Western Balkans EU Accession Depends on its Foreign Alignment

With the possible admittance of new Western Balkan countries into the EU, Brussels will need to tread lightly or it could be doubling its Hungarian headache with regard to rule of law violations and Russian-Chinese influence.

With the conflict in Ukraine as a backdrop, the reassurance of a distant future within the EU has become a tool for Brussels to prevent the Western Balkans from coupling with China and Russia. 

The discourse around the Western Balkans accession has been stalled since Croatia joined the block in 2013. Despite a decade of failure of six EU candidates – Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – to meet the Copenhagen criteria, the “EU-Western Balkans” summit in Tirana reinvigorated forgotten hopes. The signed Tirana declaration has reaffirmed the EU’s intentions of financial, political and security support to the region in light of the war in Ukraine.

The Tirana declaration has not made closer the EU expansion marching eastward but has promised energy diversification help to the Balkan states before they would become Russia’s stronghold on the EU’s doorstep.