Analysis: EU Steps Up Efforts to Bring In Western Balkans as New Members

European flags are displayed at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, on Nov. 24, 2021. Julien Warnand/via Reuters

News Analysis

As the European Union takes a bold, proactive approach to adding new members, it is trying to reform itself to handle the enlargement.

Leaders of the six Western Balkan countries—Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia—met on Monday in Skopje, North Macedonia, to discuss reforms needed to access the new EU’s growth plan for the Western Balkans.

The European Commission—the executive body of the European Union—adopted in November a new 6 billion euro ($6.5 billion) growth plan to accelerate the accession of the Western Balkan countries to the EU from 2024-2027, according to a statement.

The plan’s objective is to help candidate countries step up the reforms required to join the EU, the European Commission said in the statement.

The allocated fund consists of 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in grants and 4 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in concessional loans, but payments will happen only after the Western Balkans’ countries fulfill the “specific socio-economic and fundamental reforms” they agreed upon, the commission said.

“The growth plan is a potential game changer and could double the size of your economies in the next decade,” said Gert Jan Koopman, the European Commission’s Director-General for Neighborhood and Enlargement Negotiations.

The plan sets a precondition for Serbia and Kosovo to resolve their outstanding issues through talks facilitated by the EU’s top diplomat.

The tensions between Serbia and Kosovo date back to the war in Kosovo in 1998-1999. Kosovo is predominantly inhabited by the Albanian population, who are mostly Muslim, while Serbia is mainly Christian. Kosovo gained independence from Serbia in 2008, but Serbia and a few European countries still do not recognize its independence.

EU Single Market

The growth plan also aims to integrate the Western Balkans with the European Union’s single market, which requires them to open the relevant sectors and areas to all their neighbors at the same time, the commission said.

The EU single market provides the free movement of goods, services, capital, and people.

Therefore, the aspiring countries should first create a Western Balkans “common regional market,” which, according to the commission, is “a stepping-stone to the opportunities of the single market. “The regional market is also “vital to overcome small fragmented markets, make businesses competitive, attract investors, and retain workers,” the commission asserted.

For example, in the Western Balkan region, “trucks spend 28 million hours waiting at borders every year – a burden that costs 1 percent of the region’s GDP,” the commission illustrated its point. “Building a common market of 18 million people, functioning on the basis of EU rules, could be a game changer for the Western Balkans and would benefit both the region and the EU”.

Building a regional market will also make intraregional infrastructure projects more beneficial and will attract investments, the commission said.

Bosnia

The President of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Borjana Kristo, 2nd right, speaks during a joint press conference with the Prime Minister of Croatia, Andrej Plenkovic, left, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, 2nd left, and the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte, after their meeting in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on Jan. 23, 2024. AP Photo/Armin Durgut

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Croatia told Bosnia on Tuesday to press on with reforms and seize a chance to begin accession negotiations with the European Union before the 27-nation block holds a parliamentary vote in June.

The three officials visited Bosnia-Herzegovina and said at a news conference in Sarajevo that while the Balkan country has made progress in achieving the criteria to start the talks formally, it must do more to win a positive recommendation from the European Commission in March.

Ms. von der Leyen acknowledged Bosnia’s adoption of laws to satisfy the accession requirements, such as “the integrity of the judiciary,” but said that the Commission needs to see progress “on the ‘fundamentals’ of the EU accession which would require enacting more laws targeting “money laundering, the conflict of interest, and for example the law on courts.”

Bosnian Prime Minister Bojana Kristo promised: “We will remain focused and work hard” to achieve the goals.

Bosnia is among the six Western Balkan nations seeking EU entry following a period of wars and crises in the 1990s. The process was stalled for years, but in 2022, Bosnia was granted candidate status, and the European Council said last year that the accession negotiations could start once the necessary degree of compliance is achieved.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte mentioned the dark page in the shared history of Bosnia and the Netherlands, referring to the genocide in Srebrenica in 1995 that claimed more than 8,000 lives.

Dutch-national U.N. peacekeepers, at that time, “turned the men under their protection over to Bosnian Serbs,” which contributed to the genocide, according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Hague Court of Appeal ruled in 2017 that the Netherlands was partly responsible for the deaths of approximately 350 Muslims in Srebrenica.”

“We support Bosnia’s European ambitions because ultimately our common interest is for [Bosnia and Herzegovina] to take its place at the table of the European family as a united and sovereign state,” Mr. Rutte said, according to N1 TV Channel based in the Balkans.

Bosnia still needs to do a lot of work to reach the opening of the negotiations phase, which is the next phase of the accession process, Mr. Rutte said, as reported by N1.

“As far as the Netherlands is concerned, there are no shortcuts, reforms must be made. It’s a lot of work over the next six weeks. … Time is running out; by the end of March, this opportunity will be extinguished,” Mr. Rutte warned, according to N1.

Andrej Plenkovic, the Prime Minister of Croatia, an EU member bordering Bosnia, urged the Balkan state to grasp what he said were “tectonic” changes in EU policies because of Ukraine. He warned that “if we miss March, the whole year will be lost” because of the upcoming elections for the European Parliament on June 6-9.

“My message, my appeal to all our friends and partners, is to use this opportunity, this window that has been opened,” he said.

Calls to Reform EU

Euro-deputies take part in a vote on the revision of the EU emissions trading system at the European Union Parliament in Brussels on June 22, 2022. John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

To ensure that the EU can absorb new members in the long term, EU parliamentarians called for institutional and financial reforms of the Union, according to a statement.

The parliamentarians recommended moving away from unanimity in the EU’s decision-making process and using more flexible mechanisms, such as qualified majority voting, for certain legislative proposals, the statement said.

The calculation of qualified majority voting thresholds should be revised to improve “the balance between larger and smaller states and to set higher thresholds for the most important decisions,” the statement said.

A Member of the European Parliament, Pedro Silva Pereira, Portugal, representing the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, said in the statement that the EU will not be able to absorb new members without institutional and financial reforms. “An enlarged EU, with 35 or more member states, cannot function with the current rules designed for 27.”

The relaxation of the unanimity voting requirement should take place ahead of possible revisions of the EU treaties, the statement said.

In November, the European Parliament adopted a proposal to amend the EU treaties. One of the proposed amendments recommends limiting the number of members of the EU executive body to 15.

Currently, the commission is comprised of 27 commissioners—one from each EU country. If the number of commissioners is fixed at 15 or fewer, they will be chosen from among the nationals of the member states on the basis of “equal rotation,” the proposal stipulated.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.