BRUSSELS: The European Union is dragging its feet on the admission of some Balkan nations into the alliance and is losing its influence in ...
BRUSSELS: The European Union is dragging its feet on the admission of some Balkan nations into the alliance and is losing its influence in the region, giving way to Russia and China, said American analysts Pablo Rasmussen and Robert Benson in a column they contributed to the Euractiv portal.
"The Western Balkans Six (WB6) remain stuck in the waiting room of EU membership. Negotiations have slowed to a crawl, hobbled by enlargement fatigue in European capitals, immigration anxieties, and fears that new members would paralyse already cumbersome decision-making in the bloc," the column read.
Experts believe that the process of integration of the Balkans into the European Union has turned into a farce due to the very mechanism of accepting new members according to "chapters," that is, certain benchmarks for fulfilling obligations. According to the analysts, the leaders of the Balkan countries "close their chapters," participate in summits with the EU leadership and make statements, but "the horizon of full membership keeps receding. Every broken promise, every deferred action chips away at the Union’s leverage, signalling to would-be members that reforms may not be rewarded and to rival powers that Europe’s commitments can be safely ignored."
According to the portal, the negotiations on the accession of Moldova and Ukraine to the EU have again given hope to Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia. According to the current plans, Montenegro and Albania should join the EU in 2028 and 2030, respectively, but the dates remain fluid. At the same time, since joining the EU is constantly postponed, the Balkan countries are strengthening ties with Russia and China. For example, Serbia is increasing its energy partnership with Russia and purchasing surveillance systems from China, while Montenegro, a NATO member, is deepening its financial dependence on China thanks to the Belt and Road loans becoming a Chinese lever of influence on the alliance. In addition, the problem of EU membership provokes a brain drain from the region, the analysts say.
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine and Montenegro have the official status of candidates for EU membership. Brussels is putting pressure on Serbia to force it to agree to grant this status to the unrecognized Kosovo, which is paramount to the official recognition of the province's independence. North Macedonia has been a candidate for EU membership since 2005, in 2009 Serbia and in 2010 Montenegro also received the official status of a party to the negotiations leading to EU accession. Albania received the official status of a candidate for EU membership in June 2014. Bosnia and Herzegovina has been a candidate for EU membership since December 15, 2022.
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