans (see website of the European
Commission).
3 SAAs with the EU were signed by Albania in June 2006, Montenegro in October 2007,

Serbia in April 2008, Bosnia and Herzegovina in June 2008 and Kosovo in July 2014.
Since 2001, the Kosovo provisional authorities under UNSCR 1244 have prioritised the
European agenda and a permanent technical and political dialogue with Kosovo author-
ities, called the SAP tracking mechanism (STM), was established to provide guidance to
Kosovo’s reform efforts.
4 Before a country could sign an SAA, there was a preparatory phase during which pro-

gress in reforms was to be assessed at meetings of a joint EU-Balkan Consultative Task

Force, after which the EU Commission was to prepare a Feasibility Report on whether a
country was ready to start negotiations on the signing of an SAA; the successful completion
of negotiations would eventually lead to the signing of an SAA when a Western Balkan
country would become associated with the EU, after which the country could apply for the
status of EU “candidate”. The final stage involves the launch of negotiations on EU acces-
sion, during which all 35 chapters of the EU’s acquis communautaire are to be opened and
negotiated.
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  211

benefitted from the measures offered through the SAP during the past
fifteen years. EU policies sustaining the Western Balkan countries’
reform process have directly or indirectly facilitated the gradual integra-
tion of their economies into the EU economy through various chan-
nels—foreign trade, FDI, financial and banking sector integration, legal
harmonisation—as described in greater detail further below.

Foreign Trade
Shortly after the launch of the EU SAP, the Western Balkan coun-
tries were granted autonomous trade preferences in 2000, which were
extended to FRY in November 2000 (after the October elections
brought an end to the previous political regime). These EU trade con-
cessions eliminated duties and quantitative restrictions for around 95%
of goods from the Western Balkan countries entering the EU market,
including most agricultural and sensitive industrial products (with only
a few exceptions).5 The opening of the EU market facilitated a very fast
increase in trade of the Western Balkan countries with the EU during the
2000s, especially in the case of countries like FRY that were previously
unable to benefit from any EU trade concessions (see Uvalić 2010a).
The Western Balkan countries have found a large market for their
exports in the EU, and an even larger market for their imports, since
trade liberalisation in combination with policies of strong currencies has
in most cases led to a much faster growth of imports than exports. The
EU has in fact had a surplus in its trade with the Western Balkan region
throughout the 2001–2016 period.
In 2008, the EU was the main trading partner of the six Western
Balkan countries (WB6), accounting for 65% of their total goods exports
and 56% of their goods imports.6 The trade-related measures of the SAAs,
by 2008 signed by all countries (except Kosovo), provided further trade
liberalisation and the gradual creation of a free trade area, facilitating the
continuation of the trend of increasing EU-Western Balkan trade inte-
gration. The global economic crisis that hit the Western Balkan region

5 Some fishery products, veal and wine; while trade in textile products is covered by bilat-

eral agreements.
6 Documents of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade and Eurostat

online statistics on international trade do not include statistics on Western Balkans’ trade in
services, only trade in goods.
212  M. UVALIĆ

in late 2008 led to a drop in EU-Western Balkan trade in the post-cri-

sis years, but recent Eurostat statistics confirm that the EU remains the
main trading partner of the WB6. In 2016, 70% of WB6 goods exports
and 54% of WB6 goods imports were from the EU (see Fig. 10.1). Along
with gradual economic recovery after the global economic crisis, over the

25000

20000

15000

10000

5000

0
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

WB6 Exports to EU WB6 Exports to Rest of the World

40000
35000
30000
25000
20000
15000
10000
5000
0
2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

WB6 Imports from EU WB6 Imports from Rest of the World

Fig. 10.1  WB6 goods exports and imports from the EU and the rest of the
world (€mn), 2011–2016 (Source Prepared on the basis of Eurostat statistics
available online)
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  213

2011–2016 period the WB6 exports to the EU increased faster than their
exports to the rest of the world. This was not the case with WB6 imports,
which, after 2011, increased equally as fast from the EU as from the other
trading partners. Today the EU is the dominant trading partner for the
WB6 region, whereas for the EU the WB6 remains a negligible trading
partner, in 2016 representing only 1% of EU goods imports and 1.5% of
EU goods exports (European Commission 2017b).
While for the WB6 as a group the EU today represents over 50%
of their exports and imports, this is not the case with each individ-
ual country. There are substantial variations within the Western Balkan
region regarding the importance of trade with the EU (see Fig. 10.2).
In 2016, for most Western Balkan countries the EU was the dominant
trading partner for both exports and imports: the EU share ranged from
68% (Serbia) to 80% (Macedonia) of total goods exports, and from 62%
(Macedonia) to 67% (Serbia) of total goods imports. However, there are
two exceptions: Kosovo and Montenegro. For these two Western Balkan
countries the EU is also the most important single trading partner, but
it represents less than 50% of their total goods exports and their total
goods imports.
Kosovo’s goods exports to the EU were only 22.6% of total exports
in 2016 and have declined in recent years, while its goods imports
from the EU were 43.1% of total imports. Interestingly, if we con-
sider all the countries signatories of the Central European Free Trade
Agreement (CEFTA 2016) as a single trading partner, it is the CEFTA
countries that are Kosovo’s most important export market, in 2016
representing 46.6% of Kosovo’s goods exports (therefore double the
share going to the EU), directed primarily towards Albania, Serbia,
Macedonia and Montenegro (Kosovo Agency of Statistics 2017). The
situation is rather different regarding goods imports, since only 27%
of Kosovo’s imports in 2016 were from the CEFTA countries (thus
much lower than the 43% share of imports from the EU), primarily
from Serbia, Macedonia and Albania (Kosovo Agency of Statistics
2017).
Montenegro’s goods exports to the EU have also declined, from
63% in 2008 to 38% of total exports in 2016, in part due to increas-
ing exports to China, in 2016 already representing 6% of overall exports.
On the import side, 49% of Montenegro’s imports in 2016 were from
the EU (the share has been fairly stable over the past ten years), while
9% were from China (MONSTAT 2017). As in the case of Kosovo, the
214  M. UVALIĆ

WB countries exports to EU28

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40% Other
30%
20% EU28
10%
0%

WB countries imports from EU28

100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40% Other
30%
20% EU28
10%
0%

Fig. 10.2  Western Balkans goods exports and imports from the EU and the
rest of the world (shares in %), 2016 (Source Prepared on the basis of Eurostat
statistics available online)

regional market is also very important today for Montenegro: in 2016,

45% of Montenegro’s goods exports and 30% of its imports were from
CEFTA countries (see MONSTAT 2017).
It is also of interest to look at recent trends in WB6-EU trade in
value terms. During the last six years, the total value of trade between
the EU and the WB6 has increased, but at a variable speed for exports
and imports and for the individual countries (see Fig. 10.3). In terms
of exports, it is primarily Macedonia and Serbia that have significantly
increased their goods exports to the EU, particularly after 2012, sug-
gesting stronger competitiveness in EU markets with respect to other
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  215

10,000
Exports to EU28
8,000

6,000

4,000

2,000

0
Albania BiH Kosovo Macedonia Montenegro Serbia

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

10,000
Imports from EU28
8,000

6,000

4,000

2,000

0
Albania BiH Kosovo Macedonia Montenegro Serbia

2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Fig. 10.3  Trends in Western Balkan countries’ goods exports and imports from
the EU (ml €), 2012–2016 (Source Prepared on the basis of Eurostat statistics
available online)

countries. Regarding individual Western Balkan countries’ goods imports

from the EU, they have mainly stagnated over the 2011–2016 period, or
have increased by a small margin (see Fig. 10.3).
Another characteristic that ought to be stressed is the fact that there
are substantial differences between the individual Western Balkan coun-
tries’ export and import values, since some countries trade much more
with the EU than others (see Fig. 10.4). Within the WB6, Serbia
is by far the most important trading partner of the EU, as in 2016 it
accounted for 51% of total WB6 goods exports and 39% of total WB6
goods imports from the EU28. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia
follow, each accounting for 20% of total WB6 exports to the EU and
for 23% (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and 17% (Macedonia) of WB6
216  M. UVALIĆ

Fig. 10.4  Western WB6 Exports to EU28, 2016

Balkan countries’ shares
in total WB6 goods Albania
exports and imports 8%

from the EU, 2016 BiH

20%
(Source Prepared on the
basis of Eurostat statis- Serbia Kosovo
51% 0%
tics, available online)
Macedonia
20%

Montenegro
1%

WB6 Imports from EU28, 2016

Albania
12%

Serbia
39% BiH
23%

Macedonia
17% Kosovo
Montenegro 5%
4%

imports from the EU. The three remaining countries—Albania, Kosovo,

Montenegro—contribute much less to Western Balkan-EU trade, which
can be explained to a large extent by their lower export-GDP ratio
(Albania) or much smaller GDP (Kosovo, Montenegro).
The analysis of the various trade indicators therefore confirms the
following: (1) during the 2011–2006 period, the EU represented
an increasing share of the Western Balkan region’s total exports and a
slightly increased share of the Western Balkan region’s imports; (2) in
2016, the EU represented the dominant share (over 50%) of total
exports and imports of all individual Western Balkan countries, except
Kosovo and Montenegro; these two countries in 2016 exported more
to the CEFTA region (47 and 45% respectively) than to the EU,
but imported far more from the EU than from the CEFTA region;
(3) during the 2011–2006 period, the EU was an increasingly important
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  217

destination of exports primarily for Serbia and Macedonia, and a sta-

ble market for imports of all Western Balkan countries; and (4) among
the WB6 countries, Serbia has been the most important trading part-
ner of the EU, in 2016 representing 51% of total WB6 exports and 39%
of WB6 imports from the EU, followed by Macedonia (20 and 17% of
exports and imports respectively) and Bosnia and Herzegovina (20 and
23% of exports and imports respectively).

