EU. / The Western Balkans and the promise of enlargement

The European Union is attempting to re-warm the accession process for the countries of the Western Balkans, giving last week, at the regular March summit, the green light for the start of accession negotiations and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which can hardly be characterized stable state. What motivates the 27 is not so much their…intention, the intention to keep the promises they made to the Western Balkans that they will join the club, that is, as much as the fear that the region will remain unstable now that at least two wars are raging in the European neighborhood. It is recalled that last August Kyriakos Mitsotakis had invited the leaders of the Western Balkans for a celebratory dinner in Athens on the occasion of the twenty years since the infamous agenda of Thessaloniki, with which the E.U. he promised the countries that emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia and Albania that they would join the European family. European leadership, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel were also invited to the dinner. But the big surprise that the prime minister had in store for his guests was the presence of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, who also stole the show. With this move, Mitsotakis wanted to underline the will of the Greek government to support the candidacy of Ukraine – and Moldova – in the European Union. And it is certain that the surprise did not excite the heads of state of the Western Balkans at the time, who have been waiting patiently for twenty years to enter a club that has often hinted that it is “tired” of expanding.

The danger of the “black hole”

The truth is that until the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, most EU member states they were not eager to open the doors of the club to the poor and awkward Balkans. After the Prespa Agreement, Athens once again became the driving force of enlargement, but there was always someone holding back the once more…advanced countries for integration, Albania and North Macedonia. Sometimes France, sometimes the Netherlands, sometimes Bulgaria. But with the European neighborhood starting to “burn”, as the head of the Slovenian think tank BSF, Peter Grk, put it, speaking the other day at an event in Athens, enlargement suddenly became “the best tool for peace, stability and prosperity” in our region. In fact, as was shown by the last councils of ministers of the EU, the 27 are again determined to join the club of the countries of the Western Balkans on the one hand so that there is not a “black hole” within the Union, on the other hand so as not to cover the blank “third” countries. Our European partners primarily have Russia and secondarily China in mind, while Greek diplomacy is mainly concerned about Turkey’s activity in the Western Balkans.

“Keeping our promises”

According to the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexandra Papadopoulou, who spoke at the same event, organized by ELIAMEP entitled “Is it a dream or can it become reality?” (the enlargement with the Western Balkans), the situation is indeed favorable: “The geopolitical need of the E.U. to expand to the East helps to reheat the expansion to the South,” he said. And he warned that the impression should not be created even for a moment that the E.U. will advance the expansion to the East at the expense of the expansion to the South. “We must avoid the mistakes of the past,” he said, “we must not let people down in the Western Balkans. We must keep our promises and not give false hope.” For the Greek diplomat, the consequences of any failure of the enlargement with the Western Balkans “will be dramatic”. In fact, citing her experience as the head of EULEX in Kosovo (the European mission for the Rule of Law), she argued that the EU should not to make excessive demands for reforms from candidate countries. “We can’t ask them to get a master’s degree before they finish high school,” he said, pointing out that the anti-corruption laws in Kosovo, for example, are more advanced than the corresponding German legislation, but most judges don’t know how to apply them.

The “thorn” of the Beleri case

Paradoxically, this was Papadopoulou’s line of defense when at the event the management of the case (of the elected mayor of Heimarra and convicted) Freddy Beleris was criticized by the audience. It should be noted that the Greek government is threatening to veto Albania’s accession process if there is no “progress” in the Beleri case, whatever that means. Which is a problem for both candidate Albania and Greece, which has not managed to win the understanding of its European partners about the “Rule of Law problem” in Albania. So, when the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Albania Artemis Malo, who declared herself a proud member of the Greek minority, said that the issue was being dealt with by the independent Albanian Judiciary – which was indeed reformed based on the European Directives -, Papadopoulou made sure to refer generally to the Rule of Law and in its prime importance for the integration of a country into the EU. “You know, it is not enough to establish the rules, you also need to implement them,” he said, without referring to Albania or Beleris.