European integration and the Western Balkans: Lessons, prospects and obstacles

Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 313-331

  Belloni, Roberto ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TRENTO   (Italy)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 77649229470     PISSN: 19448953     EISSN: 19448961     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/19448950903152177     Document Type: Article

References (93)

1. The Western Balkans refers to Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro - countries which share a common perspective of European integration. South East Europe includes all of the Western Balkans, in addition to Bulgaria and Romania which joined the EU in January 2007.
2. European Commission, Western Balkans: Prospect of EU Membership Incites Peace in the Western Balkans, 2006, p. 8, available at .
3. See, for example, J. Batt et al. (eds), The Western Balkans: Moving On, Chaillot Paper No. 70, Institute for Security Studies, Paris, October 2003, available at
4. International Commission on the Balkans, The Balkans in Europe's Future, 2005, available at
5. Independent Task Force, Balkans 2010, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, 2003.
6. EU programmes can be accessed at: lt;http://ec.exuropa.eu/enlargement>. For an assessment see: J. Brennan, The EU and the Western Balkans: Stabilization and Europeanization through Enlargement, Routledge, London and New York, 2008.
7. The 'dual key' was abandoned on 21 July 1995 at the London Conference, opening the way for more assertive (and ultimately successful) diplomacy. See S. L. Burg and P. S. Shoup, The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and International Intervention, M. E. Sharpe, Armonk, 1999, p. 344.
8. Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, 2005, especially Ch. 6.
9. Crawford, 'Explaining defection from international cooperation: Germany's unilateral recognition of Croatia', World Politics, 48(4), 1996, pp. 482-521.
10. See also, more generally, R. Caplan, Europe and the Recognition of New States in Yugoslavia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005.
11. L. Fris and A. Murphy, '"Turbo-charged negotiations": the EU and the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe', Journal of European Public Policy, 7(5), 2000, pp. 767-786.
12. R. Belloni, State Building and International Intervention in Bosnia, Routledge, London and New York, 2007.
13. I. King and W. Mason, Peace at Any Price: How the World Failed Kosovo, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2006.
14. V. Latifi, 'Preventive engagement of the international community: the model case of Macedonia?', Foreign Policy in Dialogue, 8(2/3), 2007, pp. 32-38.
15. R. Belloni, op. cit., pp. 176-177.
16. I. King and W. Mason, op. cit., pp. 234-239.
17. V. Latifi, op. cit.
18. R. Paris, At War's End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004
19. A. Jarstad and T. D. Sisk (eds), From War to Democracy: Dilemmas of Peacebuilding, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008.
20. P. Siani-Davis (ed.), International Intervention in the Balkans: A Critical Evaluation, Routledge, London, 2003
21. R. G. C. Thomas (ed.), Yugoslavia Unravelled: Sovereignty, Self-Determination, Intervention, Lexington, Lanham, MD, 2003
22. S. Sampson, Weak States, Uncivil Societies and Thousands of NGOs: Western Democracy Exported as Benevolent Colonialism in the Balkans, Lund, June 2002, draft.
23. M. Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, Oxford University Press, New York, 1997.
24. O. Weaver, 'Insecurity, security and asecurity in the West European non-war community', in E. Adler and M. Barnett (eds), Security Communities, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, p. 100
25. O. Rehn, 'Values define Europe, not borders', Financial Times, 4 January 2005.
26. S. Wolff and A. Peen Rodt, 'The reactive conflict management of the EU in the Western Balkans', paper presented at the International Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, March 2007, p. 14.
27. M. Sahlin, 'NATO and EU align Balkan agenda', Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 20 April 2005 and, more generally
28. E. Pond, Endgame in the Balkans: Regime Change, European Style, Brookings Institutions Press, Washington, DC, 2006.
29. S. Wolff and A. Peen Rodt, op. cit.
30. X. Solana, A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy, 12 December 2003, available at .
31. COM(1999) Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament of 26 May 1999 on the Stabilisation and Association Process for Countries of South-Eastern Europe, No. 235, 26 May 1999.
32. D. Reljic, 'A long way towards EU accession? Membership perspectives and the Stabilisation and Association Process for the Western Balkan countries', Foreign Policy in Dialogue, 8(2/3), 2007, pp. 16-23.