Foreign Direct Investment

Due to the high levels of political and economic instability that prevailed
throughout the 1990s, the Western Balkan countries have attracted very
little FDI. By 2000, the share of the Western Balkan countries (including
Croatia) was only 3% of total inward FDI stock in all transition countries
in Eastern Europe (Estrin and Uvalić 2014, p. 286). There has been an
increased interest of foreign investors in the Western Balkan region pri-
marily since 2001, which can be explained by various factors. The most
important include the new EU strategy for the Western Balkans (the
SAP, which also offered prospects of EU membership); the gradual polit-
ical stabilisation in the region after a decade of military conflicts; pos-
itive political changes in 2000 in two key countries: Croatia (death of
President Tudjman) and FRY (end of the Milošević regime); improved
economic performance (high growth rates, declining inflation, increasing
foreign trade); acceleration of many transition-related economic reforms,
including liberalisation of economic activity, improvement of the busi-
ness environment and the relaunch of privatisation in FRY (Serbia,
Montenegro, Kosovo).
Thus since 2001, the Western Balkan region has registered a
­substantial increase in FDI inflows, predominantly by enterprises from
EU member states. The EU measures of support of the Western Balkan
countries, offered through the SAP, have undoubtedly stimulated the
arrival of foreign investors, similar to the positive effect of EU measures
for the CEE countries in the 1990s. Recent empirical evidence based
on a gravity model in fact suggests that the “EU effect”, namely the
announcement of EU prospects of membership for the Western Balkans,
has had a positive impact on FDI inflows into the region (Estrin and
Uvalić 2014).
218  M. UVALIĆ

EU member states FDI inward stock (% of total)

100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Albania BiH Macedonia Montenegro Serbia

2009 2010 2011 2012

Fig. 10.5  FDI inward stock from EU member states, 2009–2012 (in % of

total) (Source Prepared on the basis of the UNCTAD online database; data is not
available for Albania in 2012 or for Montenegro in 2009)

Enterprises from the EU member states have been responsible for

the dominant part of inward FDI stock in all Western Balkan coun-
tries. During the 2009–2012 period,7 the share of EU member states in
overall FDI inward stock represented a stable (or slightly declining, in
Albania and Montenegro) share of total FDI into the WB5 (no data is
available for Kosovo), in 2012 ranging from over 50% in Montenegro
to almost 90% in Serbia (see Fig. 10.5). Over the last years, there has
been some diversification of FDI inflows into the Western Balkans,
with an increasing presence of investors from China, Russia, Turkey
and the United Arab Emirates, but updated statistics on FDI stock in
the single Western Balkan countries by country of origin are not readily
available from an international source (therefore on a comparable basis
using the same methodology). More updated statistics for the whole
CEFTA region8 show that over the 2010–2015 period inward FDI stock

7 In UNCTAD statistics online, 2012 is the last available year of reported statistics on

FDI stock, by country of origin, in the Western Balkan countries.

8 The CEFTA region today is represented by seven countries: the six Western Balkan

countries and Moldova, that are signatories of the CEFTA 2006 agreement on free trade.
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  219

from the EU to the seven CEFTA countries increased by some 144%,

as compared to the total increase in inward FDI stock in the CEFTA
region of 169%, confirming the increasing presence of non-EU inves-
tors (see CEFTA 2017, p. 27). The overall EU share in CEFTA FDI
stock declined from 71% in 2010 to 61% in 2015, but the EU there-
fore still maintains a dominant share in total FDI inward stock (CEFTA
2017, pp. 27–28). The main EU investing countries in the CEFTA
countries in 2015, by order of importance of inward FDI stock, were
the Netherlands, Austria, Cyprus, Greece and Italy, often by multination-
als for reasons of tax optimisation, but Russia was ahead of both Greece
and Italy. National statistics on annual FDI inflows also confirm there
has been diversification of FDI in recent years. In the case of Serbia,
for example, in 2016 net FDI inflows from the EU represented 69% of
total FDI inflows, with an increasing presence of investors from Hong
Kong (6%), China (4%), the United Arab Emirates (4%) and Russia (1%)
(National Bank of Serbia 2017).9

Financial Integration
Since 2001, the Western Balkan countries have also experienced strong
financial and capital markets integration with the EU, to a great extent
prompted by the privatisation of their banking sectors and liberalisation
of cross-border capital flows. Although the timing of banking sector pri-
vatisations has been different across countries—Albania started very early,
while Serbia and Montenegro only started after the political changes in
late 2000—today the banking sectors of all the Western Balkan countries
are predominantly in foreign ownership (see Fig. 10.6). The latest avail-
able statistics based on an EBRD survey show that in 2011 foreign own-
ership of banks in the Western Balkan countries ranged from 75 to 95%
(foreign ownership is defined as banks with assets of foreign ownership
over 50%) (see Fig. 10.6). Banks entering the Western Balkan region
have predominantly been banks from the EU and its member states,
including Unicredit, Banca Intesa, Raiffeisen, Erste, Hypo Alpe Adria/
Addiko, Societé Generale and others.

9 Note that these annual figures on FDI inflows are not comparable with the previously

reported figures on FDI stock.

220  M. UVALIĆ

100.0%
90.0%
80.0%
70.0%
60.0%
50.0%
40.0%
30.0%
20.0%
10.0%
0.0%
Albania BiH Macedonia Montenegro Serbia
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Fig. 10.6  Foreign ownership of banks in the Western Balkan countries, 2004–

2011 (Note Foreign ownership is defined as banks with assets of foreign owner-
ship over 50%. Source EBRD Banking Survey available online [ebrd.com])

The privatisation of the Western Balkan countries’ banking sector

has greatly contributed to strong financial and capital markets integra-
tion with the EU. A recent study found that financialisation was the
main factor behind GDP growth in the pre-crisis period in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, characterised by rapid
growth of banking credits driven by foreign-owned banks (see Uvalić
and Cvijanović 2018). The foreign ownership of banks was a welcome
feature in the initial process of bank restructuring and privatisation,
but was also an important channel of contagion by the global financial
crisis (Bartlett and Prica 2012). In recent years, the Western Balkans
were especially vulnerable to the effects of the Eurozone crisis because
of the high degree of Euroisation of their economies (Bartlett and
Uvalić 2013). A large proportion of domestic liabilities in all Western
Balkan countries is today denominated in Euros, partly because of spe-
cific exchange rate regimes: Montenegro and Kosovo have unilaterally
adopted the Euro as legal tender, Bosnia and Herzegovina has a cur-
rency board which ties its currency to the Euro, while the other Western
Balkan countries—all except Albania and Serbia—have officially fixed
their currencies to the Euro.
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  221

