Commission adopts multi-annual planning of
financial assistance to the Western Balkans and Turkey

The Commission has completed today the strategic
planning of EU financial support for 2008-2010 to the candidate countries and
potential candidates: Croatia, Turkey, the Former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and
Kosovo^[1].
This financial assistance aims to enhance political and economic reform and
development to realise their European perspective. For 2008-2010, the overall
indicative amount of EU financial assistance under the Instrument for
Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) is €4.471 billion.

- The main tasks of Kosovo's new embassy in Brussels will be to lobby the EU for wider recognition of the country's independence and to raise awareness of Serbia's attempts to sabotage the young state, Kosovo envoy Ilir Dugolli told EUobserver.

"Negotiating the question for more recognition of Kosovo is the absolute priority. In the case of the EU, all the other steps go through this step. You cannot really make much progress in negotiating with the EU unless this hurdle is overcome," Mr Dugolli said. "That for some time will continue to exhaust a considerable part of our energies."

The Balkan country proclaimed independence from Serbia in February and has been recognised by 21 out of 27 EU members, with Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Portugal, Spain and Slovakia holding out for now.

The partial recognition means that Kosovo cannot establish formal legal relations with the EU or launch a feasibility study for a future Stabilisation and Association Agreement.

Initially a Polish-Swedish proposal endorsed in June by all member states, the Eastern Partnership is designed to deepen ties with the "European neighbours" to the east, balancing the 'Mediterranean Union' with the southern "neighbours of Europe," as Polish MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski put it.

The Georgian conflict sped up the process of drafting the eastern policy by the European Commission, with president Jose Manuel Barroso scheduled to sketch out the main features already at the EU summit on 15 October.

Serbia vowed Wednesday to press on and implement a European Union trade deal despite anger at a Dutch veto that came even though Belgrade arrested top war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.

Bozidar Djelic, Serbia's deputy prime minister for EU integration, said in an interview with a local newspaper that he was "infuriated" by the Netherlands' refusal to unfreeze the EU trade and aid pact.

EU foreign ministers on Monday failed to convince their Dutch counterpart, Maxime Verhagen, to drop his country's objections to unfreezing the accord despite Belgrade's improved track record on war crimes.

UN chief war crimes prosecutor Serge Brammertz had told the EU ministers there was "very clear progress" in Serbia's cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

If the Lisbon treaty does not come into force in 2009, that will affect the composition of both the European Parliament and the European Commission next year.

Both would have to be conducted under the EU's current set of rules, the Nice treaty, which would mean that there would be 785 instead of 751 seats, as foreseen in the Lisbon treaty, in the parliament.

But it would also reduce the number of commissioners in the next commission - to be nominated by November 2009 - as under Nice, the number should be "less than the number of member states."

EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday (15 September) failed to unfreeze the trade related part of a pre-accession deal with Serbia, following the Netherlands' opposition.

"There is a very, very big majority saying that we [EU] should unfreeze [the agreement]. But there is no unanimity," French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, told journalists after the meeting.

Durch den Zerfall Jugoslawiens 1991 und die militärischen Auseinandersetzungen in Folge der Unabhängigkeitserklärung einzelner Staaten rückte der Balkan einmal mehr in den Fokus der Weltöffentlichkeit. Dabei spielten sowohl Kroatien als auch Bosnien-Herzegowina eine elementare Rolle.

Seit der Unterzeichnung des Friedensvertrages von Dayton haben sich beide Staaten jedoch sehr unterschiedlich entwickelt. Somit stehen beide auch auf einer anderen Stufe hinsichtlich ihrer Bestrebungen, der EU beizutreten: Für Kroatien scheint ein Beitritt bald Realität zu werden, Bosnien-Herzegowina hingegen ist noch weit entfernt.

Die Studie geht der Frage nach, wieso sich beide Staaten in so unterschiedlichen Stadien hinsichtlich ihrer Beitrittsperspektiven befinden. Neben einer Analyse und dem Vergleich der Transformationsprozesse werden die von der EU aufgestellten Beitrittskriterien analysiert und hinterfragt. Die Publikation verdeutlicht, dass ein nachhaltiger Frieden auf dem Balkan nur durch eine realistische EU-Perspektive und eine intensive Kooperation der Mitgliedstaaten mit den südosteuropäischen Staaten zu gewährleisten ist.

Political analysts have underlined that the EU was lucky to have a country as big as France at its helm during the Georgia crisis as this tempered the lack of real EU leadership. 

"The EU was lucky France held the EU Presidency, because Russia agreed to engage with Mr. Sarkozy on the ceasefire. But they may not have engaged with the EU if a smaller country such as the Czech Republic were EU president, especially with its difficult bilateral relationship with Moscow as a result of its decision to host US missile defence," said Antonio Missiroli, the director of the European Policy Centre, quoted in The Irish Times. 

Even the Polish President, who in the recent past called the Lisbon Treaty "pointless" and said he would not sign it (EurActiv 01/07/08), spoke a very different language after the summit. 

Asked by EurActiv if he was now more in favour of the Lisbon Treaty, Kaczynski conceded that indeed, several EU leaders had mentioned informally that the Lisbon Treaty would have given the EU better instruments to deal with challenges such as the current Georgia crisis. He then added that Ireland should hold a second referendum. 

Mr Lajcak said the security situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina was currently stable, but stressed that the country is still facing numerous political challenges, the solving of which requires the EU to play a role.

One strategic issue, he underlined, is constitutional reform in Bosnia. There is currently no united approach to such reform, not only domestically, but also within the international community.

"The international community and the EU in particular needs to define what it expects from any agreement" on constitutional reform in Bosnia, he said.

None of the major lobbying firms have registered, and only three think-tanks have done so.

"I do not see yet the big professional public relations consultancies, nor many law firms - only two have registered so far," Ms Rampi noted.

"However, I want to stress the importance of being cautious about the numbers that could be used to measure the 300 figure against," Ms Rampi said.

"The figure often quoted in the media of around 15,000 individual lobbyists is an external estimate, which the commission does not endorse," she added, pointing out that this is an estimate of the number of individuals, whereas the commission's register lists organisations.