33. See also Arolda Elbasani, 'EU enlargement in the Western Balkans: strategies of borrowing and inventing', Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, 10(3), 2008, pp. 293-307, who highlights, correctly, how the SAP contains two hard-to-reconcile objectives - stabilization and association.
34. All documents related to the Pact are available at . For an assessment of the Pact's political significance, see M. Cremona, 'Creating the New Europe: the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe in the context of EU-SEE relations', Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, 2000, pp. 463-506.
35. E. Busek, 'Five years of Stability Pact for Southeast Europe: achievements and challenges ahead', Discussion Paper 70, Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics, March 2004. Although the Stability Pact has been criticized for its scarce attention to civil society, it did achieve its objective of fostering local ownership. In February 2008 its competences and activities were transferred to the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC), a new institution under regional ownership.
36. Centre for European Policy Studies, 'The reluctant debutante: the European Union as promoter of democracy in its neighbourhood', CEPS Working Document 223, Brussels, July 2005, p. ii; available at .
37. W. P. Van Meurs, 'The next Europe: South-Eastern Europe after Thessaloniki', South East Europe Review, 6(3), 2003, pp. 9-16.
38. European Stability Initiative, Moment of Truth: Macedonia, the EU Budget and the Destabilisation of the Balkans, Berlin/Brussels/Istanbul, December 2005.
39. Centre for European Policy Studies, op. cit., p. 7.
40. O. Rehn, op.cit.
41. B. Coppitiers et al., Europeanization and Conflict Resolution: Case Studies from the European Periphery, Academia Press, Gent, 2004
42. T. Diez, A. Mathias and S. Stetter (eds), The European Union and Border Conflicts: The Power of Integration and Association, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008
43. N. Tocci, The EU's Role in Conflict Resolution: Promoting Peace in the European Neighbourhood, Routledge, London, 2007.
44. X. Solana, op. cit.
45. E. Pond, op. cit., p. 242.
46. European Union/World Bank Joint Office for South East Europe, 'How much money is being given?' (regularly updated), available at .
47. I. Manners, 'The European Union as a normative power: a response to Thomas Diez', Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 35(1), 2006, p. 175.
48. F. Schimmelfenning and U. Sedelmeier (eds), The Europeanization of Central and Eastern Europe, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2005
49. M. A. Vachudova, Europe Undivided: Democracy, Leverage and Integration after Communism, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005
50. H. Grabbe, The EU's Transformative Power: Europeanization Through Conditionality in Central and Eastern Europe, Macmillan, London, 2006.
51. D. Chandler, 'From Dayton to Europe', in D. Chandler (ed.), Peace Without Politics? Ten Years of International State-Building in Bosnia, Routledge, London and New York, 2006, pp. 30-43.
52. J. Zielonka, Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006.
53. G. Knaus and M. Cox, 'The Helsinki moment in Southeast Europe', Journal of Democracy, 16, 2005, pp. 39-53.
54. B92 News, 'Bosnia in 2007: highs and lows', 23 December 2007, available at .
55. A. Petruseva, 'Macedonians turn away from ethnic divisions', Institute for War and Peace Reporting, 12 November 2004.
56. E. Pond, op. cit., pp. 265-266.
57. D. Bechev and S. Andreev, Top-Down vs Bottom-Up Aspects of the Institution Building Strategies in the Western Balkans, Occasional Paper No. 3/05, St Antony's College Oxford, February 2005.
58. European Commission, 'The Stabilisation and Association Process and CARDS Assistance 2000 to 2006', European Commission paper for the Second Regional Conference for South East Europe, 2001, available at .
59. W. Wallace, 'The sharing of sovereignty: the European paradox', Political Studies, 47(4), 1999, pp. 503-521.
60. Hill, 'The EU's capacity for conflict prevention', European Foreign Affairs Review, 6(3), 2001, pp. 315-333.
61. Whitmore, 'Karadzic arrest in Serbia shows power of elections', Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 22 July 2008.
62. A. McTaggart, 'EU hails Balkan free trade deal as milestone', Balkan Insight, 26 October 2006
63. see also, more broadly M. Dangerfield, 'Subregional integration and EU enlargement: where next for CEFTA?', Journal of Common Market Studies, 44(2), 2006, pp. 305-324.