Legal Harmonisation
The EU provided a strong anchor for the process of economic, legal and
institutional reforms in the Western Balkan countries even before the
signing of a Stabilisation and Association Agreement. The EU acquis
communautaire has served as a model for many ongoing economic
reforms that the Western Balkan countries have been implementing as
part of their transition to a market economy. Technical meetings between
representatives of the EU and Western Balkan government officials have
led to the preparation of many laws that reflect EU legislation and prac-
tices—including budgetary issues, sanitary norms and products’ quality
standards. Bringing national laws more in line with legislation prevail-
ing in the EU member states has also, undoubtedly, facilitated the crea-
tion and development of EU-Western Balkan business networks. Today,
the SEE 2020 Strategy, adopted in 2013 by the Regional Cooperation
Council in cooperation with the Western Balkan countries’ governments,
is based on the main objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy, in this way
influencing the current policy agenda of Western Balkan governments
to also pursue objectives of smart, inclusive and sustainable growth.
Learning from the EU countries’ experience in some policy areas such
as employment policies, public procurement practices, R&D or innova-
tion can clearly be useful for the ongoing reforms of the Western Balkan
countries. Thanks to increased cooperation from the Western Balkans’
national statistical offices and central banks with Eurostat, today we dis-
pose of some important statistics from the Western Balkan countries on
a comparable basis, not only standard macroeconomic indicators but
also statistics on labour markets, expenditure on R&D, innovation and
income inequality (the Gini coefficient).
In terms of the ultimate goal of the Western Balkan countries—EU
membership—there is no doubt that the results have been disappoint-
ing. From an economic perspective, however, the change in EU poli-
cies towards the Western Balkan region in 2000 was fundamental, as it
facilitated strong economic recovery after the 1990s and stimulated eco-
nomic growth. After a decade of extremely poor economic performance,
during the 2001–2008 period the Western Balkan countries registered
high GDP growth rates (on average over 5%), declining inflation, a very
strong increase in foreign trade and substantial inflows of FDI, parallel
with progress made with many important economic reforms required
by the transition to a market economy. The announced prospects of EU
222  M. UVALIĆ

membership, EU trade concessions, EU financial and technical assistance

and the conclusion of SAAs have undoubtedly facilitated the fast integra-
tion of the Western Balkan economies into the EU economy.
Increasing EU-Western Balkan economic integration has also ren-
dered the Western Balkan economies more vulnerable to external shocks.
The strong effects of the global financial and economic crisis from late
2008 onwards have clearly shown how dependent the Western Balkan
economies have become on the EU economy. The abrupt fall in for-
eign capital inflows (FDI, remittances, foreign loans) and the reduced
demand for their exports on EU markets pushed most Western Balkan
countries into a recession in 2009 (the exceptions being Albania and
Kosovo, both of which registered a substantial GDP growth slowdown),
while the Eurozone crisis caused another recession in most countries in
2012. For the Western Balkan countries integration with the EU proved
to be a double-edged sword: in good times, the European core exported
its prosperity towards its south-eastern periphery; but in times of crisis, it
exported instability (Bechev 2012; Uvalić 2013).
While the strong impact of the recent economic crises is undeniable,
the overall effects of increasing EU-Western Balkan economic integra-
tion, on balance, can still be evaluated positively. Thanks to EU meas-
ures of support, the Western Balkan countries have experienced, over the
whole 2001–2016 period, faster economic growth than would otherwise
have been the case. Economic growth in the Western Balkan countries
during the pre- and post-crisis years was stimulated by an increase in
exports, primarily to the EU, which was facilitated by EU trade liberalisa-
tion and the privileged access to EU markets; by an increase in imports,
primarily from the EU, which, along with increasing bank credits, chiefly
from EU-owned banks, has enabled a strong increase in domestic con-
sumption; and by higher investment rates thanks to FDI inflows, primar-
ily from EU member states, which for years were constrained by very
low national savings rates. It is also likely that the process of EU-Western
Balkan economic integration will continue in the coming years, despite
other countries’ (China, Russia) economic presence.
Nevertheless, in comparison with the CEE region, the overall results
of EU policies sustaining economic transition and integration of the
Western Balkan countries have been far less impressive, judging from the
most important economic indicators (including GDP per capita, exports-
GDP ratios, labour market indicators). Although the SAP was an attempt
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  223

to replicate EU policies that were devised for the CEE countries in the
1990s by providing the Western Balkans with similar measures of sup-
port, the new approach for the Western Balkans came a decade later and
under much stricter conditionality. A fact that is often overlooked is that
the general political and economic conditions in the Western Balkans in
the early 2000s were much worse than those in CEE countries in the
1990s. The legacy of the 1990s, when the region experienced contin-
uous fragmentation, multiple military conflicts, international sanctions,
the flourishing of the underground economy, increased criminality,
NATO bombing, physical destruction of infrastructure and of industrial
capacity and emigration of the most educated citizens, has left a very
heavy burden on all Western Balkan countries, both political (delicate
problems of borders, status, return of refugees, minority rights) and eco-
nomic (see Uvalić 2012). Due to particularly unfavourable conditions
in the Western Balkans during the 1990s, various long-term economic
problems have not been adequately addressed by policymakers in the
Western Balkan region, and have also long been neglected by the EU.
These long-term economic problems, to which we now turn, require pri-
ority action today, since they are likely to hamper further integration of
the Western Balkan economies into the EU.

Long-Term Structural Problems of the Western

Balkan Economies
After a decade of unsatisfactory economic performance caused by the
break-up of the Yugoslav economic union, war-related expansionary
macroeconomic policies, historical records in hyperinflation, high and
often rising public deficits, prolonged and repeated recessions and lim-
ited trade integration into the global economy, the economic situation
in the Western Balkans finally started improving in the early 2000s.
After 2001, the Western Balkan countries experienced gradual macroe-
conomic stabilisation, strong GDP growth, relatively stable exchange
rates, acceleration of transition-related economic reforms and the arrival
of FDI. Despite a general improvement, the Western Balkan countries
have also had persistent structural economic problems inherited from
the 1990s, which came to the surface particularly after the first effects of
the global financial and economic crisis in late 2008. The recommended
224  M. UVALIĆ

transition strategy throughout the Western Balkan region placed strong

emphasis on liberalisation, macroeconomic stabilisation and privatisation
(the so-called Washington consensus), while other important areas of
reform were often neglected. Three areas of the structural problems of
the Western Balkan economies should particularly be recalled: persistent
problems in the labour market, rising external imbalances and fast dein-
dustrialisation (Uvalić 2013).
The labour market in the Western Balkans has been badly hit by the
phenomenon of “jobless” growth. The restructuring of the Western
Balkan economies led to the closure of many firms and a loss of jobs, but
economic growth was not accompanied by an equally dynamic process
of job creation. Although “jobless” growth was also a characteristic of
the CEB countries in the 1990s, it hit the Western Balkans much more
severely. In recent years, the Western Balkan countries have had among
the highest unemployment rates in Europe, particularly Kosovo (33%),
Bosnia and Herzegovina (28%) and Macedonia (26%) (in 2015), while
employment rates have also been extremely low, in recent years below or
just slightly above 50% (Eurostat statistics). The Western Balkan coun-
tries have also faced a worsening of their social climate as a result of aus-
terity measures undertaken in response to the crisis, which have led to
further increases in poverty and inequality (Bartlett and Uvalić 2013).
A substantial part of the workforce is still employed in the more flexible
informal sector.
The Western Balkan countries have also had severe external imbal-
ances. Limited restructuring of the real sector of their economies along
with policies of strong national currencies has rendered the Western
Balkan economies insufficiently competitive on EU/world markets,
and their export-GDP ratios remain low in comparison with the CEE
countries (see Uvalić 2013). Large trade deficits have contributed to
increasing current account deficits, which in late 2008 were among the
highest in the transition region. For years, these current account defi-
cits were covered by increasing capital inflows from abroad—donors
assistance, FDI, remittances, foreign borrowing—which rendered the
Western Balkan countries particularly vulnerable to the global finan-
cial crisis, which in late 2008 caused an abrupt halt in capital inflows.
Although there were some adjustments in the meantime, most countries
had to recur to additional borrowing (some also to currency deprecia-
tion), which contributed to a rapid increase in external debt, particularly
in Montenegro, Serbia and Croatia.
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  225

The Western Balkan economies have also experienced a very strong

process of deindustrialisation. It is well known that all socialist econo-
mies before 1989 had an over-represented industrial sector and under-
sized services, but whereas the CEE countries did experience some
reindustrialisation after the initial strong drop in industrial production,
most Western Balkan countries went through a continuous process
of deindustrialisation, both in the 1990s and the 2000s (Damiani and
Uvalić 2014). The structure of FDI has contributed to such trends, as
until 2010 two thirds of investment into the Western Balkans went into
non-tradable sectors (banking, telecommunications, retail trade, real
estate), rather than into manufacturing (Estrin and Uvalić 2014). The
Western Balkan countries are today much more deindustrialised than
most CEE countries: in 2014, the average share of manufacturing value
added in the Western Balkan countries was 12%, as compared to 20% in
the CEE countries (Estrin and Uvalić 2016).
An important consequence of the discussed structural problems
is that, in the Western Balkans, the processes of economic recovery and
catching up with the more developed countries in Europe has been
very slow. Strong growth during the 2001–2008 period was not suffi-
cient to compensate for the very substantial output fall in the Western
Balkan countries in the 1990s. By 2008, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia
had still not surpassed their 1989 real GDP—Montenegro was at 92%,
Bosnia and Herzegovina at 84% and Serbia at 72% of real GDP produced
in 1989 (Uvalić 2010a), while the recent recessions have brought further
setbacks. In 2015, the GDP per capita (in Purchasing Power Standards)
of the Western Balkan countries ranged from around 26% in Kosovo10
to 41% in Montenegro of the EU average (see Fig. 10.7). The gap in
the level of development between Serbia and the EU has even widened
recently, since Serbia’s GDP per capita fell from 38% in 2013 to 36% in
2015 of the EU average. Narrowing the large economic development
gap between the Western Balkans and the EU must become the central
focus of future economic policies.

