Proceedings of The 6th International Academic Conference on Humanities and Social Sciences
Year: 2021
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/6th.iachss.2021.11.10
Integration of Western Balkans towards EU
Dr.Erjola Xhuvani, Dr.Edit Kane
ABSTRACT:
In 2003 the EU declared that “the future of the Balkans is within the European Union”. Initially it adopted a generous strategy that liked the timetable for accession to the pace of reform in the Western Balkans. Accession is now explicitly dependent on factors outside the control of candidate and potential members. There is a mutual interest of EU member states and the Western Balkans to implement reforms and to form a framework for long‐term stability which can counteract these negative trends. The EU offered a European perspective for these countries, which proved to be an essential part of the long‐term, democratic state‐building process. Recently EU faced the Brexit phenomenon of UK which effected several sectors such as finance, economy and defense. European Union fatigue from its recent enlargement and Brexit of UK slows down the integration process of Western Balkan countries.
To give a detailed view of this process, challenges and obligations that should be faced during this long road, I drafted the article on the integration of WB towards EU.
I will point out the reasons why the Europe was doubtful about Western Balkan EU membership, the willingness and the positive results of WB with regard to EU membership. Based on these outcomes I will explain why the EU decided to develop its enlargement policy towards the Western Balkans. The aim of this article is to introduce to the reader the mutual reasons of cooperation between the WB countries and the European Union.
keywords: Integration of Western Balkans, European policies, European Union, EU enlargement, potential candidate countries.