The German media are still writing about the European Commission's Strategy for the Western Balkans and vague announcements that Serbia and Montenegro could join the European Union by 2025.
Many are very skeptical of the idea.
The Berliner Zeitung under the title "Entice 2025" explains: "The European Union is afraid of Russia's increasing influence in the Western Balkans and wants to admit those countries into the EU as soon as possible. And they are not exactly model students."
The article is written in the form of questions and answers. Here are some:
"Why does the European Commission now want to hurry up the accession process? - It is primarily about security and political interests. The Balkan states are located in the middle of the EU and border the countries that are its members. Currently, Russia and China are trying to greatly expand their influence in region. That worries many in the EU."
"Why is the accession process progressing so slowly in many countries? - Brussels believes that they lack political will. The European Union is increasingly appealing to the countries of the Western Balkans to speed up reforms and fight more decisively against problems such as organized crime and corruption."
"If there are still so many problems, why does the EU list the year 2025 as a possible goal? – With that date, the European Commission wants to motivate governments to speed up reforms. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker speaks of the date as an encouragement (...) but, a new date should not only encourage, but also pressure governments, ideally by their pro-European constituents to push them to reform.
Dnevnik Velt writes that "It was not wise to set 2025 as the date for admission to Serbia and Montenegro. The idea behind this is that that date should be only 'indicative' and be understood as 'encouragement'. The message is: it can be done be even after 2025 if you don't reform enough. But has the European Commission thought through what will happen if it doesn't happen in 2025? In that case, there could be riots with violence in Serbia and Montenegro, it could even to turn into a large-scale conflagration - as ordered for the strategist Vladimir Putin."
A cat will bite its own tail once
Radio DLF published a commentary by journalist Srđan Govedarica on its internet portal, in which he also writes: "The countries of the Western Balkans basically don't care what the EU's motives are. The main thing is that they enter (the EU) once, and that's the best - everything. this is especially true for the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Once they find themselves in the EU, they will realize that economically, culturally and geopolitically they at least belong to one community of interests. It is hard to imagine a better way to permanently calm the Balkans as an eternal hotbed of conflicts. Russia and China do not offer such a perspective , and that is why the path to the EU is the only logical and correct one for the countries of the Western Balkans."
"However, the countries of the Western Balkans, as well as the EU, must not fall into one trap. In the past decades, the European Union has relied on stabilocrats in the Balkans who - seen from its point of view - did a lot of things right, because they implemented reforms and countries kept it stable. But they ruled with a firm hand. Examples can be found in Kosovo and Macedonia. Or in Serbia. Angela Merkel and Sebastian Kurz praise the Serbian president as a reformer who is surely leading his country towards the EU."
"At the same time, the monopolization of power through Vučić as a leading figure reminds many in Serbia of the dark times of Milošević. If the EU insists on these problematic partnerships, the cat will bite its own tail once. Reformed, but autocratically led, countries will have difficulty entering in the EU, no matter how favorable or historical the opportunity for that is," writes, among other things, Srđan Govedarica.
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