10 This is a rough estimate, since Eurostat still does not report data on GDP per capita

for Kosovo.
226  M. UVALIĆ

Luxemb
Ireland
Nether
Austria
Germany
Denmark
Sweden
Belgium
Finland
France
EU 28 av.
Italy
Spain
Malta
Czech R.
Slovenia
Cyprus
Slovakia
Portugal
Lithuania
Estonia
Greece
Poland
Hungary
Latvia
Croatia
Romania
Bulgaria
Montenegro 41
FYROM 37
Serbia 36
Albania 30
BiH 29

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Fig. 10.7  GDP per capita (in Purchasing Power Standards) of EU member

states and Western Balkan candidate countries, 2015 (Source Prepared on the
basis of Eurostat statistics available online [no data are available for Kosovo])

Economic Governance in Focus: A Step in the Right

Direction?
Over the past fifteen years, EU policies towards the Western Balkans
have been largely shaped by the enlargement framework established for
the CEE countries in the 1990s with some innovations and modifica-
tions: primarily much stricter conditionality. As already mentioned, in
addition to the Copenhagen accession criteria, two additional groups of
criteria were added for the Western Balkan countries: fulfilment of inter-
national obligations and regional cooperation (the SAP conditions). In
the case of the Western Balkans, it is precisely these additional criteria
that have frequently played the most prominent role in determining the
speed of the EU integration process, more so than the technical issues
(Uvalić 2010b; Lopandić 2017). It is because of the political conditions,
particularly the alleged insufficient collaboration with the ICTY, that the
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  227

process of concluding an SAA has taken so long in the case of Serbia.

Moreover, non-compliance with the political conditions has often been
used as a general excuse for delaying EU integration of the Western
Balkan countries, for reasons linked to internal problems in the EU.
As for the economic criteria of EU accession—requiring a country
to have a functioning market economy and to withstand the competi-
tive pressures and market forces within the EU—they have been rather
vague and imprecise from when they were first formulated in 1993.
Despite further clarifications by the EU Commission in the second half
of the 1990s, these criteria have been widely criticised for various rea-
sons. Indeed, it is rather difficult to assess whether a country has “a func-
tioning market economy”, since there are clearly very different models of
market economies and the criteria give no indication as to which model
is the most appropriate, or how to assess when an economy has become
a functioning market economy (Senior Nello 2012, pp. 422–423).
A number of elements which are supposed to define a “functioning mar-
ket economy” also remain imprecise, such as “adequate price stability”,
“liberalised trade” or “sufficiently well developed financial sector”. Their
ambiguity continues to leave room for very different interpretations,
both on the part of the Western Balkan candidate countries and on the
part of the European Commission (Uvalić 2010b). Moreover, during the
past ten years there has been substantial progress in the Western Balkan
countries’ economic reforms and in establishing a “functioning market
economy”,11 but this is not sufficiently recognised in recent assessments
of the European Commission (EC 2013). Although some progress
towards fulfilling the economic criteria by most Western Balkan coun-
tries is stressed, the formulations often remain ambiguous; for example,
the European Commission’s 2016 report on Serbia notes that “Serbia is
moderately prepared in developing a functioning market economy” (EC
2016, p. 25).
In assessing the progress of the candidate countries, the structural
characteristics of the Western Balkan economies have often been over-
looked, including important indicators of the real sector, such as GDP
per capita, level of employment, unemployment rates, the sectoral struc-
ture of economies or poverty rates (Uvalić 2010b). After 2001, the

11 Recent European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) transition indi-

cators suggest that in most areas of economic reforms the Western Balkans have achieved
substantial progress towards conditions typical of a developed market economy.
228  M. UVALIĆ

economic criteria of EU accession were rather mechanically applied to

the Western Balkan countries, not sufficiently taking into account the
severe long-term economic problems that have emerged and accumu-
lated during a decade of wars, political instability, exclusion from EU
assistance programmes and economic decline. As stressed earlier, when
the SAP was launched in 2000, the political and economic situation in
most Western Balkan countries was far worse than in the CEE countries
in the 1990s (Uvalić 2010a).
In response to the persistent structural problems of the Western
Balkan economies that came to the surface after the severe impact of
the global economic crisis, the European Commission developed a new
approach for the Western Balkans. The new approach stresses the impor-
tance of “fundamentals” and indicates economic governance as one of
the three pillars of EU enlargement policy (see European Commission
2013). As part of the new framework, the methodology of the European
semester has been extended to the Western Balkans in order to ensure
better monitoring and economic policy coordination between the
European Commission and the Western Balkan countries (see Bonomi
2016a). The new economic governance framework was implemented
for the first time in 2015 and became fully operational at the begin-
ning of 2016. The Western Balkan countries’ governments are now
invited to prepare medium-term Economic Reform Programs (ERPs)
in coordination with the European Commission, which outline national
macroeconomic and fiscal stability frameworks, as well as priority struc-
tural reforms that are expected to boost competitiveness and long-term
growth (European Commission 2013). Governments have been asked
to engage in a process of prioritisation of their national reform plans
across eight different areas: public financial management; trade integra-
tion; infrastructure; sectoral development; business environment; inno-
vation; labour market; and social inclusion. Whereas the Commission
assesses the ERPs, the Economic and Financial Council (ECOFIN)
provides targeted guidelines to the aspirant countries (Bonomi 2016a).
In addition, in order to address the Western Balkan countries’ mount-
ing social problems, another new instrument was added based on the
EU Enlargement Strategy 2013–2014 which aimed to monitor the pri-
orities in the areas of employment and social policy—Employment and
Social Reform Programs (ESRPs). Initially, ESRPs were prepared in only
three Western Balkan countries: Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.
ESRPs are modelled after the Europe 2020 Strategy and will accompany
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  229

the EU accession process as the key mechanism for dialogue with the
Western Balkan governments on priorities in the areas of social policy
and employment.
Economic reforms in the Western Balkans are also supported by the
Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF), through which the EU
Commission, bilateral donors and international financial institutions are
expected to provide €4 billion worth of investments per year for trans-
port, energy, the environment, climate change, the social sector and pri-
vate sector/SME development. The so-called Berlin process launched
by Germany in 2014 tries to help accelerate development through the
Connectivity Agenda and more investment in infrastructure (transport,
energy, communications networks). Financial assistance delivered to the
Western Balkans through IPA II now has a more strategic focus, target-
ing reforms in pre-defined sectors linked to the enlargement strategy in
order to bring them up to EU standards. Current assistance programmes
for the Western Balkans also give more weight to performance measure-
ment, since concrete indicators set in advance will help assess to what
extent the expected results have been achieved.
The recent changes in the EU enlargement policy that aim to help
economic reforms and economic development of the Western Balkan
countries are more than welcome. With economic governance becom-
ing one of the pillars of the current EU enlargement strategy, economic
issues seem to have finally been given the merited attention and impor-
tance. Policymakers in the Western Balkans involved in the preparation
of ERPs themselves recognise that they are useful policy tools that have
contributed to better economic governance, as they require forward
planning of structural reforms, developing analytical capacity within
ministries, multi-annual budgetary planning and impact assessment (see
Uvalić 2017). The Western Balkan governments are now required to
develop longer-term policy frameworks and to introduce prioritisation of
objectives, something that has required a major effort of coordination
among different ministries, pushing them to overcome political dead-
locks and find consensus on key national strategic objectives (Bonomi
2016a). Regarding the results of these new policy instruments aimed at
speeding up structural reforms, the process has been very uneven across
countries; in some countries the key performance indicators have not yet
been introduced, suggesting the need to improve the methodology of
measuring results as well as the monitoring process (Uvalić 2017). Major
emphasis is now placed on broader socio-economic problems, not only
230  M. UVALIĆ

