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Western Balkans

The countries of the Western Balkans are geographically surrounded by EU member states, and the EU’s general approach towards the region is characterised by stabilisation through integration.

The conflicts which blighted the region in the 1990s posed an existential challenge to the Common Security and Foreign Policy (CFSP) and in 2003, the EU went beyond its declaratory statements and launched the first-ever Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) mission, EUPM, in Bosnia and Herzegovina and subsequently, the first military operation, Concordia, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Currently, the military operation EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Union’s largest mission to date, EULEX, in Kosovo, provide tangible illustrations of the EU’s continued commitment to ensuring peace and stability in the region. Furthermore, the objectives of the Union and the work of the High Representative are also supported by the European Union Special Representatives (EUSRs) in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.

The EU continues to be the biggest donor, investor and trading partner in the Western Balkans. Under the Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans, the EU financially assists the region in narrowing the gaps with the EU Single Market, while supporting good neighbourly relations through regional cooperation and integration efforts.

On 1 July 2013, Croatia became the 28th member state of the European Union. In 2012, Montenegro opened the accession negotiations, followed by Serbia in 2013. In July 2022, the accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia were launched. Furthermore, Bosnia and Herzegovina was granted EU candidate status in December 2022, making it the fifth country in the region to be formally integrated into the EU enlargement process. Kosovo* still has the status of a potential EU candidate after having officially applied for EU membership in December 2022.

*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 (1999) and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo declaration of independence.

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    07February 2008
    Tadic has won, but what was it really about?
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    By a margin of less than three percent, equalling around 100,000 votes, Boris Tadic won a very tight victory in the Serbian presidential elections last night, but with important consequences for his country and the Western Balkan region. Now that we know who the Serbian voters have chosen, it would be interesting to find out what they thought they were choosing. This is probably the most interesting part of the story, since – in electing the Serbian president for the next five years yesterday – many people were in fact voting for a variety of different things.

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    07February 2008
    Serbian presidential elections: the view from Macedonia
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    The reaction in Macedonia to Serbia’s elections – both before and after the victor was known – was one of a general lack of excitement. On one level, Macedonia is so deeply enmeshed in its own domestic political gridlock, similar to Serbia’s, that extraneous events tend to have hardly any obvious impact on the political scene.

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    06February 2008
    Serbian elections: who has actually won and what does this mean for the EU?
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    As roughly a half of the Serbian electorate and all of the EU hail the electoral victory of the Democratic Party leader Boris Tadic over his bitter rival from the Serbian Radical Party, Tomislav Nikolic, the key question for the analysts is: which Boris Tadic won the elections?

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    31January 2008
    Serbia's European future: too close to call
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    After the first round of the presidential election on 20 January, the prospects for Serbia’s European future look as precarious as they have ever been. Not unexpectedly, the Serbian Radical Party candidate, Tomislav Nikolic, beat incumbent President Boris Tadic by 39.96 per cent to to 35.41 per cent according to the official provisional results, which differ slightly.

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    31January 2008
    How Serbian voters will make their choice on Sunday
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    The 2008 Serbian Elections have provoked much coverage and analysis, most of it presenting the election issue as one of a choice between the EU and Russia. The somewhat oversimplified representation of the elections has reduced the political complexities involved to ‘integration’ versus ‘isolation’. The majority win in the first round for the SRS candidate Nikolic has been interpreted by some as Serbia’s choice of nationalism over democracy, as represented by the DS candidate Tadic.

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    01October 2007
    Pioneering foreign policy: the EU Special Representatives
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    Over the last ten years, the EU Special Representatives (EUSRs) have pioneered EU foreign policy in countries and regions of direct interest to the Union. EUSRs are a face of the Union, enhancing its visibility, and they give it a voice, seeking to deliver a single message to local and international partners, playing an important role in EU foreign policy.

  • 20July 2007
    The Western Balkans - forwards, backwards, sideways?

    The purpose of the seminar was to assess the situation in the region in light of the new government in Serbia, the impasse in the Kosovo status process, and the challenges ahead in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the start of the new OHR/EUSR's mandate.

