The Balkans, the European Union and NATO

The Balkans, the European Union and NATO

Rome [ENA] The European Union has long been committed to trying to stabilize a region whose history is intertwined with its own: the Balkan region. Geographically surrounded by the states of the European Union, the Western Balkans have a strategic importance for the Union not only in commercial terms, in terms of the movement of goods and people, but also for its internal security and stability.

The violent dissolution of Yugoslavia represented an existential threat to the entire European project, making it clear that the prosperity and security of the Union could not underestimate the security of the Balkans. The European Union had no other options than that of a more incisive action in the region, becoming the main actor for the democratic transition of the area and its approach was characterized by the so-called "stabilization through integration" approach based on strong support for individual countries that adopted the social and economic reforms required to be candidates to join the Union. This approach led to the Stabilization and Association Process (SAP) and to the 1999 Stability Pact.

With the Thessaloniki Declaration of 2003, the European Union formalized its "open door policy" towards the Western Balkans, defining all the countries of the region as potential candidates for accession when they would have satisfied the so-called "Criteria of Copenhagen ". However, while Croatia managed to implement these criteria by obtaining candidate status in 2004 and joining the Union in 2013, for the other countries the situation was more problematic. The European Union decided to go beyond the Thessaloniki Declaration through greater involvement in the Western Balkans and thus becoming an important security actor.

In 2003, at the request of the Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the first Common Security and Defense Policy mission, called EUPM (European Union Police Mission), was launched to support the creation of a legal system in line with European and international standards. Subsequently, the Union launched its first military operation, Concordia, in North Macedonia (at the time called FYROM Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) to safeguard the status quo of the Ohrid Framework Agreement. The EU’s commitment to stabilizing the Western Balkans has not diminished over the years. On the contrary, since 2004 the EUFOR Althea mission has replaced the NATO Stabilization Force (SFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina

contributing to the maintenance of peace in the country. Since 2008, the EU has been managing the most important civilian mission, EULEX Kosovo, which offers support to legal institutions to achieve the efficiency, reliability and multi-ethnicity of law enforcement in full compliance with international standards and best practices. The "European Perspective" offered by the open door policy and EU engagement in the region has facilitated the rapid economic recovery from the devastation of the past and encouraged economic and institutional reforms. Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia have obtained full candidate status and have begun the negotiation process to access the Union.

Despite these developments, however, over the past decade, the integration of the Western Balkans into the Union has suffered a setback, both due to endogenous and exogenous factors, which have undermined its stability: first and foremost the economic crisis which has affected Europe since 2009 and which has had particularly serious effects in these economically fragile countries, amplifying youth unemployment and stopping economic growth. These factors have exacerbated endogenous problems such as persistent corruption and have rekindled the rivalries of the past.

The stability of the whole region has become more fragile and the Union should continue its efforts to build stability through integration and, in this regard, the Strategy for the Western Balkans, published by the EU Commission in 2018, seems like a good starting point, even if the propensity towards enlargement seems to have waned recently. If the EU no longer has a viable plan to stabilize the Balkans, it means that other actors will take care of solving the problems left unresolved by Europeans. The Balkans were born from the collapse of two empires, the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, and this must be borne in mind when one thinks of those countries so close and so far away, as well as, for example, the special

relationship that Serbia has always maintained with Russia. In the Balkans there is also the presence of a tolerant Islam which, however, unfortunately showed the cruel aspect of its brutal radicalism during the war in Bosnia. Today, last but not least in the region for the Belt and Road Initiative, is the People's Republic of China which tends to fill every possible economic void and which, for example, represents the largest donor state for Serbia so much so that, in this regard, some commentators have gone so far as to ask themselves whether Serbia is not already a country assisted by China.

It is clear that both Russia and China have wishful thought of the destabilization of this region because in this way they would undermine an important side of NATO. However, the potential of the People's Republic of China in the area will depend on the future economic contracts and cooperation agreements it will sign with individual Balkan countries. In the absence of Western investments, China will certainly intervene in those countries that need infrastructure, diversification of the energy supply and much more.