EU member states and enlargement towards the Balkans. EPC ISSUE PAPER No. 79, July 2015

From the Executive Summary. The European Union’s enlargement to the Balkans seems to be running on autopilot since Croatia’s accession in 2013 and amidst the on-going crisis. While the region still has a clear European perspective, progress on the dossier has been marred not just by outstanding challenges in individual Balkan countries but often also by hurdles which develop within the Union – more specifically in the member states. While the EU’s internal procedures for handling enlargement have always been intergovernmental in nature, the frequency of incursions and opportunities for the member states to interfere and derail the process has increased over the past years, suggesting a so-called ‘nationalisation’ of enlargement. In 17 case studies and two theoretical chapters, this Issue Paper investigates whether the dossier has shifted more under the control of the member states, and looks at the kind of considerations and potential ‘roadblocks’ that influence the positions of key national actors on enlargement.

Russia in the Balkans: How should the EU respond? EPC Policy Brief, 12 October 2015

On 3 September 2015, Russia's 7th Guards Airborne-Assault (Mountain) Division kicked off an exercise near the Black Sea city of Novorossiysk, some 150 km southeast of the annexed Crimean peninsula. The timing was chosen carefully. 'Swift Response', a large-scale drill run by NATO alongside the coastline of Romania and Bulgaria, along with other European locations, had concluded several days earlier. Codenamed 'Slavic Brotherhood', the war games at Novorossiysk involved Belarusian Special Forces and, strikingly, paratroopers from Serbia. Here was a country negotiating its accession to the EU and a recent signatory of a cooperation deal with NATO that was siding with the self-declared competitor of the West.

Is the EU turning a blind eye to the 'new strongmen' of the Balkans? CEPS Commentary, 11 July 2016

"We are working on a daily basis with each and every one, to make steps towards the European integration of the Western Balkans." High Representative/Vice President Federica Mogherini Western Balkans Summit, Paris, 4 July 2016

La péninsule des Balkans.

Mode of access: Internet.

The Balkans, Italy and the Adriatic,

Bibliography: p. 77-79.

Russia, the Balkans and the Dardanelles,

Mode of access: Internet.

The Balkans: a selected list of references.

Photocopy.

Pawns of liberty; a story of fighting yesterdays in the Balkans,

Mode of access: Internet.

The nomads of the Balkans, an account of life and customs among the Vlachs of Northern Pindus,

"Vocabulary": p. [305]-324.

Le mouvement agraire dans la péninsule des Balkans : l'Angleterre et ses colonies; la plaine saxonne; les Êtats-Unis; la Hongrie; l'église et la propriété.

Mode of access: Internet.

Les États chrétiens des Balkans depuis 1815,

Mode of access: Internet.

War's aftermath; a preliminary study of the eugenics of war as illustrated by the civil war of the United States and the late wars in the Balkans,

"An introduction dealing with the outbreak of the general European war and an additional chapter on Macedonia, both written by Dr. David Starr Jordan while this book was in press, will be found in the succeeding pages."--Prefatory note.

La guerre des Balkans:élites nationales et discours transnationaux dans la française, allemande et britannique

Cet article repose sur une étude de la presse de lEstablishment en France, en Allemagne et au Royaume-Uni, au cours de la guerre des Balkans en 1999. Les sources sont la Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde et le Financial Times. Lobjectif est de voir en quoi la manière de rapporter les événements révèle des priorités politiques des diverses élites qui lisent ces journaux, ainsi que de leur perception de lordre international. Le résultat des travaux indique lexistence dun certain degré de synchronisation dans la façon dont la presse a concentré lattention de lopinion publique ; il indique aussi quil existe des différences sensibles entre ces journaux français, allemand et britannique, en termes de contenu et de perspectives. Malgré lexistence dun discours transnational, la sphère publique européenne demeure fragmentée. This article is based on a study of the press in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, during the Balkans war in 1999. The sources are the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Le Monde and the Financial Times. The objectve is to see how report events reveal the priorities of the various political elites who read these newspapers, as well as their perception of international lordre. The outcome of the study indicates some degree of synchronization in the way the press has focused mindfulness of public opinion and that it also indicates there are significant differences between the French newspapers, German and British, in terms of content and perspectives. Despite the existence of a transnational speech, the European public sphere remains fragmented.

War crimes, conditionality and EU integration in the Western Balkans

The baleful legacy of the wars of the 1990s continues to dog the states and societies of the former Yugoslavia and has overshadowed the disappointingly slow and hesitant trajectory of the region towards the EU. At the start of the new millennium, with the removal of key wartime leaders from the political scene in both Croatia and Serbia, it was widely hoped that the region would prove able to ‘leave the past behind’ and rapidly move on to the hopeful new agenda of EU integration. The EU’s Copenhagen criteria, which in 1993 first explicitly set out the basic political conditions expected of aspirant EU Member States, proved effective in the case of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe in supporting the entrenchment of democratic norms and practices, and stimulating reconciliation and good neighbourly relations among countries with turbulent histories. Building on this experience, the Stabilisation and Association Process, launched for the countries of the Western Balkans in 1999, included both full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and regional reconciliation among the political conditions set for advancing these countries on the path to EU integration. EU political conditionality was intended to support the efforts of new political leaders to redefine national goals away from the nationalist enmities of the past and focus firmly on forging a path to a better future. This Chaillot Paper examines the extent to which this strategy has worked, especially in the light of the difficulties it has encountered in the face of strong resistance to cooperation among sections of the former Yugoslav population, many of whom have not yet fully acknowledged the crimes committed during the 1990s. Key chapters in the volume raise the vital questions of leadership and political will. EU political conditionality does not work unless the EU has a partner ready and willing to ‘play the game’, which presupposes that EU integration has become the overriding priority on the national political agenda.

Ethnic conflict and war crimes in the Balkans:the narratives of denial in post-conflict Serbia

In the years following the fall of Slobodan Milo evic, Serbian social, cultural and political responses to the wars of the 1990s have fallen under intense international scrutiny. But is this scrutiny justfied, and how can these responses be better understood? Jelena Obradovic engages with ideas about post-conflict societies, memory, cultural trauma, and national myths of victimhood and justified war to shed light upon Serbian denial and justification of war crimes - for example, Serbia's reluctant cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Rather than treating denial as a failure to come to terms with the past or as resurgent nationalism, Obradovic argues that the justification of atrocities are often the result of a societal need to understand and incorporate violent events within culturally acceptable boundaries.