EU enlargement in the Western Balkans: strategies of borrowing and inventing

Abstract

At the turn of more than a decade of violent and rather uncertain transitions to democracy, the EU has envisaged a new vision for the Balkans - stable, self-sufficient democracies, at peace with themselves and each other, with market economies and the rule of law, and which will be either members of the EU or in the road to membership. The ambitious project builds on a new strategy, the so-called Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP), which for the first time comprises the perspective of European membership and outlines the tools of achieving that for all the countries in the region. The SAP has, thus, created high expectations for change, which are further nourished by the strong assumptions on the EU transformative power in the last wave of enlargement. Still, enlargement in the Western Balkans (WB) lacks both comparative analysis and depth of research, when compared to the bourgeoning literature on Central and East European Countries (CEEC). This article questions whether the SAP justifies the strong assumptions on the EU transformative power in the region. The article suggests that although the EU policies have advanced to embrace the promise of membership and outline the accession stages for all the Balkan countries, the loaded agenda of both stabilization and association coupled with a weaker promise of membership can arguably erode the power of enlargement conditionality in the region.