Balkans Countries' Interest in EU Membership
Video Transcript:
The two largest economies in the former Yugoslavia, Serbia and Croatia, have reached a key stage in their journey to the European Union. On June 25, the foreign affair ministers of the EU agreed to open formal accession talks with Serbia, while Croatia will join the European Union on July 1. This marks a turning point in the history of two countries that less than two decades ago were sunk in deep ethnic and political conflicts.
Access to the European Union is a prime target for Belgrade and Zagreb. The organization is seen by both countries as a way to incorporate their economies to the West, attract investment and increase trade. Access to the EU also means the arrival of more financial support from Brussels. Croatia's accession and the progress of negotiations with Serbia is also a political victory for Brussels, because it shows that there are still countries that want to join the EU. The EU believes that its expansion in the former Yugoslavia will help to pacify the region and overcome the conflicts that marked the 1990s.
But both the EU and the new members could be disappointed. The European Union is no longer the promise of economic prosperity that it was a decade ago. Serbia and Croatia saw their exports affected by the crisis and their unemployment rates have steadily increased in recent years. The crisis is deepening the political divides among member states, and the EU is struggling to act as a cohesive and unitary force.
Moreover, many European governments are wary of the presence of organized crime and high levels of political corruption in Croatia and Serbia. Several member states, including France and the United Kingdom, announced that they will apply restrictions to the arrival of Croatian workers, and Croatia is unlikely to join the Schengen area in the short term. Additionally, the German government considers that the progress of EU negotiations with Serbia depends on the implementation of recent agreements with Kosovo. Negotiations will likely begin early next year, and Berlin will threaten with slowing Serbia's EU accession to ensure that Belgrade and Pristina demonstrate real progress in the normalization of their relations.
At the same time, the new members of the European Union probably will struggle to compete in the new economic environment. Croatian industrialists fear that EU accession will bring a flood of European products into the tiny Balkan economy. Both Croatia and Serbia will be under pressure from Brussels to implement structural reforms in their economies, which are likely to be painful and unpopular in the short term.
Croatia's first steps in the EU and the evolution of the negotiations with Serbia will be watched closely in the region. Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia aspire to join the EU one day, but institutional fragility in these countries is slowing the accession process. For most countries in the region, joining the European Union remains a major foreign policy goal. But as the economic crisis in Europe deepens, the optimism about the beneficial effects of EU membership becomes more moderate.
