One of the big selling points of the European Union as a political project is the transformational impact membership can have for a state taken into the fold. Ireland has long been the poster child of this story, developing from a poor, isolated island on the periphery of Europe whose young people could not wait to leave to an open, liberal society with a strong economy.
The deal is that candidate countries have to follow through on reforms, tackle corruption and line themselves up with existing EU laws and regulations. The last member state in the door was Croatia in 2013.
The problem over the decade since then is those inside the club have shown little appetite to let anyone else in. In the western Balkans this has led to fatigue and disillusionment with what is a long journey to EU membership at the best of times.
The leaders of Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina were in Brussels on Wednesday for a summit with the leaders of the 27 member states. The get-together was an attempt to give some new momentum to relations between the region and the EU.
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Of the Balkan states Montenegro is seen as the best placed to become the 28th member state. The pro-EU government there hopes it can get over the line before the end of this decade.
The picture elsewhere is not as positive. Macedonia’s bid to start EU membership talks was held up for years over a dispute with Greece, which claimed the country’s name implied a territorial claim over a Greek province of the same name. So the country changed its name to the Republic of North Macedonia.
Then Bulgaria opposed its accession progress unless its constitution was changed to recognise a Bulgarian minority. After all of these delays a new nationalist government in North Macedonia has now taken a hard line against concessions to further its EU aspirations.
Internal politics within the bloc also held up movement for years. France previously slow walked talk of enlargement, arguing internal reforms of the EU were needed first to accommodate more people coming into the tent.
The concern is that decision-making is already a strained process as each member state gets a veto on foreign affairs and tax policy. This has allowed far-right Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban to stymie the other 26 members from taking crucial decisions as a means of gaining leverage elsewhere.
Any attempt to scrap veto powers would spook smaller states, fearing their interests could be trampled down the line. In the past Ireland’s veto has allowed it to rebuff reforms that might threaten its low corporate tax rate, to the annoyance of others.
As a region the western Balkans is still defined by tensions between ethnic Serbs, Croats and Albanians, with populations bearing the scars of the brutal conflicts that took place around the break-up of Yugoslavia.
Serbia does not recognise the independence of Kosovo, its former province in the Yugoslav-era. Some 2½ decades after the war between Slobodan Milosevic’s Serb forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army, the governments in Belgrade and Pristina have yet to normalise relations. Their EU prospects have been put on ice until they do.
“The enlargement policy towards the western Balkans was stagnant for many years,” says Berta López Domènech, an analyst with the European Policy Centre think tank.
While European politicians were leaving the Balkan states on the long finger, Russia was busy growing its influence in the region. Many Serbs felt much closer to Russia, partly due to propaganda undermining the EU and playing up the notion of a Slavic bond, she said. “Russia is exploiting this narrative of the Serbs having been undermined or not taken care of by the West,” López Domènech says.
“The EU tended to think that without doing anything it would continue to be attractive. To some extent it’s true, but then it’s also true that without doing anything the void that is left by the EU is being filled by other countries.”
It was the Russian invasion of Ukraine that restarted serious debate about enlargement. Political capital has been put behind Ukraine working towards EU membership, with EU insisting its future lies inside the union.
The western Balkans need a sign that it will pay off to stick with reforms, López Domènech says. Taking in Montenegro – as long as it followed through on promised reforms – would have no impact on the EU budget, given it has a population of about 600,000 people. The state is the “front-runner in the enlargement process”, according to one high-ranking EU official.
Albania is another state making good progress, with ambitions to be ready to join the EU in the next few years.
Montenegro clearing the seemingly ever-rising hurdles to join the EU would send a clear signal the bloc is serious about welcoming new members again. If everyone is still in the waiting room at the end of the decade they might not hang around much longer.