Western Balkans and the European Union: Who Else After Croatia?

On 9 December, Croatia signed the EU Accession Treaty. Despite all problems and incertitude concerning both the future of the European Union and the Eurozone, we should start reflecting upon the possibilities of future EU enlargement. The new Croatian government has announced that it will give strong support to further European integration efforts in other post-Yugoslav countries. Therefore, this month’s report brings an overview of integration capacities and challenges of the Western Balkans region.

Western Balkans and the European Union: Who Else After Croatia

The completion of Croatian accession negotiations in late June can be considered as the most important landmark of the EU external relations towards the Western Balkans so far. Brussels came up with the Stabilization and Association Process after the self-criticism of the period when the Union was not completely able to offer a comprehensible solution to this troubled region in the 1990s. Afterwards, all Western Balkans countries began a long and a thorny way towards better future since the Zagreb (2000) and Thessaloniki (2003) summits. In those times, it was said, that according to the Treaty on the European Union, each country which respected the values of the EU and was also committed to promoting them, could apply to become a member of the Union. It seems that Croatia is finally prepared to share common values of respect for human dignity, freedom and democracy. Regardless of the fact that this might be questioned by some and that the current state of mind of the EU does not promise much, this act does incite some optimism. Although the current situation does not predict such an optimistic future for the whole of Europe, the signing of the accession treaty with Croatia last week can be considered as the most important landmark for Croatia since the declaration of independence. Yet, on the other side, there still remain six countries in Croatia’s neighborhood, wishing to overcome their economic difficulties and join the EU.

Serbia has been balancing between internal problems and escalation of tense situation on Kosovo-Serbian border. Despite the capture of General Ratko Mladić and former leader of Croatian Serbs Goran Hadžić, the time of granting of a candidate’s status to Serbia was postponed, supposedly to the first half of 2012. Macedonia and Montenegro unfortunately got stuck in their status quo, because their optimistic expectations about beginning of negotiations with Brussels were also held over. Nevertheless less optimistic messages come from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, which are caught in a political stalemate.

Is another enlargement just a dream?

Croatia, unlike other countries, faces rather technical issues than necessity systematical reforms as part of the enlargement process, said the European Commission 2011 Progress Report. Otherwise there are still several obstacles, which have to be overcome until accession date. Although Croatia got a convincing green light from the European Parliament (1) there are still 27 ratification processes left. Also, the Croatian referendum on accession is still to be held. General expectations of the smooth confirmation across parliaments of all member states is probable, on the other hand the voting in Slovenia or even in Hungary could be quite hot, considering the past mutual relations.2 Long-term support of the membership in the EU is visible, but not really deeply rooted in Croatia. The wave of resistance is increasing, what is basically usual in each national pre-referendum period about EU accession, thus we can expect a result somewhere between 55-60% in favor of membership. This opinion is also supported by the result of the parliamentary election held beginning of December. The landslide victory of the Kukuriku coalition brings hope and also opportunity for ordinary people in the most important fields such as accession to new jobs, economic recovery or even fight against corruption. This optimistic change will be probably transmitted to the EU referendum, as well.

But the victory of the opposition and government change can be in contrary seen as Pyrrhic victory. The employment growth is almost by 5% worse than in 2000 and it is still on a negative level. Investment climate continues to suffer from a heavy regulatory burden, unpredictability of administrative decisions and numerous non-tax fees. Structural reforms in economy remain weak and slow privatization prompts that the improving of living standard will take longer than it was said in a quite populist electoral program presented by Kukuriku. It will bring more pain than happiness. Although the Kukuriku coalition did not exactly say how all promises would be fulfilled, ordinary people hope for some accomplishing during the first twelve months. This could make it easier to predict the result of the EU referendum, because it would be organized as early as 2 months after the election, thus at the beginning of a new period.

When we mentioned before that Croatia faced rather technical issues, than the need for systemic reforms on its way towards the EU, we must state that this was not entirely correct. Of course, in comparison with the rest of the Balkans it is different story, but the structural reforms in economy (e.g. privatization, combat against cartels) and especially the fight against deep corruption will not be solved until Croatia reaches full membership in the European Union in 2013.