in the ERPs but through the preparation of ESRPs, that should help
advance reforms in the important areas of labour markets and social
policy.
It is yet to be seen to what extent these new EU instruments will
facilitate the attainment of some key economic objectives in the Western
Balkans, such as stronger competitiveness, increasing employment or
accelerating long-term growth. The new EU approach, with its emphasis
on economic governance, has given new impetus to economic and public
administration reforms, but it can do little to effectively resolve some of
the longer-term structural economic problems of the Western Balkans,
which will require additional efforts and determination both on the part
of the Western Balkan governments and the EU.
Considering the large development gap between the WB6 and the
EU, the EU ought to consider offering much larger amounts of financial
assistance to the Western Balkan countries. The Western Balkans’ cur-
rent budgetary constraints are such that they cannot easily finance many
important reforms, particularly in sectors typically representing “public
goods” that cannot easily attract private investors—including health, edu-
cation, R&D. Increasing investment in human capital is a very important
ingredient of Western Balkans’ future economic growth, yet this objec-
tive is constrained by insufficient financial resources. It should be noted
that the amount of EU financial assistance provided for the Western
Balkans has so far been very low if compared to what the ten CEE
countries were receiving prior to EU membership, or what they receive
now through cohesion policy transfers. During the Orbán government,
Hungary has received external transfers through cohesion policy amount-
ing to as much as 6–7% of its GDP (Pogatsa 2018). The envisaged €7.25
billion of IPA II pre-accession assistance to the Western Balkans during
the 2014–2020 period represents only 0.67% of the total EU budget for
the seven-year period (the Multiannual Financial Framework), an amount
that seems extremely low for achieving major progress in many areas of
reform. Through IPA II, Serbia in 2015 has received some €216 million,
which corresponds to merely 0.64% of its 2015 GDP.12
In order to offer major support to ongoing reforms, the EU should
consider some recent proposals to proceed towards a stronger integra-
tion of the Western Balkans in several EU policy areas even before EU

12 Figures based on official documents of the European Commission (2016) and (2017a).
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  231

accession (see Bonomi and Reljić 2017). Mechanisms should be devised

to allow Western Balkan countries access to EU Cohesion Funds, the
use of EU financial stability instruments and a stronger integration of
their labour force into the EU, in order to favour the return of eco-
nomic migrants; Western Balkan citizens working in EU member states
are today locked-in if they do not want to lose their working permits.
Although it might prove difficult to find consensus on implementing
such proposals, given the small size of the Western Balkan countries
(3.6% of EU population), measures going in this direction would have
a very limited impact on the EU member states, but they could make a
huge difference in restoring the credibility of EU policies in the region
(Bonomi 2016b; Bonomi and Reljić 2017).
As to the Western Balkan countries, they must put in major efforts
to implement the remaining economic and institutional reforms, but
they also need to integrate their economies further, through stronger
regional cooperation (in line with the 2017 Multi-annual Action Plan for
a Regional Economic Area). Although regional cooperation has already
been implemented through CEFTA 2006, the SEE Energy Treaty, the
SEE 2020 strategy and other initiatives coordinated by the RCC, addi-
tional regional projects in the areas of science, education, environment,
transport, services, specific industries and other sectors could indeed
contribute to stronger economic growth of the still relatively underdevel-
oped Western Balkan countries. Although the benefits of regional coop-
eration have been emphasised for long (see Uvalić 2001), its potentials
have still not been sufficiently utilised.
An economically more integrated region could provide a number
of positive dynamic effects of integration (Senior Nello 2012, p. 111),
including increased competition, economies of scale, technology and
knowledge transfers, more rapid economic growth and increased bar-
gaining power at the international level—in the case of the Western
Balkan countries, in their negotiations with the EU. Strengthening
regional cooperation would also reduce political risk and remove some
of the other obstacles to higher inflows of FDI into the Western Balkan
region (see Estrin and Uvalić 2014). During the 2000s, FDI in the
Western Balkans has been influenced not only by government policies
such as institutional reforms and tax incentives, but also by exogenous
factors such as economic size, level of development, geographical posi-
tion, economic fragmentation and lack of economies of scale (Estrin
and Uvalić 2014). These are serious handicaps of the Western Balkan
232  M. UVALIĆ

countries that cannot be easily overcome, except (partly) through

regional economic integration. Regional cooperation and integration
among the Western Balkan countries must not be viewed as a substi-
tute for EU integration, but rather as an instrument for preparing them
for smoother integration with the EU economy in the future. In line
with some of the conclusions of the debate on the “new regionalism”
(see Ethier 1998; Uvalić 2002), regional integration of the Western
Balkan countries must not be seen as a “stumbling block”, but rather
as a “building block” of their future integration with the EU economy.
A stronger Western Balkan region also requires a much stronger advo-
cacy policy at the regional level. The recent Advocacy Strategy for the
EU Integration of the Western Balkans (Minić 2016) has confirmed that
regional initiatives can be a much more powerful instrument for promot-
ing the Western Balkan region than individual countries’ strategies.

Conclusion
Since 2000, the EU has played a vital role in facilitating increasing eco-
nomic integration of the Western Balkan economies with the EU econ-
omy, directly or indirectly—through the announcement of prospects of
EU membership, important trade concessions facilitating major access
to the EU internal market, financial resources and technical assistance,
which in turn have positively influenced the arrival of foreign investors,
the creation of EU-Western Balkan enterprise networks, the integration
of banking systems and capital markets. Given the high dependence of
the Western Balkan economies on the EU, factors that have made them
vulnerable to the global economic crisis—including trade openness, eco-
nomic, financial and banking integration—are precisely the factors that
will reinforce growth and further economic integration once the EU
economy fully recovers. In the long term, there are many arguments
that point to the EU as the only (or at least preferable) option for the
Western Balkan region—deriving from geography, history, geopolitics,
economics and culture.
The EU enlargement to the Western Balkan region, with its 18.7 million
inhabitants and very small economies, which are already strongly
­integrated with the EU, could be absorbed by the EU relatively e­ asily,
with minimal costs and substantial benefits both for the Western
Balkans and the EU. The stability and security of the region and of the
 10  ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS …  233

EU would be much better fostered through a reliable accession process

than a return to crisis management (Grabbe 2013). It is in the EU’s
own economic interests to make the region more attractive for trade and
investment, and to link its transport, energy and digital networks, while
there are also potential political gains, since strengthening regional secu-
rity in the Balkans would boost the EU’s standing in the new area of
geopolitics (Bonomi and Reljić 2017). Accelerating EU-Western Balkan
integration would also help resolve the remaining political issues, thus
contributing to more permanent stability in the Western Balkans and
more generally in Europe. Although EU membership is not a magic
wand, the easiest way to overcome existing tensions over borders, status,
statehood, refugees, minority rights and sovereignty, is to let the Western
Balkan countries join the EU as soon as possible (Uvalić 2010a). After a
quarter of a century of continuous fragmentation of the Western Balkan
region, their entry into the EU would contribute to a further unification
of Europe, to the benefit of all countries involved.

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 CHAPTER 11

Conclusion: Rethinking Europeanisation

Florian Bieber

Europeanisation has become a key concept in understanding both how

the European Union (EU) has transformed policymaking in its member
states, as well as in countries that aspire to join the Union. As this book
shows, Europeanisation, in terms of the transformation of the countries
of the Western Balkans seeking to join the EU still matters, but has come
under increasing pressure. The linear, clear transformation of countries
during the accession process, as conceptualised during the 2004 enlarge-
ment no longer exists and backsliding in terms of rule of law in some
EU member states themselves raises questions about the durability of
Europeanisation.
Within the EU, the inverse process of the increasing nationalisation of
EU decision-making has challenged Europeanisation.1 However, the rise
of a stronger role of member states in the setting of EU rules does not
undermine, but rather complements and complicates Europeanisation.

