Good morning! Dritan dismissed Rasko, but today I will not talk about daily politics, but about a more important and inexhaustible topic – the European Union. Are we to going to join it or not?
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Montenegro’s European dream
I am in Sarajevo at a regional gathering aimed at creating a Balkan support network for Ukraine. Yesterday we talked about EU accession and exchanged experiences on that topic, and that’s why I thought it would be good to take a serious look at this topic once again.
Ukraine is a country that paid dearly and with blood for its desire to join the European Union. Many people today do not remember that all this chaos with Russia started in 2013 and 2014 on the Maidan (Euromaidan), when Yanukovych, under pressure from Russia, refused to sign the Association Agreement with the EU, which had already been adopted by the Verkhovna Rada. Everything that followed after that was a consequence of Ukraine’s desire to become part of the European “family of nations”. Russia intervened, tried to suppress the protests by supporting the repressive apparatus of Ukraine. When that didn’t work, as in the case of Belarus and Kazakhstan recently, they occupied Crimea and part of Donbass. The rest is history.
After the government was replaced and after the agreement was signed, Ukraine experienced disappointment after disappointment from the EU, like the one when Juncker said in 2016 that it would become a member maybe in 20-25 years, but despite all that, it did not stop to believe in the European dream. Its officials claimed that it would happen much earlier. After the beginning of the invasion in February, Zelensky thought that it was possible to become a member under a “special procedure” due to extraordinary circumstances, thus raising the hopes of the Ukrainians, but another cold shower followed from Brussels: candidate status yes, membership only when the conditions are met.
It was painful to watch the enthusiasm of Ukrainians from the Balkan perspective, and I can only assume what it was like for Ukrainians who were familiar with the accession process, and who watched what was happening with Macedonia, for example. And we in the Western Balkans behave like the Ukrainians, who do not want to take “no” for an answer, and insist on membership in the EU, although for a long time we have been receiving clear messages from the officials of the member states that enlargement is not their priority.
Tomorrow, the leaders of European countries are gathering in Prague to think together about the “European political community” initiative of French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron has been quite frank in the last couple of years about the prospects of EU enlargement, and said that the process from gaining candidacy to membership can take from several years to several decades as in the case of Turkey (candidate status in 1999) or Montenegro (candidate status in 2012). In order to ignore these problems, he proposed the formation of the EPZ, a rather nebulous concept, which would provide the countries waiting for membership with some of the benefits of full membership, while at the same time enabling the synchronization of the foreign and defense policies of the countries of the wider European area.
Although a sincere and well-intentioned move at first glance, to me this seems like an avoidance of responsibility and another attempt to procrastinate, because there have been similar initiatives before. It’s good that we heard loud and clear that from the perspective of the EU, enlargement is not a priority, we should have realized that a long time ago. That is why the question for us is how we will replace the transformative role that the EU had for the Western Balkans. In other words, what will motivate us now, when accession is out of the question, to continue with the reform agenda.
Because, as you can see, the EU is no longer an authority for anyone. Vucic does not announce sanctions against Russia, Dritan throws all EU obligations under the feet of SPC demands, in Serbia support for membership is lower than 50%. Are we, as societies in the Western Balkans, mature enough to understand that we will not be in the EU, and that we should reform and develop regardless of that fact? Are we mature enough to speak the truth in the eyes of European powers, to tell them to stop fooling us and that, if they want to help, continue to help civil society and infrastructure, which is also in their interest, and above all to stop pretending to be moral authorities, because they are no longer. Especially not with this kind of Hungarian and Italian government.
We are not anyone’s messy yard, nor are we some natives who are invited to Brussels to have fun at the Balkan Traffic Festival. Balkan societies are mature enough to deal with themselves, the only thing that matters is the will to do it. By taking care of ourselves, getting rid of corrupt leaders and corrupt habits, and putting our affairs in order for our own sake, we are bringing the EU leadership to a fait accompli. Then, when we sort ourselves out, then we will have the right and confidence to tell the European elite in their face everything we think about their hypocrisy. As long as we are trapped in the vortex of corruption and poverty, it will be difficult for us to demand that they fulfil their contractual obligations to us.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst
