The Western Balkans:between stabilisation and integration in the European Union 14 pages, pdf  Download Back

The Western Balkans:between stabilisation and integration in the European Union

Publisher: Foundation Robert Schuman

Volume: 14 pages, pdf

Description:

On 23rd June 1993 in Copenhagen, whilst the European Council defined the accession criteria to the European Union for the candidate countries of Central Europe, war was raging in Yugoslavia and the siege of Sarajevo challenged Europe. The irony of history with the fall of the wall of Berlin, was Yugoslavia, which might have pretended to a rapid rapprochement with the Union and whose cooperation agreement had already entered into force in 1983. But unlike Central Europe, “nationalism, the supreme stage of communism”, in the words of Adam Michnik, destroyed Yugoslavian federalism and consumed what we would soon call the Western Balkans. Ten years later, on 16th April 2003 in Athens, eight postcommunist countries, as well as Cyprus and Malta, signed their accession treaty to the European Union and on 1st May 2004, they became members. This fifth enlargement was the Union’s response to the end of the division of Europe and the potential dangers of this.