The process of integration of the Western Balkan countries into the European Union lacks predictability and credibility, participants in a panel on the region's "political quarantine" warned at the Dubrovnik Forum on Saturday.

The European Council gave the green light for opening accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia in March 2020, but no start date has been set yet.

Olta Xhacka, Albania’s Foreign Minister, said that Albania had been promised a date and that her country deserved it. She added that they were not discouraged or deterred and would continue their work.

To open accession negotiations, member states have to adopt a negotiating framework, a key document setting out principles on which negotiations would be held. The negotiating framework must be unanimously adopted by member states and it is a condition for calling the first intergovernmental accession conference at which negotiations are formally opened.

Xhacka said that the EU enlargement process was unpredictable and slow. Put on our shoes at least for a moment and try to explain that to our people, she said.

North Macedonia agreed to change its name to resolve a long-standing dispute with EU member Greece, but it is in the same situation as Albania. Its Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani said that predictability and credibility should be restored to the enlargement process.

North Macedonia was awarded the status of EU membership candidate in 2005, a year and a half after Croatia, and Croatia joined the bloc eight years ago. Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo are potential candidates.

Josip Brkic, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Deputy Foreign Minister, warned that the EU’s new methodology was even more demanding and complex, adding that the “metaphorical quarantine of the Western Balkans” has been going on for too long and that it is “the joint responsibility” of the Western Balkan countries and the EU.

Kosovo’s Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla-Schwarz said that her country needed to establish real rule of law and implement judicial reform. We’re not there yet and the EU should not be blamed for our failures, she noted.

Nemanja Starovic, State Secretary at the Serbian Foreign Ministry, said that everything the EU wanted Serbia to do would benefit its citizens. He recalled that Serbia had begun accession negotiations in 2014 and had so far opened 18 chapters and closed only two.

Starovic said that the EU was sending “a very bad message” in the case of North Macedonia, which has done all that is necessary and has not yet begun accession negotiations.

Montenegro is closest to EU membership, with 33 chapters opened. The last chapter, concerning competition, was opened in late June last year. Montenegro opened negotiations nine years ago and has closed only three chapters.

Montenegrin Foreign Minister Djordje Radulovic thanked the EU for the assistance it had extended to help his country cope with the coronavirus pandemic.

Unresolved issues, lack of enthusiasm

Zeljana Zovko, a Croatian member of the European Parliament, said that the Western Balkan countries should deal with unresolved issues, citing the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina and electoral legislation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

She said that the EU had agreed to provide €14.2 billion through a pre-accession programme to support the European membership prospects of the Western Balkans.

Miroslav Lajcak, the EU’s Special Representative for Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue, said that the EU was the biggest investor in the Western Balkans. Last year the region generated 68 percent of its trade with the EU, and about 60 percent of investment in the region originated from the EU.

Lajcak said that the logical question was why the great presence, the great attention and the great assistance did not lead to membership or at least to greater progress, citing other challenges that the Union had to deal with, notably Brexit, Donald Trump’s term as the President of the United States, China and the coronavirus pandemic.

There is commitment, but there is a lack of passion and enthusiasm, Lajcak pointed out.

The panel also involved Czech Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek, who announced that the EU integration of the Western Balkans would be among the priorities of this country’s EU presidency in the second half of 2022.

This will be a long journey and we need to unblock this process. We need to put our differences aside and focus on what is important – our common future in a united Europe, Kulhanek said.

Mini-Schengen

The so-called Mini-Schengen Area is an idea that was launched in the autumn of 2019 by Serbia, North Macedonia and Albania to facilitate trade between them. The other Western Balkan countries have been invited to join this initiative.

Kosovo’s Gervalla-Schwarz denounced the initiative as “a trap”, while Serbia’s Starovic said he was surprised by the criticism from Kosovo, adding that the initiative was “fully open to our friends Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro and our southern province of Kosovo and Metohija”.

“Mini-Schengen is not a substitute for EU integration. If the name Mini-Schengen is the only problem, I can say that we will change it in two weeks,” the Serbian state secretary said.