European Union

Taking advantage of the pro-enlargement Czech EU Presidency, Albania will present its European Union membership application before the end of June, the country's prime minister, Sali Berisha, announced on Sunday (8 March).

Berisha's decision to file an EU membership application is seen in Brussels as a pre-electoral trick. Albania's political class also hopes to benefit from NATO opening its doors to the former communist country at the alliance's summit on 3-4 April. Croatia is expected to join NATO at the same time. 

The economic crisis is putting relations between EU member states under strain and testing the fundamentals of the European Union to an unprecedented extent, UK foreign secretary David Miliband has said. "The sense of solidarity within Europe, between east and west, rich and poor, new and old is under strain," he said in a speech at the London School of Economics on Monday (9 March).

His comments come as there has been increasing talk of divisions between richer western EU nations and some of the poorer nations in the east.

Americans have done it again. Until only yesterday, the Premier of the Serb-dominated Bosnian entity of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik had been threatening Bosnia with his entity’s separation.   It appeared to be almost a done deal, and the only remaining questions were around technicalities – how and when that would be done. Then Dodik met Stuart Jones, the deputy US Assistant Secretary in charge of the Balkans, and out from the meeting stepped a seemingly different man. The “new” Dodik stressed that the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina can be changed only through regular parliamentary procedures and that there are no “adventurers” in Republika Srpska who would attempt anything irrationally. 

In the situation where divisions within European countries and the weakening of their military presence in the Balkans has effectively deprived the OHR of its governing s powers, Jones proved once again that only the Americans have the political clout to halt what until only yesterday appeared to be Bosnia’s inevitable stumble into the abyss.Yet, knowing Bosnia’s decayed political scene, politicians’ radical rhetoric will surely return unless both the US and EU follow up on whatever Jones said to Dodik and the other political leaders he met with during his stay in Bosnia. 

Central and eastern European countries have called for solidarity among member states, as several western states look to national solutions to get themselves out of the current economic crisis. The gathering of nine member states, who all joined the bloc after 2004, also offered their public support to the European Commission to uphold the principles of the internal market and fight against protectionism.

The newer member states have been alarmed by signs that richer member states intend to try and buy their way out of the crisis, an option not open to central and eastern countries. They have been calling for an EU response as a way of avoiding this trend, which could lead to a run towards economic nationalism.

The Wall that represented the geographical and political division of Europe was taken down 20 years ago, bringing euphoric hopes of unity. Yet today there is a new division in Europe - a solidarity gap.

The Russian-Ukrainian dispute became the opening act of the East-West drama that called into question the EU's credibility among its new members. The lack of long-term support on the part of the European Commission for the integration of Europe's gas transmission systems and the initial reluctance of key European leaders such as Sarkozy, Merkel or Berlusconi to enter the fray resulted in a 14-day stalemate for a number of recently-admitted EU members. One immediate result was that previously high levels of support for the union fell by nearly 20% in Bulgaria during the weeks of the crisis. Last week, fresh news of Ukraine firm Naftagoz' inability to pay Gazprom has conjured the spectre of a new gas crisis, raising new fears in EU's East.

Meanwhile, the protectionist statements by French President Nicolas Sarkozy amid the growing financial difficulties of the new member states became an alarming signal for the prospects for their economies. With their banks owned mostly by West European banking institutions and their financial balances highly dependent on foreign direct investment from the established industrial countries, the new member states face the risk of financial turmoil in the months to come.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has given the strongest signal to date that her country may come to the rescue of embattled eurozone economies. "We have shown solidarity and that will remain so. We should use Sunday's summit [in Brussels] for member states affected to give an honest report of their situation," she said on Thursday evening (26 February) at a press conference in Berlin.

Certain conditions are likely to be attached to any support plan offered by Berlin. While Ms Merkel refused to be drawn on the exact nature of financial support, she made it clear that action to tackle excessive budget deficits would be a stipulation for receiving aid. She indicated such action could be carried out under Article 100 of the Maastricht Treaty that allows financial assistance to be given to countries experiencing "difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control." "Of course there is a certain interpretative room to manoeuvre in the stability and growth pact and a country like Ireland that has been hit quite hard by the banking crisis is clearly in a different situation to a country like Slovakia with fewer banks," said Ms Merkel.

Talks between Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor and his Croatian counterpart Ivo Sanader held yesterday (24 February) in the Slovenian town of Mokrice failed to achieve tangible results, media from the two countries reported.  Until there is progress in solving the border dispute, Slovenia will continue to block Croatia's EU accession negotiations, Pahor reportedly said.  The two countries did not even agree on a framework for dealing with the conflict. Slovenia supports EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn's preference for Brussels mediation, while Croatia maintains that the border issue should be solved before an international court. However, that option could take several years, while Zagreb wants to join the Union in 2010. 