1 Christophe Hillion talked about the “Creeping Nationalisation” of enlargement in

2010. Arguably, this nationalisation has become broader since.

F. Bieber (*) 
University of Graz, Graz, Austria
e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s) 2019 237

J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1_11
238  F. BIEBER

Brexit is to date the most radical and complete effort of a member state
of de-Europeanisation by leaving the EU. The complexity of the with-
drawal highlights the extent to which the United Kingdom, like all EU
members, has been structurally intertwined with the EU and other mem-
bers. Even after the eventual withdrawal of the Union, legislation, rules
and administrative practices will remain profoundly shaped by the EU for
years to come.
The paradox between the enduring nature of Europeanisation and the
challenges it faces in recent years through both exogenous and indige-
nous crises of the EU also shapes this volume. The chapters of this book
highlight both the continued transformative power of the EU and its
limitations and challenges arising in the Western Balkans.
As understood in this volume, Europeanisation is particularly under-
mined by a number of factors specific to the Western Balkans, as well as
features arising from the EU itself.
First, the EU itself has changed, being, in fact, more demanding
during the accession process. The emphasis on rule of law is a direct
consequence of earlier enlargements. While this helped to clarify the
requirements, it also contributed to the extension of the enlargement
process and thus undermined the credible perspective of membership.
The longer duration of the accession process has only in part been com-
pensated by other measure. The crises that have shook the EU over
the past decade—economic, Eurozone, debt, Brexit, migration—have
not just distracted the EU from enlargement and given rise to anti-EU
­parties that have undermined the EU itself and accession with it. It also
reduced the credibility of Europeanisation in the Western Balkans itself
and made it less desirable. Furthermore, it opened the opportunity for
other countries be more engaged in the Western Balkans and challenge
the narrative of EU integration and Europeanisation as the only option
for the region.
In the Western Balkans, as several chapters outline, weak and con-
tested statehood renders Europeanisation more difficult. This is first due
to the greater symbolic weight of issues in contested states. Decisions
about administrative reforms might be merely a question of political will
in established, consolidated states. In complex states, where every deci-
sion is often seen through the lens of ethnonational interests, this is not
the case. Take the case of Bosnia and the certification process necessary
to export dairy products to the EU, including the important Croatian
market. Even such a seemingly banal issue was imbrued in blockades
 11  CONCLUSION: RETHINKING EUROPEANISATION  239

among competing levels of administration in the country to the det-

riment of farmers and resolved only two years after Croatia joined the
EU and dairy products could no longer be exported to Croatia. This
highlights how Europeanisation is trumped by narrow ethnonational-
ist considerations and concerns about balance of power. Furthermore,
the EU often lacks the acquis on such sensitive issues and thus is with-
out clear standards. In the past, the EU had been engaged actively in
the Western Balkans with institutions, missions and interventions that
extend well beyond conventional Europeanisation, including the EU
rule of law mission in Kosovo EULEX, the EU police mission in Bosnia.
The record has been modest and they have been either closed down
are about to be, bringing to an end the area of wider EU ­engagement.
The only remaining engagement outside enlargement is the Serbia-
Kosovo dialogue, mediated by the High Representative of the European
Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. However, the settle-
ment between the countries is embedded in the accession talks with
Serbia and progress is linked to the EU perspective for both countries.
Furthermore, the EU has been a mediator in the dispute, but not acting
with a broader mandate. While the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue highlights
both the leverage of the EU in terms of resolving disputes, it is less
Europeanisation per se that has shaped the process and zero-sum logic
of the two parties has been widely criticised for exactly not following
the consensus-based approach of the EU (Bieber 2015; Economides and
Ker-Lindsay 2015).
A second overarching regional feature that has undermined the effec-
tiveness of Europeanisation in the Western Balkans as identified in this
volume is institutional weaknesses and the rule of law. Sometimes, this
is connected to the limited administrative capacity of some countries, in
some cases connected with small size (i.e. Montenegro), in others with
recent statehood (i.e. Kosovo) or in others with the high level of poli-
tisation and ethnification of the public administration (i.e. Macedonia
or Bosnia). Thus, this challenge is connected to the previously ­discussed
weak and contested statehood, but extends more to the realm of the
administration and is relevant even when no formal challenge takes
place. It is rather a legacy of the state dissolution, which meant that all
the post-Yugoslav states had to establish the public administrations
that other post-Communist countries had inherited to a larger degree.
In the case of Albania, the discrepancy can be rather attributed to the
240  F. BIEBER

particular repressive nature of the Communism and the shallow roots of

institutions.
Finally, the countries of the region have experienced longer periods of
competitive authoritarian rule. First during the 1990s, but then return-
ing in the late 2000s in some cases with strong men who are bypassing
institutions, undermining rule of law and independent media and often
thrive from and contribute to weak institutions and all of the afore-
mentioned features. This poses a particular challenge to the EU and
Europeanisation as these regimes formally aspire to EU membership and
thus are less open challengers to Europeanisation than earlier.
The consequence of these different structural weaknesses is state cap-
ture, a term now used also by the European Commission itself, which
noted in its 2018 enlargement strategy that “the countries show clear
elements of state capture, including links with organized crime and
corruption at all levels of government and administration” (EC 2018,
p. 3). Some aspects, such as weak state structures, are inherited from
the post-war order or stem from the nationalist and authoritarian leg-
acy of the 1990s. Others, such as a distinct decline in democracy,
media freedom and rule of law occurred at the same time as formal
Europeanisation proceeded or at best-experienced limit or no improve-
ment in terms democracy and rule of law.
This raises the question between the presumed link of Europeanisation
and democratisation and institutional transformation. As several contribu-
tions in this volume highlight, the transformative dynamic of EU integra-
tion in the Western Balkans has been considerably weaker than assumed
earlier or than experienced in the Central and Eastern Europe during the
2004/7 enlargement. The formal Europeanisation, understood to be the
adoption of EU rules, institutions and administrative practices is bypassed
or subverted by parallel, often informal processes that have been undermin-
ing Europeanisation. Thus, we can speak of formal Europeanisation that
is undermined by simultaneous de-Europeanisation. These countervailing
forces are neither inevitable nor insurmountable. As a number of chapters
in this book argue, there are circumstances in which Europeanisation can
have a transformative effect. These mostly require broad social and elite
support, clear EU guidelines and a committed government.
The ability of Europeanisation to extend beyond the formal adop-
tion thus requires both internal clarity and consistency, but also external
­factors, such as the social and political support.
 11  CONCLUSION: RETHINKING EUROPEANISATION  241

These perspectives constitute altogether a more nuanced picture of

Europeanisation that challenges earlier, more mechanical and optimis-
tic views of this process. Such critical approaches to Europeanisation are
important in reconceptualising the dynamics of the relationship between
the EU and its member states and countries aspiring for membership.
This highlights the gap between the formal acquis communtaire and
the “assumed” acquis of rule of law and democracy (Schimmelfennig
2012). The EU lacks rules and mechanisms to safeguard key aspects
of the larger democratic framework and rule of law, as it was founded
and evolved under the assumption of the fundamental commitment
to democracy of its current and future members. When confronted
with the weakening of democracy and rule of law inside the EU (i.e.
Hungary or Poland) or outside among potential members (i.e. Serbia or
Montenegro), it lacks not just the adequate tools and political cohesion,
but also the clear rules that would guide the safeguard of democratic
principles and rule of law.
Understanding the larger political and social responses to
Europeanisation through the strategic or partial adoption, negotiation
and instrumentalisation by local elites (Subotić 2011) and population
requires a broader understanding of societies and political systems that
embed EU-driven Europeanisation in a wider understanding of relations
with the European core and domestic institutional patterns.
One core concept in this broadening of Europeanisation is informal-
ity (Sterbling 2013).2 This should not just be understood as an illicit or
even illegal practice or as a feature of some projected Balkan political
culture. Rather, exploring practices that by-pass formal institutions offer
insights into Europeanisation can occur while simultaneously institutions
are undermined and rule of law is curbed. These informal patterns are
both the result of the recent history of the emergence of post-Yugoslav,
post-war and post-Communist states (Kostovicova and Bojčić-Dželilović
2006) and their inherent weakness and citizens’ distrust and connected
with longer term historical processes.
Thus, the process of transforming legal and political systems through
the adoption of outside rules, laws and norms requires rethinking in a
wider historical process. The current debate on Europeanisation is sur-
prisingly ahistorical. While the current EU-led Europeanisation towards

