Emergence of Regional Leader in the Western Balkans - The case of Serbia and the implications for Macedonia
Publisher: Analytica, Macedonia
Date: March 2011
Volume: 16 pages, pdf
Description
Serbia has always been an interesting case for analysis when dealing with the Western Balkans’ political, economical and cultural relations. Serbia’s central location in the Balkan Peninsula and its big territory (slightly bigger than Bulgaria), give her a significant importance in the geo-politics of Europe and wider. The EU recognized the positive change in Serbia and its foreign policy, and did not wait for the country to push itself towards the reformation path. Macedonia cannot fight the facts, mentioned previously, concerning the size and importance of its neighbor. Furthermore one must remember that the EU is first and foremost a peace project, and the idea is to expand this project to the WB as well, so the former enemies can grow into strong allies. Macedonia needs to be actively engaged in this, as it will solve its security dilemma (that all its neighbors want a piece of it). This means that Macedonia will sit at the table with them and from that point on for every issue they will have to talk instead of fight. Serbia seems to be carefully accepting this approach, having a vision that once a member of the EU its position and arguments will be valued much higher and its possibility to influence the agenda setting in the region would be far bigger than it is at the moment.