During the French EU Presidency, Slovenia blocked the opening of nine out of ten negotiating chapters with Zagreb due to an unresolved border dispute (EurActiv 18/12/08). Diplomats believe serious doubts will surround Croatia's objective of wrapping up accession talks by the end of the year (so as to be ready to join the bloc in 2010) if the bilateral dispute is not resolved soon (see EurActiv LinksDossier on EU-Croatia relations).  The border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia concerns small pockets of land along the Adriatic coast, which could prove important if accompanied by exclusive rights to deep sea zones. Unlike Slovenia, Croatia has a long coastline, prompting Ljubljana to attempt to assert its rights as a "geographically disadvantaged state". 

But enthusiasm for further enlargement was already on the wane before the crisis. Now, the growing resentment over intra-EU labour migration in countries like Britain, Ireland, and Spain is hardly likely to engender support for millions of potential new migrants from Turkey, or the Balkans or for structural adjustment funds to be spent outside of today's EU. As a new paper by the Center for European Reform notes "With Europeans now fearing for their jobs and incomes, opposition to the union taking in more poor countries will most likely rise further."

Unemployment in Croatia jumped to 14.5 percent in January, data showed on Friday, suggesting the global crisis was hurting the small Balkan economy more than officials had previously predicted. Source: ReutersThe number of unemployed rose to 254,000 from 240,455, lifting the jobless rate from 13.7 percent in December and up from a trough of 12.3 percent last August.The national Association of Employers, HUP said this week about 150 people were laid off every day in the European Union candidate country, whose economy is expected to contract this year for the first time in a decade.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Ivo Sanader rejected an emergency package proposed by economists, which called for an urgent cut in public spending, saying the government might rebalance the budget only in the second quarter of the year.Analysts said the delay in implementing spending cuts and reforms would only deepen the crisis and might make it likely the country could turn to the International Monetary Fund for help.

Kosovo Albanians celebrated Feb. 17th  their first year of sc. Independence.  Among normal praising statements and congratulations there was also various definitions of the status of this Serbia's separatist province.  Newest for me was one of which  the former PM Ramush Haradinaj used.  He addressed many criticisms toward the Government - a quote (Koha Ditore, Zëri, Epoka e Re): We are witnesses of the transformation of the state into the private property of the leadership that wants to monopolize everything good that we inherited, our entire history and future, and which has transformed Government into organized corruption. Rude words but given the background also understandable.  Today's PM Thaci and Haradinaj are representing two leading and competing tribes or clans of organized crime in Kosovo.  Both have been accused also e.g. about war crimes, Haradinaj even was in Haague but released when witnesses surprisingly were murdered or threaded to keep their mouth shut. State as private property is quite good description  about how matters stand.  I have earlier described circumstances in Kosovo with  “Quadruple Helix Model” where government, underworld, Wahhabbi schools and international terrorism have win-win symbiosis.  First I was thinking that Kosovo is sliding to be a "failed state" now I am tending to the opinion that a "captured state" is better definition - maybe Kosovo's ex-PM is concluding the same.

Slovenia and Croatia should work on finding a solution to their year-long border dispute if Zagreb's EU membership negotiations are to stand a chance of making progress during an EU-Croatia meeting next month, the EU enlargement commissioner has said. "It is important that in the next accession conference which is planned for March ... [it is possible] to open, maybe close, but at least open a number of chapters, so that the dynamic of the negotiations will be kept on," commissioner Olli Rehn said at a press conference in Brussels on Friday (20 February).

Slovenia and Croatia have been unable to agree on their common land and sea border since they both seceded from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. But a patch of the Adriatic Sea close to the Slovenian city of Piran, which Slovenia says would secure its ships direct access to international waters, is a particularly thorny issue that caused Ljubljana to block the opening or closing of 11 chapters of Croatia's 35-chapter package in December. "It is important that we find a solution that could help solve the border issue and would allow Croatia's EU accession negotiations to continue according to the negotiating framework," Mr Rehn said.

Croatia – an EU candidate since 2004 – is hoping to conclude EU accession talks by the end of this year, so that it can join the bloc by 2011. "Concluding the accession negotiations by the end of this year is a tall order," Mr Rehn told EUobserver. "If we can find a way forward on the border issue, and if Croatia works very intensively on the reforms, then the target date is within reach. But every day increases the risk that the timetable will slip," he warned. The Slovenia–Croatia blockage is the latest in a line of disputes blocking EU candidate countries. But commissioner Rehn denied this being a sign that new – political – criteria are being added during the accession talks with candidate or potential candidate countries.

PODGORICA -- Montenegro's application for EU candidate status has been blocked in the EU Council of Ministers, Podgorica-based daily Vijesti reports on Thursday. This took place before the European Commission even presented its opinion on the country's readiness to gain candidate status. Referring to information published by the EU press agency, Agence Europe, the daily says that several member states within the Enlargement Working Group, above all Holland, Spain, France and Belgium, object to the issue being shifted to the Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER), and then to the Council of Ministers.

Governments and EU officials are struggling to formulate a coherent response to the economic and financial turmoil that has started to engulf the eastern part of the old continent. EurActiv brings a round-up of national situations with contributions from its network.

Despite "fatigue" setting in amongst EU member states as a result of the ongoing economic crisis, the process of enlargement of the bloc should not be neglected, the Czech deputy prime minister, Alexandr Vondra, said on Wednesday (18 February).

