The most recent European Council meeting offered the public gaze a highly contrasting spectacle. On the one hand, an EU-Western Balkans summit, which was almost boycotted by the leaders of Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania; on the other, a meeting of the Twenty-Seven which resulted in great news for Ukraine and Moldova, possibly even Georgia. One morning featuring four hours of talking tough with the six Balkans representatives, followed by a completely consensual afternoon on the decision to award European Union accession candidate country status to two states of the East. The cancellation of the press conference of the heads of the EU institution following the first session and a media firework display after the second. The disappointment and sadness in one camp, euphoria and jubilation in the other. Over here, vagueness and let’s-wait-and-see-how-it-goes; over there, decisiveness and an “historic” and “strong” decision (see EUROPE 12978/1).
And yet, both camps were flying the banner of the same European Union policy, enlargement – as if under the influence of a kind of fatal schizophrenia, made up of equal parts of reasonable haste and unreasonable hold-ups.
Allow me to sum up the situation. Against the backdrop of the current war, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia were unquestionably right to apply for membership. Within the EU, only the Baltic states and those from Central and Eastern Europe, with the exception of Hungary, were initially in favour. In his highly original and effective communication, President Zelenskyy embarked on a campaign of persuasion. Kiyv answered all the Commission’s questions in the space of one month. Italy was the first of the large Western EU states to give Ukraine its blessing, insinuating that all the rest were against. Germany and, finally, France then followed suit. The political narrative took a romantic twist on 16 June, when a secret team made up of President Macron, Chancellor Scholz and the president of the Italian council, Mario Draghi, took the night train to Kiyv, where they furnished Zelenskyy with assurances. The next day, the European Commission recommended “yes” (see EUROPE 12974/1). It was cut and dried: who, at that point, would dare say no?
In addition to the usual criteria, the suffering of the people concerned was implicitly taken into account: this was a first.
On 23 June, the European Council therefore unanimously made the right decision at the right time, albeit one that had the immediate effect of increasing Russia’s destructive rage: Severodonetsk was taken, Kiyv and North and West Ukraine were bombarded and the imminent supply of nuclear missiles to Belarus was announced. More than ever, Ukraine needs weapons and EU candidate status has nothing to do with the sinews of war. The war will be long and the road to EU membership probably more so. Certainly, this is something the Balkans can confirm.
Serbia gained candidate status in March 2012, less than three years after it submitted its application. Negotiations kicked off in 2014. There have been 13 meetings of the accession conference, the most recent in December 2021; 22 chapters out of 35 have been opened, but just two closed. Serbia’s overly close relationship with Russia (the country has failed to condemn the invasion of Ukraine) and its unresolved dispute with Kosovo undoubtedly do it no favours.
More surprising is the leisurely pace of the process for Montenegro, which obtained candidate status in 2010 and with which negotiations began on 29 June 2012, almost exactly 10 years ago. The conference met for the last time in 2020; 33 chapters have been opened, but not a single one has been closed. The Commission’s most recent report talks of progress in the various required areas, but political life is extremely polarised and the players do not seem to be up to the game. In a recent resolution (see EUROPE 12978/6), the European Parliament expressed its concerns over the functioning of parliamentary democracy, disinformation campaigns and cybernetic threats, principally from Russia and China. Incidentally, Montenegro has taken the EU political line on Russia (including sanctions) and has already adopted the euro as its currency.
Both of these countries get the feeling that their accession has been blocked and the one thing they hoped for from the meeting of 23 June was a timetable, a horizon to work towards.
As for Bosnia & Herzegovina, it applied to join the European Union in 2016, but it hoped, like Ukraine and Moldova, to be given candidate status. Although undermined by internal dissensions, which Moscow may or may not have had a hand in, political agreement was concluded between the leaders of the country on 12 June, which was welcomed by the European Council, calling upon them to “urgently finalise the constitutional and electoral reform” (see EUROPE 12970/17). The institution goes on to stress that it is ready to grant the status of candidate country, on the basis of an anticipated Commission report.
Meanwhile, Kosovo, which is still not recognised by five member states of the EU, is going to have to be patient a little longer.
North Macedonia and Albania, which have long held candidate country status, have been waiting for accession negotiations to open for four years. This column gave a description of their situation on 16 June (see EUROPE 12972/1). At the EU-Western Balkans summit, despite the efforts of the French Presidency of the Council of the EU, Bulgaria was still blocking the opening of negotiation talks for North Macedonia. Albania’s fate in accession matters is tied to that of North Macedonia, Prime Minister Edi Rama having been denied his request for the two dossiers to be treated separately, yet he was not in the least bitter about it after the meeting (see EUROPE 12978/2). Just to make matters even more complicated, the Bulgarian Prime Minister had been toppled the day before in a vote of no-confidence.
There were theatricals on 24 June: the Bulgarian parliament voted by a sizeable majority to lift the veto, a move that was welcomed by the European Council (see EUROPE 12979/7). Even so, it is doubtful whether the text adopted will win over the Skopje authorities: it requires their Constitution to be amended to include Bulgarians on their list of recognised ethnic groups and, in particular, it insists that “nothing in the EU accession process of North Macedonia can be interpreted as recognition by Bulgaria of the existence of a ‘Macedonian language’” – which was not terribly gracious. A new round of last-chance negotiations is underway.
This veto was described by Josep Borrell as a “gift to Russia” (Euractiv, 17 May 2022). In any event, the affair will have demonstrated that a single country of 6.5 million inhabitants (out of the 447 million who make up the EU) was able to bar the door to two legitimate Balkans candidates for more than 20 months.
All in all, it is not surprising that the European leaders are perpetually less popular with the people of the Balkans than with the Ukrainians or Moldovans, even though the former can claim a certain seniority in the race for EU membership. There’s something not quite right about that.
Renaud Denuit.