2 See also the research of the H2020 funded project Inform. http://www.formal-infor-

mal.eu/home.html.
242  F. BIEBER

non-members began only  in the last decades, Europeanisation in

Southeastern Europe has a far longer history. Even if this ­ process
has been described by other terms, such as “modernization” or
“Westernization”, it reaches back well into the nineteenth century and
earlier (Roth 2007). Since the beginning of West European dominance
through economic and colonial structures (fifteenth/sixteenth century)
one can observe a global “Europeanisation”. Such a Europeanisation
was inherently a “Western Europeanisation” or Westernisation, shaped
by the West European empires and later nation-states. This type of
adaptation to West European hegemony was partly imposed, partly
­voluntary, often to escape the dominance of the European colonial pow-
ers. These Europeanisation processes also served to escape supposed
and actual underdevelopment that contributed to the emergence of
European (and later American) concepts of Orientalism and the civilis-
ing mission—mission civilisatrice. Thus, the process of Europeanisation
in Southeastern Europe already began at the time of the Ottoman
Empire. Later, the new nation-states in Southeastern Europe sought
this Western orientation to varying degrees. As nation-states, which
were also expressly positioning themselves as Christian and sought (and
found) protection from European powers, it was easier to implement
Europeanisation, at least formally. These processes of change through
imitation and assimilation of external experiences, forms and institutions
were always controversial and had its critics. Some critics rejected them
as inauthentic and imposed, while others complained that the superficial
imitation of external models, left substance unaffected. Not coinciden-
tally, it has been historically described as “alafranga”, i.e. the superfi-
cial adoption of western elements of culture and music (Mishkova and
Daskalov 2014).
In addition to the emulations of forms of statehood (nation-state and
citizenship), Western Europe also provided “blueprints” in the nine-
teenth and twentieth century for constitutions, laws and institutions
in Southeastern Europe. For example, the liberal Belgian Constitution
served as a model for the Romanian Constitution of 1866, or the Swiss
Civil Code, which was basis for the Turkish equivalent, introduced in
1926 by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. This transfer of modern laws, insti-
tutions and practices, however, came up against resistance by the elites
 11  CONCLUSION: RETHINKING EUROPEANISATION  243

themselves.3 However, it would be misleading to reduce this transfer to

liberal and democratic ideas and their implementation, because in the
period between the two world wars, there was also a transfer of author-
itarian and totalitarian ideas and practices, in particular from the fascist
Italy and later from Nazi Germany.
The Europeanisation also consolidated influence and thus contributed
to the entrenchment of unequal relations. The growing influence of the
German economy in the decade before the Second World War for exam-
ple, resulted in Southeast Europe becoming closely tied to Germany,
including its political agenda. As Stephen G. Gross argues, the German
economic elites saw “South East as a ‘region’ in embryo, a site of ‘con-
stant renovation’ that was ineluctably ‘Europeanizing’ itself” (Gross
2016, p. 3). During the Second World War, there was a transfer of ideas
and legitimation mechanisms for mass violence.
The subsequent Cold War constituted the first attempt of moderni-
sation in contrast to Western models. With the exception of Yugoslavia,
this was not an autonomous path towards modernity, but rather redirect-
ing the transfer from the Soviet Union, which was no less hierarchical
and one-sided than previous processes. The Socialist Yugoslavia exper-
iment can be understood as an attempt to find its own path towards
modernisation, even if it combined different models.
From this perspective, the Europeanisation after 1989/91 in
Southeastern Europe is by no means a new process, but only a con-
tinuation of established transfer dynamics, which have their roots long
before the recent EU enlargement. This does not mean, however, that
the process after 1989/91 has no new features, setting it apart from
earlier Europeanisation. The most important distinction is the promise
of convergence: Convergence suggests that with accession to the EU,
country is no longer part of an asymmetric and hierarchical relationship.
Paradoxically, EU accession enhances the sovereignty of states that are
shaped by a historical experience of statehood of formal sovereignty and
de facto inequality and subordination. At the same time, the accession
process itself is characterised by historically rooted centre-periphery rela-
tions. The limited ability of acceding states to shape the institutions and
laws is a repetition of earlier transfer and/or catching-up processes.

3 See for example the study of this process at the micro-level in Belgrade between 1890–

1914. Stojanović (2008).

244  F. BIEBER

Against this background, the latest phase of Europeanisation

appears in a different light and is best understood as neither the first
Europeanisation nor probably as the end of this process. In the light
of the experience of EU member countries such as Greece, but also
in Bulgaria and Romania, in spite of having completed the formal
Europeanisation in the sense of EU membership, their relationship with
other EU members is still unequal and shows that membership is not
necessarily the endpoint of Europeanisation. Europeanisation processes
have occurred in waves and are thus not characterised by linear conver-
gence between a European periphery and its centre (Roth 2007; van
Meurs and Mungiu-Pippidi 2011). The experience after the economic
crisis 2008 and related, subsequent crises highlight the end (for now) of
the most recent notion convergence, from economic (Greece) to dem-
ocratic (Hungary) to rule of law (Bulgaria) convergence. There is, in
short, no invisible hand or a functionalist dynamic that would automat-
ically and steadily reduce the gap between poorer and wealthier, more
democratic and more authoritarian states. This echoes earlier efforts to
achieve inter-regional or intro-regional convergence from the conver-
gence with Socialist Yugoslavia—best exemplified by the increasing gap
in wealth between Slovenia and Kosovo—to rise of nation-states as coun-
tries that sought equality with the West.
Overall, one can identify two aspects of Europeanisation—first
determined by the “offer” based on the definition of Europe and what
becoming “European” includes, and second, as a reaction to exclusion
and “Balkanisation” imposed from the outside. It is, thus linked not
just to a shared goal or political project, but also “escaping” another,
whether this would be the “Balkans”, especially strong in the Croatian
imaginary, or other forms of being left behind, ostracised as different or
inferior.
Europeanisation is thus not only a simple “downloading” of standards
or institutions, but is also influenced by the adaptation, transformation
and rejection in a specific regional context. By adaptation and implemen-
tation, the content changes in exactly the same way as the Swiss Civil
Code in Turkey work differently than in its country of origin (Kieser
2006), the rules of the European Union function differently depend-
ing on the context. While in some cases this may lead to fake, Potemkin
village-style reforms (O’ Brennan 2014, p. 237) there is an insufficient
understanding of these processes, resulting in hybrid, new forms of
rule. Europeanisation is thus not only a one-sided transfer of a region
 11  CONCLUSION: RETHINKING EUROPEANISATION  245

called “Europe” towards another, or the acquisition of certain European

standards, institutions and practices, but a historically evolved and com-
plex history of entangled relations, which the countries and societies of
Southeastern Europe have been negotiating and renegotiating for several
centuries.
Critical Europeanisation studies, as exemplified in this volume is a
productive venue to explore the broader transformation of Southeastern
Europe as a process of constructing relational spaces characterised by asym-
metric relations in which ideas, rules and norms are constructed, trans-
ferred, adopted, implemented, transformed and rejected.
Giving Europeanisation greater historical depth and wider societal
breadth helps in understanding the reasons for adoption, transforma-
tion and rejection of the position of the Balkans as Europe’s semi-other
(Todorova 1997), thus extending our knowledge beyond a positivist under-
standing of Europeanisation or a limitation to the role of the EU itself.
As such, the challenges Europeanisation is confronted with in the
Western Balkans, as the chapters in this volume highlight, are also an
opportunity to embed this process into its larger historical context
and to examine the resistance, adaptation and transformation more
broadly, which in turn might offer insight into the limitations of the
Europeanisation of the Western Balkans in the context of EU accession.

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 Index

A Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory

accountability, 90, 105, 137, 139, Group (BiEPAG), 90
145, 148, 201 bargaining, 18, 21, 70, 231
Acquis Communautaire, 16, 66, 93, benchmarks, 25, 78, 94, 96, 100, 114,
200, 221, 241 115, 120, 125
Albania, 1, 2, 8, 9, 28, 31, 65, 87, BiH. See Bosnia and Herzegovina
88, 95, 181, 185, 208, 210, 213, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1, 2, 4, 11,
216, 218–220, 222, 225, 239 30, 87, 88, 95, 138, 141, 142,
authoritarian, 64, 65, 71–74, 76, 101, 144, 146–148, 150, 151, 181,
162, 163, 165, 169, 170, 183, 182, 197, 208, 210, 215, 217,
192, 193, 240, 243, 244 220, 224, 225
autonomy, 75, 185, 186 bottom-up, 4, 128
Bulgaria, 23, 64, 77, 140, 160, 188,
209, 244
B
Balkans, 1–3, 5–12, 16, 17, 23–32,
40, 41, 45, 46, 48, 49, 54, C
63–67, 69–73, 78–81, 87, 89, capacity building, 95, 97, 100, 119
91, 96, 104–106, 112–114, 116, civil society, 29, 75, 90, 95, 100, 113,
127, 135–137, 140–142, 151, 173, 194, 201
152, 158, 161, 162, 165, 168, Common Foreign and Security Policy
174, 181–183, 187, 188, 200, (CFSP), 40, 41, 45, 46
207–211, 217, 218, 220, 221, communism, 4, 68, 78, 139, 162,
223–232, 237–240, 244, 245 240

