Balkans

The Three Seas Initiative (TSI) was established in 2015 as a forum for political and economic dialogue that gathers together 12 EU countries in Central and Eastern Europe (from the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas), with a focus on energy and infrastructure. Cooperation under the Three Seas was intended to be an additional format for regional discussion and coordination covering all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe that are EU members. As such, it was supposed to complement, not replace, other formats, such as cooperation within the Visegrad Group.

There is little doubt that 2019 was a lost year for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU integration. Although in the last months some major events did occur both at the macro-regional and state-wide levels, only low expectations of progress can be foreseen in the immediate future.

“We have to deliver and keep our promises”, the new President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen made clear in talking to Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic at the launch of his country’s first presidency of the Council of the European Union. Her reference is to the summit in Thessaloniki of 2003, when the EU committed to enlargement to the Balkan region. In the meanwhile, much has changed, even the name of the region. Since 2013, when Croatia entered the Union, the Balkans became “Western”.

In 2020 the European Union (EU) and the Western Balkans (WB) have a new chance to address low levels of mutual engagement and grow closer together. Considering the shared problems and interests of the EU and the region, a deeper engagement is paramount. The pervasive effect of the issues at stake – from climate change and air pollution to economic opportunities and security challenges – makes the discussion about possible benefits of the region’s EU accession a matter of absolute necessity.

We are entering a new year and a new decade with more unknowns about the EU’s expansion to the Western Balkans, despite or because of the significant events in the last quarter of 2019. The key challenges for the region remain the hesitant EU stance about expansion in their direction, and an unresolved crisis between Belgrade and Pristina, reflected in a stalled EU-led dialogue.

For Croatia, 2020 is the year of Europe. For the first time since it joined the EU in 2013, the youngest member state assumes the six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union. It is pretty much a formality, but the Croatian government seems to be taking it very seriously. The reasons are different and range from the personal interests of Prime Minister Andrej Plenković in foreign and European policy to Croatia's ambitions to join the Schengen area as soon as possible. The year will also be marked by electoral events.

Is the promise made from Thessaloniki about the European perspective of the Western Balkans region lost? Is it worth it to accept painful compromises, as North Macedonia did, if EU membership is no longer an option? These are just some of the questions which have been going through minds of Balkan leaders after the French president, Emmanuel Macron, signalled a red light for opening negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania. Other member states, especially Germany, and most European officials, labelled Macron’s decision a “historic mistake”.

The beginning of the Syrian armed conflict marked the start of an unprecedented outflow of foreign fighters from the Western Balkans to the Middle East. As of the end of 2019, about 1,070 nationals of Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, and Montenegro^[1] had traveled to Syria and Iraq. Although arguably motivated by a variety of reasons^[2], most of them ended up joining jihadist militias and designated terrorist organizations like the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat al-Nusra.