Montenegro’s accession process can be evaluated as one of the fastest in the whole Western Balkans region. Montenegro reached real milestones on its way to the EU since the declaration of the independence in 2006. In each following year some small steps were accomplished. The Stabilization and Association Agreement was signed in 2007, the application for EU membership was presented in 2008, visa liberalization has entered into force in 2009 and candidacy status was granted in 2010. In the case Montenegro continues in this quick tempo, we could expect its national flag in Brussels immediately after the Croatian one. Anyway, this vision would be really fleeting. Despite some optimistic progress in anti-discrimination policies, in public administration reform or even in judiciary, where new legislation was adopted (it still needs to be fully implemented) Montenegro still faces several problems, which have to be dealt with in order to get closer the European standards. The number of final convictions, in particular for high-level corruption cases, remains low, just like in Croatia. There is still a necessity for stronger monitoring of corruption and conflicts of interest in the judiciary. Although Montenegro’s position in the Corruption Perception Index has improved in 2011 (ranked 66th by Transparency International), corruption remains prevalent in many areas and continues to be a serious problem. In spite of visible effort such as a close cooperation with INTERPOL in some special police operations or the signing a bilateral agreement with the Italian police on collaboration in the combat against organized crime and drug trafficking (Serbia and Croatia signed similar agreements), Dutch politicians were staunchly against the launching of negotiations in the year. This is a clear circumstance which could lately occur again and although Montenegro, together with Croatia, occupies the best position considering rates of corruption in the region, the politicians should not appease themselves by own results, but should continue with thoughtful combat against corruption. A bad example which could be mentioned is Czech Republic, which figured on 47th place in 2001 (four years before EU accession), while today it occupies 57th position (the best ranking in 2007 – 41st). Other problems of Montenegro are visible in the field of property rights, where the restitution process is very slow. Also, there is limited progress regarding ill-treatment and fight against impunity. Montenegro is still recovering from the financial crisis and the process is fragile. On the other hand, paradoxically, it is expected that Montenegro will have the strongest GDP growth in countries which use the euro as its domestic currency in 2012. In the case of Kosovo the growth will be even stronger due to remittances and regional economic connections.

From a regional point of view, Montenegro has played quite an important role due to its chairmanship of the SEECP (Southeast European Cooperative Process) and in the AII (Adriatic-Ionian Initiative). The country continues to be strongly committed to regional cooperation and to playing a constructive regional role. Due to all mentioned facts and also problems which are still to be tackled by Montenegro, it seems that the process of further EU enlargement does make sense. Although the postponement of the negotiations is comprehended as a disappointment, according to internal information, a working framework for Montenegro’s negotiations is being prepared. The negotiations process will start, if no other decisions and changes occur, in June 2012.

Serbia: Kosovo as a never-ending story

For many reasons it is possible to look at Serbia as the most important country in the whole Western Balkans region. Serbia is economically, politically, culturally, ethnically and otherwise bounded to all states of the region. Yet, it is also overwhelmingly connected to the most problematic issues, which have beset this region during the last two decades. By capturing long-term wanted Ratko Mladić and Goran Hadžić, Serbia has manifested that its endeavor towards the EU is serious. Nevertheless Belgrade (and all interested Europeans) repeatedly turned eyes towards Kosovo shortly after the capturing and extradition of both war criminals to the Hague Tribunal.

The Kosovo-Serbian border became the biggest dispute raised from the prohibition of Serbian goods imported to Kosovo since July 2011. Both sides tried to control the border and lay claims on it, but for a sad price of human victims. Especially, the actions of Kosovo Serbs and their road blocking have exactly reminded of actions undertaken by Kosovo Albanians before the war in 1998-99. This issue has been the main argument for Brussels (especially for Angela Merkel) to deny the candidate status award. The Council of the EU has declared that after three months of common border cooperation between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, it could be possible to think about candidate status for Serbia.(3) If you calculate correctly, Serbia will become the fourth candidate country in the Western Balkans region in March/April 2012. This will exactly fix the EU’s position as an optimistic and rather populist step towards Serbia before the parliamentary election, which will be held in April/May. The EU is now repeating the same strategy like in 2008, when the Stabilization and Association Agreement was signed just a couple of days before elections.

Otherwise, Serbia’s EU challenges are connected with more significant issues than just the Kosovo case. Serbia has made satisfactory progress in political terms – the rule of law. An anti-corruption agency has been established, while High Judicial and State Prosecution Councils came to force in April. On the other hand, it will take at least a couple of months, even years, before these authorities will be able to effectively work, because public trust in these kinds of bodies aimed against corruption is still considerably weak in Serbia. Cooperation with the ICTY was really positively evaluated by the European Commission, what has never been said so far. On the other hand, Belgrade should continue with bringing people who assisted both fugitives in escape in front of international justice. These words have been again repeated by ICTY Chief Prosecutor Serge Brammertz in November. Otherwise, Serbia participates actively in regional initiatives and has taken significant steps to foster reconciliation. The agreement reached with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro in the Sarajevo Declaration Process on durable solutions for refugees and internally displaced persons is a major achievement. Visa-free regime with the EU states was accomplished in December 2009, since then, the EU facing a huge influx of asylum seekers from all participating countries. Serbia plays the most important role in this incident, because Serbian migrants became the biggest group of asylum seekers in Europe, before Afghans, Iraqis and Chinese. Among the main receiving countries, the proportion is highest in France, Austria, Belgium and Sweden. It is really necessary to point out that the majority of all these Serbs come from Kosovo, which are holders of Serbian passports. Other huge problems and needed reforms are expected in political and economic sections, but the most fragile challenge is and will remain the same – the future of Kosovo.