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 247
license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
J. Džankić et al. (eds.), The Europeanisation of the Western
Balkans, New Perspectives on South-East Europe,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91412-1
248  Index

conditionality, 5, 9, 10, 16–19, 21–25, E

28–32, 45, 66, 68, 77, 79, 80, economic integration, 12, 208, 209,
90–93, 104, 105, 111–116, 118, 222, 232
121–129, 136, 144, 146, 148, effectiveness, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 28,
150–152, 186, 188, 192, 194, 75, 92, 93, 140, 143, 188, 208,
196, 197, 199, 201, 210, 223, 239
226 efficiency, 142, 143, 145, 148
constitution, 4, 113, 150, 194, 195, enlargement policy, 26, 91, 96, 141,
197 188, 228, 229
contested states, 182, 183, 187–189, enlargement strategy, 12, 23–25, 189,
199–201, 238 229, 240
Copenhagen criteria, 22, 43, 114, ethnicisation, 11, 28, 136–138, 140,
115, 183, 187, 189, 200 141, 151, 152, 198
corruption, 3, 23, 28, 29, 64, 66, EU accession, 3, 4, 6, 11, 16, 17,
73, 75–78, 80, 81, 87, 90, 95, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 29, 45, 48,
97–99, 140, 166, 168, 169, 173, 91, 96, 106, 113, 114, 116,
191, 193, 240 120, 122–128, 137–139, 147,
Council of Europe, 115, 162, 183 150, 152, 166, 173–175, 182,
credibility, 9, 17, 19, 23, 26, 27, 31, 187, 192, 194, 197, 201, 210,
32, 81, 92, 93, 104, 105, 144, 227–230, 243, 245
150, 152, 166, 231, 238 EU integration, 2, 7–9, 11, 91, 92,
Croatia, 1, 4, 9, 10, 26–28, 30–32, 96, 123, 127, 135–137, 145,
41, 48, 50–53, 55–57, 64, 66, 149, 151, 160, 166, 182–184,
67, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 79, 90, 186, 193, 195, 196, 200, 201,
113, 114, 116–121, 127, 128, 207, 226, 232, 238, 240
158, 163, 181, 184, 193, 207, EU member states, 4, 7, 9, 27, 40, 41,
209, 210, 217, 220, 224, 225, 45, 46, 48, 65–67, 70, 77, 79,
239 115, 143, 161, 187, 197, 207,
209, 217, 218, 221, 222, 231, 237
European Commission, 3, 7, 24, 27,
D 31, 43, 51, 52, 64, 65, 69, 70,
Dayton, 145, 159, 184, 194, 197, 73, 78, 88, 91, 94, 95, 100,
210 101, 113, 115, 116, 118–122,
democracy, 2, 3, 16, 17, 22, 64–66, 124–129, 137, 140, 146, 158,
69, 72, 78, 89, 93, 94, 96, 105, 164–166, 168, 171, 173,
106, 115, 138, 163, 169, 170, 188–192, 210, 211, 213, 227,
174, 189, 191, 192, 240, 241 228, 230, 240
democratization, 7, 10, 11, 93, 160, European Court of Human Rights
162, 174, 240 (ECtHR), 47, 103, 194, 197
divided states, 137, 138, 140, 141, Europeanisation, 3–7, 9, 12, 40–44,
152 55, 89, 91–93, 104, 158, 160,
Đukanović, Milo, 76, 191 237, 240, 244
 Index   249

European standards, 104, 245 K

EU’s transformative power, 9, 137 Kosovo, 1, 2, 4, 9, 11, 28, 30, 65,
74, 75, 79, 87, 88, 95, 112,
136, 147, 157–163, 165–171,
F 173–175, 181, 182, 185, 186,
foreign policy, 8, 9, 12, 40–46, 48, 54, 208–211, 213, 216–218, 220,
55, 69, 74, 79, 165, 182, 187, 222, 224, 225, 239, 244
201

L
G legacies, 5, 7, 12, 17, 28, 93, 104,
gatekeeper elites, 104 105, 142, 182, 185, 187
GDP (Gross-Domestic Product), 3, logic of appropriateness, 18, 20, 45,
216, 220–222, 225, 227 46, 92
Germany, 26, 39, 41–43, 48–50, logic of consequentiality, 92
53–56, 68, 79, 165, 229, 243
good governance, 11, 88, 136, 139,
141–145, 149, 150, 152 M
Greece, 28, 30, 41, 47, 49–51, 53–55, Macedonia, 1, 2, 4, 8–11, 28, 30, 31,
91, 117, 159, 182, 185, 219, 244 41, 48–50, 53, 55, 65, 67, 72,
Greek veto, 79, 192 79, 81, 87–90, 95–99, 104, 106,
Gruevski, Nikola, 97 112–114, 116–118, 122–128,
138, 141, 142, 146–152,
181–183, 185, 190–195, 198,
H 200, 201, 208–210, 213–215,
human rights, 22, 39, 49, 52, 55–57, 217, 224, 225, 228, 239
93, 96, 115, 139, 161, 165, 169, market economy, 3, 115, 138, 159,
172, 174, 183, 189, 197 167, 221, 227
media, 29, 64, 74, 89–91, 97,
99–106, 126, 158, 159, 163,
I 171–174, 240
incentive, 1, 5, 21, 48, 91, 117, membership, 2–7, 11, 12, 17–19, 21,
188 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 41,
independence, 4, 22, 96–99, 102, 43, 45, 47, 57, 64, 65, 68, 69,
105, 112, 117, 119, 136, 147, 71, 72, 74, 76, 80, 81, 87, 91,
158, 161, 163, 167–170, 183, 94, 114, 115, 117, 123, 138,
190, 193, 195, 207 140, 141, 147, 151, 152, 161,
International Criminal Tribunal for the 167, 168, 182, 185, 188–192,
Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), 28, 195–197, 201, 207–209, 217,
30, 73, 74, 79, 160, 161, 210, 221, 230, 232, 233, 238, 240,
226 241, 244
250  Index

minority rights, 66, 79, 111, 112, Republika Srpska (part of Bosnia),
115, 118, 136, 148, 193, 197, 144, 184, 185, 190
223, 233 Romania, 23, 50, 64, 77, 140, 188,
monitoring, 6, 22–25, 49, 77, 95, 96, 209, 244
100, 105, 112, 114, 124, 127, rule implementation, 20, 55, 104
128, 140, 228, 229 rule of law, 2, 7, 9, 10, 16, 21–25,
Montenegro, 1, 8, 9, 11, 24, 31, 65, 29, 64, 66, 76–78, 80, 87–96,
68, 72, 73, 75, 76, 80, 81, 87, 98, 99, 104, 105, 115, 137, 138,
88, 112, 158, 181–185, 188, 140, 142, 143, 165, 167, 168,
190–193, 195, 198, 201, 208, 173, 174, 183, 189, 191–193,
210, 213, 216–220, 224, 225, 196, 199, 200, 237–241, 244
228, 239, 241

S
N Sejdić and Finci ruling, 197
NATO, 50, 127, 136, 159, 167, 184, Serbia, 1, 4, 8, 10, 11, 28, 30, 31,
185, 223 41–43, 48, 50, 51, 53, 55, 65,
negotiations, 2, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 67, 68, 71, 72, 74–76, 79–81,
31, 43, 45, 55, 68, 70, 71, 75, 87, 88, 90, 99–101, 103, 104,
76, 78, 88, 95, 112, 114, 117, 106, 136, 157, 159–161, 163–
119–121, 125, 128, 140, 143, 166, 170–172, 175, 181, 184,
147, 151, 166, 182, 185, 188, 188, 199, 208, 210, 213–215,
192, 193, 201, 210, 231 217–220, 224, 225, 227, 228,
230, 239, 241
Slovenia, 2, 4, 30, 41–43, 48, 52, 53,
O 55, 56, 158, 193, 209, 244
Ohrid Framework Agreement (OFA), socialization, 5, 40, 44, 45, 92, 93
30, 117, 122, 123, 127, 147, soft power, 136
148, 184, 185, 194, 198 stabilitocracy, 87, 90
Stabilization and Association Process
(SAP), 5, 112, 147, 181, 209
P state building, 28
persuasion, 18, 21, 92, 93 state capture, 3, 8, 12, 64, 87, 90, 97,
policy makers, 26 99, 240
political elites, 11, 80, 91, 93, 98,
105, 139, 143, 144, 148, 150,
174, 191–196, 199 T
top-down, 4–6, 44, 99
transparency, 100, 105, 137, 139, 201
R Turkey, 12, 48, 49, 53, 55, 209, 210,
rational choice, 18, 45, 46, 56 218, 244
 Index   251

U W
USA, 162, 201 weak states, 7
World Bank, 187

V
veto players, 20, 26, 29–31 Y
visa liberalisation, 151, 152, 175, Yugoslavia, 101, 158, 209, 243, 244
197–199
Vučić, Aleksandar, 74–76, 81, 103,
161, 164–166, 171, 172, 175