One little-noticed side effect of the Greek debt crisis is that it is playing into the hands of those who oppose faster progress on enlarging the European Union. Western Balkan countries such as Albania, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia are queuing up at the EU’s door, but only Croatia has any chance of membership in the next three years.
Among the reasons is that Greece, the first Balkan state to enter the EU (in 1981), has been exposed as a country that not only ran ruinous and reckless fiscal policies for many years, but deceived its partners with false data in order to join the eurozone at the start of this decade. Rightly or wrongly, some policymakers in EU national capitals argue that this unhappy experience demonstrates that, when it comes to public probity, Balkan states are just not to be trusted.
They point to the fact that corruption, organised crime and judicial inefficiency remain serious problems in Bulgaria and Romania, two other Balkan countries, which entered the EU in 2007. Croatia, too, has difficulties in these areas - one reason why Zagreb’s membership negotiations are taking longer than once expected. (I would caution, however, against underestimating the strength of feeling in some western European countries about the need for Croatia to co-operate fully with United Nations war crimes investigators.)
One small step in the direction of EU enlargement may be taken next week. The Dutch government is signalling that it may lift its objections to ratification of a EU pre-accession agreement for Serbia. As with Croatia’s entry talks, the problem with Serbia has been its co-operation with the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague and, in particular, its inability or reluctance to arrest Ratko Mladic, the fugitive Bosnian Serb military commander.
But even the Dutch move, welcome as it would be, would not really accelerate Serbia’s entry into the EU. It is not yet even an official membership candidate. Macedonia, by contrast, is an official candidate but cannot start its negotiations because Greece is blocking them over the infamous name dispute (“Should Macedonia be allowed to call itself Macedonia?”).
I recall that last August Valentin Inzko, the Austrian diplomat who serves as the international community’s high representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, said it would be a nice idea if the Balkan states could join the EU in 2014, on the 100th anniversary of the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian archduke Ferdinand – the event that sparked World War One.
Less than a year later, Inzko seems to think 2018 – the 100th anniversary of the war’s end - might be a more realistic date. True … but how will the EU rid itself of its “Balkan enlargement fatigue” in the meantime?
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