BENEFITS OF THE EURO-ATLANTIC INTEGRATION FOR THE BALKAN COUNTRIES - COMPARATIVE EXPERIENCES OF MONTENEGRO AND NORTH MACEDONIA

Following the end of the confrontation between the former Military Blocs and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, after four decades of existence, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) lost its ideological, political and military opponent. Initial expectations were that in such a global constellation of relations NATO would lose its sense of existence. However, as previously when Alliance faced with numerous challenges maintaining internal cohesion, from this situation came up with even stronger strategic concept, focusing on its own transformation, redefinition of its role and expanding the tasks, primarily on development of new partnerships and preventive actions in unstable and crisis areas. NATO established a new policy, relations, and an open dialogue with the former opponents. The Partnership for Peace (PfP) was created as a program aimed at cooperation and confidence building between the NATO members and other South Eastern European and former USSR countries, while countries that came after the collapse of the former Yugoslavia began their Euro-Atlantic integration processes after the end of the military conflicts in the late 1990s. Both countries that will be comparatively covered by this research are successors of the former Yugoslavia. They have had different paths and processes of independence and transition, and also their Euro-Atlantic integration processes have begun different and faced different challenges. The Republic of North Macedonia brought the decision for NATO membership in 1993, and in 1995 it joined the Partnership for Peace Program. On the other hand, Montenegro began its processes much later, after it became independent in 2006, and became a full-fledged NATO member on June 5th 2017. The Republic of North Macedonia faced a veto by a permanent NATO member over the widely known name issue and unfortunately did 46 not join NATO together with Albania and Croatia in 2009. After that, the long path to the full membership is seen to be accomplished at the beginning of 2020. Through the topic of this research by comparative method will broadly analyze all circumstances of the integration processes for both countries, while research questions will be directed to the already visible and expected benefits of euro-atlantic integrations. The particular research attention of this paper will be paid on the military and defense benefits as well as to other consecutive benefits, such as improvement of the overall security of the both countries and the region, strengthening the rule of law, economy, businesses, investments, tourism etc. Keywords: Euro-Atlantic integration, security, partnership, cooperation, benefits, stability