EC Report on Balkans

EU policy has been to encourage the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia – and Turkey to join the 27-nation EU for nearly a decade. The promise of joining the bloc, the thinking goes, will motivate leaders in the fractious region to reform their countries and become more stable.

The annual progress reports from the European Commission (EC) presented a mixed bag. The EC recommended that Croatia complete its entry negotiations as soon as next year, which could mean Croatia could become a full member in 2011 or 2012. The EC also said that it should open talks aimed at welcoming Macedonia as a member, on account of the country’s “convincing progress” on police reform, corruption and human rights.

Other countries have not made the same progress, and will have to wait years before moving forward on the road to EU membership, the reports said.

Turkey began its membership talks at the same time as Croatia, but has stalled on freedom of expression and reforming anti-torture laws. Albania needs to strengthen its judiciary, and fight corruption, organized crime, drug trafficking and money laundering. Montenegro needs to show results on the rule of law, particularly judicial reform and fighting corruption. Serbia needs to turn over fugitive war crimes suspects. Kosovo’s to-do list includes the rule of law, fighting corruption and organized crime, building up its institutions and protecting minorities. BiH’s ethnically based political infighting has left very few reforms have been passed; the EC urged the country to reform its constitution without further delay.

Overall, said Europe’s enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, the rule of law – particularly fighting corruption and organized crime – remains a problem that would-be EU members should address at the early stage. “Plenty of reform work is going to address the problem,” he said, adding that the Commission would help countries through the enlargement process. Rehn also said that the EU’s “soft power” is driving reform in the region.

Others are skeptical. An editorial in The European Voice, a weekly published by The Economist Group, noted that the promise of joining the EU hadn’t kept a “venal class of parochial leaders” in BiH from using ethnic fears to stay in power or from moving to throw out international anti-corruption judges.

-- Beth Kampschror