Macedonia is exactly in the opposite situation of Montenegro, because no important requirements have been fulfilled during the last year and Macedonia remains the country with the longest running candidacy status in the Western Balkans region. Macedonians expected a rather different tenth anniversary of the Ohrid Framework Agreement; nevertheless, core challenges remain untouched. The opposition boycotted the parliament plenary from January until the national election in June, which brought a re-election of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski. Despite quite strong support of the new government by ordinary Macedonian people, there is still high structural unemployment, challenges in the social policy, insufficient freedom of the press, judicial and administrative reform and of course the name dispute.

The opposition, as well as inhabitants, is becoming frustrated and bored by the long drawn accession efforts without any real optimistic impact. Visa liberalization was not so life-enhancing, because more than 2/3 of population cannot afford to travel to these countries. Moreover, ethnical disputes between Macedonians and Albanians emerged again in 2011. The planned census raised questions such as: How many Albanians (or Macedonians) live in Macedonia? Is the number (of Albanians) increasing? What will the census do for regional stability? Unfortunately, the counting was interrupted through disagreement in the census commission over Albanian complaints. In the case that some inhabitants of Macedonia lived more than one year outside of the country, they could not be counted in the census. This is, logically, mostly connected with the Albanian minority, which quite often employs its relations with expatriates in Western Europe. This problem uncovered that the ethnic issue still remains open.

The name dispute received new turbulence after the opinion of the International Court of Justice in December, which declared that Greece had breached the 1995 Interim Accord and thus was wrong to block Macedonia for NATO membership. On the other hand, Greece repeated its stance without any changes and it is possible that Greece would currently put the dispute with Macedonia on the top of its agenda. Macedonia should rather focus itself on own internal problems in political and economic areas mentioned above and not uselessly waste time on name dispute, which will be solved, sooner or later.

With(out) a light at the end of the tunnel

Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania can be categorized in one pessimistic group, although their past performance, internal problems and expected reforms could be differentiated, 2011 has been a tragic-comic story for both countries. Both countries were blocked since their parliamentary elections, Bosnia and Herzegovina since October 2010 and Albania even since June 2009. Political stalemate and opposition boycott of parliament deepened the mistrust of Albanians. The frustrations of a sharply divided society turned into street riots in January this year. Unfortunately, these protests, shadowed by the Arab Spring in Egypt, took four victims on Tirana’s streets. This social and political climate cannot be an incentive to improvement of political reforms, rapid economical recovery, and the general societal mood.

Even though the political stalemate was unblocked in fall 2011, the cross-party consensus is still very weak. Albania lost more than two years because of this. The negative political impact of the Albanian crisis did not bring satisfactory results in electoral reforms, anti-corruption policy and the recovery of economy, although the growth of Albanian economy was the highest in the region (3.8% in 2010). Simply said, while new legislation is elsewhere gradually (more or less successfully) implemented, in Albania new legislation first of all needed to be approved. Instead of joining countries such as Montenegro, Serbia and maybe Macedonia, Albania been joined the same group as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. If the enlargement of the EU is thought of seriously, in that case we consider the last post-communist enclave outside of the EU will definitely become a rightful member, thus we can currently see a division of the Western Balkans countries in two groups.

In Bosnia, one year after the general elections were held on 3 October 2010, the process of establishing executive and legislative authorities remains to be completed with the establishment of a state-level government. This long delay has hampered Bosnia and Herzegovina’s progress on much needed reforms. Uncoordinated policy-making, due to lack of coordination between the state and entity parliaments, has brought absolutely insufficient results in most of critical areas. Some of the most important issues Bosnia and Herzegovina faces are social rights, high unemployment and the problem with police coordination, which is not able to jointly fight against the organized crime. Bosnia and Herzegovina is also losing millions of euro, because this divided country is unable to reach finance from special reconstruction funds. According to all mentioned pessimistic facts, it is obvious that there is an absence of a common vision of the Bosnian future. Optimism has been definitely replaced by frustration not only inside Bosnia, but in the international community as well.

Petr Fojtík
PhD candidate in Political Science
Palacký University, Olomouc, Czech Republic

(1) On the plenary session of the European Parliament, held 1 December 2011, 550 MEPs voted in favor of
Application of Croatia to become a member of the European Union, 34 voted against while 41 abstained.

(2) A real threat of refusal of the Croatian Application was also coming from Czech Republic, because its MPs had wanted to vote about Croatia together with the expectations of the Lisbon Treaty, which was embarrassingly condemned to rejection in 2012. Finally, these issues were divided and the voting will be separate.

(3) Both sides agreed on common border integrity at the beginning of December.

References

Transparency International (2011): The 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index,
available at:
http://cpi.transparency.org/cpi2011/, (accessed on 12 December 2011)

European Commission Enlargement (2011): European Strategy and Progress Reports 2011,
available at:
http://ec.europa.eu/enlargement/press_corner/key-documents/reports_oct_2011_en.htm, (accessed on 12 December 2011)

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