But the pace of the process has slowed down in recent months as several other issues, most notably the global financial crisis, attract much of the EU's attention. Additionally, some candidate countries face blockages due to political disputes with individual EU states. The border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia, which provoked Ljubljana to block the opening or closing of 11 chapters from Croatia's EU accession negotiations package in December, is only the most recent such dust-up.

Enlargement is good for you Meanwhile, the European Commission will on Friday publish a detailed report on the benefits of the EU's two latest enlargements - in 2004 and 2007 - taking in a total of 12 member states.

Do the traditional tools of governance make sense in the decidedly nontraditional political entity that is the European Union? Or are the realities of the unique EU system generating new, and sometimes eclectic approaches to policymaking? Responding to these questions, "Innovative Governance in the European Union" explores the emergence and development of governance approaches in a wide range of policy areas.The book's strong conceptual framework coupled with extensive empirical studies allows systematic comparison across EU policy areas. It also sheds light on the politics of policymaking in the context of the incentives and constraints set by the EU's institutional structure. Taken as a whole, it provides a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the forms of governance now emerging in the European Union.It also explores the emergence and development of innovative governance approaches in a wide range of EU policy areas.

An EU mediation group is the only solution to the border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia, Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor has said.

Slovenia and Croatia have been unable to agree on their common land and sea border since they both seceded from the former Yugoslavia in 1991. Particularly thorny is a patch of the Adriatic Sea close to the Slovenian city of Piran that would secure Slovenian ships direct access to international waters. In December, Ljubljana blocked the opening or closing of 11 chapters of Croatia's 35-chapter EU accession negotiations package over the issue.

But the process of Croatia becoming a full EU member is unlikely to be completed before a final solution to the border dispute is found, Slovenia's premier underlined. "If political parties represented in the house [the Slovenian parliament], or the civil society, or everybody else, would have the feeling that things are not going in the right direction, I'm very pessimistic that at the end of the day the house will vote in favour of Croatia's full EU membership if the [border] problem would not be solved," Mr Pahor said. "The best option would be to solve the problem [before]," he added. In addition, Croatia still has open border issues with neighbouring Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia – which also aspire to become EU members in the long term – "and it will be very difficult to find a solution" to these disputes if the one with Ljubljana is not settled first, the Slovenian premier noted.

A new poll has shown a swing in favour of the Lisbon treaty in Ireland as the main political parties argue about when would be the best time to hold a second referendum on the document. According to a survey carried out by the Irish Times newspaper, 51 percent are in favour of the treaty while 33 percent would vote against it.

Analysis of the results suggests it is farmers and middle-class voters who have shifted their opinion towards a Yes since the referendum in June last year. Meanwhile, the least well off tend to be opposed to the treaty. The swing in Lisbon's favour comes amid the country's convulsions in the economic crisis, which has caused massive job losses.

C.E.E.O.L. is an online archive which provides access to full text PDF articles from 371 humanities and social science journals and re-digitized documents pertaining to Central, Eastern and South-Eastern European topics.

One year after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia, MEPs on Thursday (5 February) called on all EU countries to recognise Europe's newest state. The European Parliament "encourages those EU Member States which have not already done so to recognise the independence of Kosovo," reads the resolution adopted by MEPs in Strasbourg today.

The document was approved by a large majority - 424 MEPs voted in favour, 133 - against, while 24 abstained. Kosovo declared unilateral independence from Serbia on 17 February last year and it has so far been recognised by 54 states worldwide, including the US and most EU countries. To date, five EU member states – Romania, Slovakia, Greece, Cyprus and Spain – have not recognised its independence. In the resolution, the parliamentarians also welcomed the "successful deployment" of the European police and justice mission EULEX to Kosovo. After having faced numerous delays, EULEX entered its operational phase two months ago – on 9 December – taking over police, justice and customs tasks from United Nations personnel in Kosovo.

Meanwhile, officials and legal professionals in Kosovo have said say they find the EULEX-operated courts better than UNMIK's judicial authorities, according to news portal Balkan Insight. "There are great differences from the previous judiciary," Osman Kryeziu, chief prosecutor in Pristina's District Court, was quoted as saying. "There's less bureaucracy, more cooperation and commitment to work. EULEX judges have a completely different working culture," he added. For his part, Azem Vllasi, a lawyer in Pristina who worked in both the UNMIK and EULEX judicial systems, as well as in the local one, told Balkan Insight that EULEX was already proving to have the most professional one. "My experience shows there are essential differences. There is more professionalism and greater obedience to the law and regulations [with EULEX]," Mr Vllasi said.

Kosovo is still under "supervised" rather than full independence one year after it broke away from Serbia, the EU's representative in Pristina has said, while denying that it could be described as a "EU protectorate."

Kosovo is still under "supervised" rather than full independence one year after it broke away from Serbia, the EU's representative in Pristina has said, while denying that it could be described as a "EU protectorate."

Kosovo is still under "supervised" rather than full independence one year after it broke away from Serbia, the EU's representative in Pristina has said, while denying that it could be described as a "EU protectorate."