64. D. Kostovicova and V. Bojičić-Dželilović, 'Europeanizing the Balkans: rethinking the post-communist and post-conflict transition', in D. Kostovicova and V. Bojičić-Dželilović (eds), Transnationalism in the Balkans, Routledge, London and New York, 2008, pp. 7-25.
65. E. Pond, op. cit., p. 253.
66. This is the key argument of Amartya Sen in his remarkable Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny, Norton, New York, 2006.
67. R. Belloni, op. cit., p. 162.
68. J. Mostov, 'Soft borders and transnational citizens', in S. Benhabib, I. Shapiro and D. Petranović (eds), Identities, Affiliation, and Allegiances, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007, pp. 136-158.
69. Schake, Constructive Duplication: Reducing EU Reliance on US Military Assets, Centre for European Reform, London, 2002.
70. A. Lobjakas, 'Kosovo: UN chief warns EU unity at risk', Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 10 July 2007.
71. K. Safarikova, 'Balkans: no more yawns', Transitions on Line, 24 July 2008.
72. Author's interview with Erhard Busek, Stability Pact's Coordinator, Cambridge, October 2003.
73. T. Gallagher, The Balkans in the New Millennium: In the Shadow of War and Peace, Routledge, London and New York, 2005, pp. 168-170.
74. Friis and Murphy, op. cit., p. 777.
75. For her part, Del Ponte often complained that Western powers displayed 'grave systemic deficiencies' in their pursuit of war crimes indictees. See C. Del Ponte with C. Sudetic, Madame Prosecutor: Confrontation with Humanity's Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity, Other Press, New York, 2009.
76. For a good assessment, see: Victor A. Peskin, International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans: Virtual Trials and the Struggle for State Cooperation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008.
77. H. Grabbe, op. cit.
78. Partners Limited, Striking a Balance - Efficiency, Effectiveness and Accountability: The Impact of the EU Financial Regulation on the Relationship Between the European Commission and NGOs, Brussels, April 2005.
79. M. Calic, 'EU policies towards the Balkans: fostering ownership of reforms', The International Spectator, 3, 2003, pp. 111-123.
80. In the Netherlands only 6 per cent and in France only 3 per cent of respondents stated opposition to future enlargement as the reason for voting 'no'. See Eurobarometer, 'The European Constitution: post-referendum survey in the Netherlands', No. 172, June 2005.
81. Thanks to Angela Liberatore, at the European Commission, Directorate-General for Science Research and Development, for drawing my attention to the importance of this issue.
82. D. Kostovicova and V. Bojičić-Dželilović (eds), Austrian Presidency of the EU: Regional Approaches to the Balkans, Center for the Study of Global Governance and Center for European Integration Strategies, Vienna, 2006.
83. D. Phinnemore, 'Beyond 25 - the changing face of EU enlargement: commitment, conditionality and the Constitutional Treaty', Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, 8(1), 2006, pp. 7-26.
84. European Union/Western Balkans, Joint Press Statement, Salzburg, 11 March 2006.
85. A. McTaggart, 'Crossfire over enlargement confuses Balkans', Balkan Insight, 5 October 2006.
86. European Union, Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2006-2007: Including Annexed Special Report on the EU's Capacity to Integrate New Members, European Commission, Brussels, 8 November 2006.
87. European Union, Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2007-2008, European Commission, Brussels, 6 November 2007.
88. Ahto Lobjakas, 'Impetus for EU enlargement grinds to a halt', Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 28 March 2009.
89. M. Vachudova, op. cit.
90. European Union/World Bank Joint Office for South East Europe, op. cit.
91. European Stability Initiative, Breaking Out of the Balkan Ghetto: Why IPA Should be Changed, Berlin/Brussels/Istanbul, June 2005.
92. M. Bakic-Hayden and R. Hayden, 'Orientalist variations on the theme "Balkans": symbolic geography in recent Yugoslav cultural politics', Slavic Review, 51, 1992, pp. 1-15.
93. Nikolaos Tzifakis, 'EU's region-building and boundary-drawing policies: the European approach to the Southern Mediterranean and the Western Balkans', Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans, 9(1), 2007, pp. 47-64.