Commission urges EU to resume expansion

Member states under pressure to allow at least four western Balkan countries to take the next step towards membership.

The European Commission will next week present its most positive assessment in years of the prospects for expanding the European Union, accompanied by a call for member states to allow at least four western Balkan countries to take the next step towards membership.

A critical assessment of the Turkish government’s violent response to public protests will cast a long shadow over the annual progress reports on would-be members of the EU, which are to be published on Wednesday (16 October). But just as striking will be the Commission’s attempt to inject new energy into the enlargement process in the western Balkans, after years of political blockages. Member states will be asked to allow Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia and, possibly, Bosnia to take the next steps on the road to membership.

Kosovo and Serbia agreed in April on autonomy for ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo, in the biggest breakthrough in relations since their war of 1998-99. Albania, which applied for EU membership in 2009, held the best-conducted elections in its history in June and passed a crucial package of legislation. Bosnia also appears on the cusp of ending an impasse on a constitutional issue that has blocked progress for four years.

“None of these positive developments would have been possible without the prospect of progress towards the EU,” says Stefan Lehne of the think-tank Carnegie Europe. “It is therefore essential that the EU also keeps its part of the bargain.”

In the cases of Albania and Serbia, the EU’s next step would be to launch accession negotiations formally. Kosovo is focused on the lesser target of a stabilisation and association agreement (SAA). A positive report on Bosnia by the Commission could lead, within months, to an SAA signed with the EU in 2008 taking effect.

Sonja Licht of the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence said: “The Balkans is more successful than any other post-conflict region because all these countries share a common dream – to join the European family of people”.

However, the country worst afflicted by the wars of the 1990s – Bosnia – illustrates just how difficult progress remains. Štefan Füle, the European commissioner for enlargement, tried unsuccessfully on 1 October to broker a deal on constitutional changes demanded by the European Court of Human Rights. He is making another attempt today, but, in an indication of the continued challenges, he brought forward the start of talks to yesterday evening (9 October).

With or without a breakthrough on Bosnia, the Commission’s recommendations will test the EU’s member states’ appetite for enlargement. “There is certainly less willingness now in some member states to pursue the enlargement project,” said Hrant Kostanyan of the Centre for European Policy Studies.

Concern about the costs of member states’ reluctance will be evident in the Commission’s report on Macedonia. It will for a fifth time ask for a green light for membership talks with Macedonia, and is likely to indicate that political and ethnic tensions, which flared into violent protests in March, could be aggravated if Greece maintains its veto on accession talks. Macedonia has been a candidate for membership since 2005.

In contrast, the Commission is likely to reduce Turkey’s chances of restarting accession talks with the EU, by not issuing a recommendation. Plans to end a three-year hiatus in negotiations were put on ice after countrywide anti-government protests were crushed. Although Turkey’s government presented wide-ranging reforms on 30 September, officials say the Commission will limit itself to welcoming the measures.

Michael Leigh, a former director-general for enlargement at the Commission, now an adviser to the German Marshall Fund, a think-tank, said the reports showed “not a bad year”. He added: “We’ve seen a real breakthrough on Serbia and Kosovo.”

On Turkey, he said that there was still hope that a fresh round of international talks to settle the dispute over Cyprus, which is to begin this month, “ought to bring Turkey and the EU closer together”.