  • 01July 2007
    Gender mainstreaming
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    In 2000 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1325, Women, Peace and Security, which calls for ‘gender mainstreaming’. International organisations, governments and national militaries have become increasingly aware of the unintended gendered side-effects of peacekeeping operations.

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    01July 2007
    Regional cooperation in the Western Balkans
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    Regional cooperation in the Western Balkans is an issue that has been much discussed. The countries of the region are today much more closely connected through various cooperation schemes than they were seven years ago. This is a success that should not be underestimated. Today the Western Balkans is an emerging region in transition, where economic development is underway and in which cooperation is increasingly seen as an obvious choice, rather than a last-resort option.

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    01July 2007
    ESDP Newsletter No. 4
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    At dawn on 23 June, after close to 36 hours of intensive talks, EU leaders adopted a mandate for a Reform Treaty. In the field of foreign and security policy, the text foresees the EU should have, as of 2009, a High Representative for foreign affairs and security policy. He will be supported by a European external action service. Another important innovation is the permanent structured co-operation in the field of defence.

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    01October 2000
    South-Eastern Europe revisited. Can economic decline be stopped?
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    This paper attempts to evaluate the situation in South-Eastern Europe by focusing on two major sources of economic plight in the region and on the prospects for economic regeneration. One source of difficulties relates to the dissolution of former Yugoslavia. The wars in the region caused enormous pain and suffering that led to the deaths of a large number of people.

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    01September 2000
    Evaluating Serbia
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    The recent developments in Serbia are indicative of a change in the political makeup of the country. The regime is becoming more repressive. A spate of highly publicised assassinations has sparked wider debate about the ability of the regime to maintain order. Many military officials refuse to obey orders or are switching camps, especially in Montenegro.

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    01June 2000
    The RMA - Europe can keep in step
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    The transatlantic defence community drew divergent conclusions from NATO’s Operation Allied Force in Kosovo. Many observers asserted that the operation showed the European allies to be irremediably behind the United States in applying decisive new forms of advanced technology warfare.

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    01June 2000
    The Contact Group and its impact on the European institutional structure
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    Among the institutions which emerged during the crisis management phase in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo, the so-called Balkan Contact Group turned out to be the innovation with the greatest impact on European institutional structures.

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    01May 1998
    The issues raised by Bosnia, and the transatlantic debate
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    This Chaillot Paper is innovative on more than one count. It is a multi-authored, multinational and centripetal analysis of a very specific issue, the complexity of which deserves a multifaceted, analytical approach of this type. For some, it may even constitute an exercise in political correctness.

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    01December 1997
    Conflict prevention in the Balkans: case studies of Kosovo and the FYR of Macedonia
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    Concerned as they are by the many crises occurring on their very doorstep, the European public, politicians and analysts seem hardly to recognize other conflicts in Europe that have not happened and need not happen. Crisis prevention and peace-building have been sidelined by conflict management and peacekeeping.

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    01October 1997
    The Bosnian war and the new world order
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    The war in Bosnia has witnessed a broad swing in the moods of the "international community" and of European nations particularly. In the wake of the end of the Cold War and of the victory in the Gulf War, expectations run high at the outbreak that collective security would have been able to deal with regional disturbances.

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    01October 1994
    The implications of the Yugoslav crisis for Western Europe's foreign relations
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    The Yugoslav crisis, posing for over three years now a challenge to the crisis-management ability of the international community, it has influenced the restructuring of post-Cold War security relations and has complicated Western Europe's development of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and search for a new role in international affairs.

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    01March 1994
    Lessons of Yugoslavia
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    As a member of the first team of research fellows at this Institute, from 1990 to 1993, Nicole Gnesotto made an invaluable contribution to the Institute's work. After leaving the Institute, she kindly agreed to write a paper on developments in former Yugoslavia. We are glad to publish this essay which, in a stimulating and original way, raises a number of important questions on the lessons to be learnt from the developments in former Yugoslavia and Western policy reactions.

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