In a piece about the EU’s stalled Balkan enlargement in The Strategist, published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, former High Representative Carl Bildt writes that “the international community has deemed Bosnia to be so politically dysfunctional as to warrant a new high representative with wide-ranging powers (I was the first to hold such an office, serving from 1995 to 1997), effectively derailing the country’s EU-accession agenda.”
With the prospect of Balkan integration in the EU fading, Bildt writes:
political leaders must accept reality and start mapping out realistic interim steps that could improve conditions in the region without abandoning the final goal.
A good starting point is the Open Balkan initiative, which was designed to increase trade between Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia. But it’s not enough. The EU should take the lead by proposing a new arrangement, one that includes an offer of membership in its customs union and single market.
Read more here.
