While we have yet to see the full details of Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda, we already know where the priorities of his second administration lie. During the campaign, Trump signaled increased efforts to contain Iran, some kind of Middle East settlement, negotiations on the future of Ukraine that are more focused on Moscow than Kiev, selective assertiveness toward China, and an open display of contempt for Europe. In this context of global political power, the focus on the Western Balkans may seem odd. Yet this small region could play a disproportionately large role in Europe over the next four years and beyond.
The European Union’s grand vision of a continent “whole, free and at peace” may seem outdated in light of larger challenges, such as the war in Ukraine and the rise of nationalist and illiberal right-wing populist forces within its own borders. Moreover, the enlargement process to include the “Western Balkans Six” (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) has stalled. Not only have these countries failed to demonstrate – let alone achieve – significant progress towards EU membership, but they have also regressed on indicators of democratic governance.
The governments of the Western Balkan countries have undertaken few of the legislative or institutional reforms necessary for EU accession, while public support for membership has declined. This trend is most pronounced in Serbia, the largest of the six countries and the focal point through which many EU leaders and European governments view the region. The certainty that once underpinned the transatlantic, rules-based, liberal-democratic project seems to be fading in the face of the assertiveness of illiberal or openly autocratic and kleptocratic regimes.
By moving towards more open kleptocracy, the Western Balkans is both a reflection and an indicator of a broader trend. In this context, three interrelated phenomena deserve special attention: the exploitation of critical raw materials (CRM), neo-imperialism, and migration.
Recent research has identified reserves of key metals and minerals - including lithium, nickel, silver and magnesium - that are essential for the clean energy transition and the development of other technologies. While the expansion of the exploitation of key raw materials will most directly affect Bosnia and Serbia, its cross-border effects could have either a hugely positive or a hugely negative impact on the social, political and economic development of the region.
European governments and companies, while claiming that the region will one day become a fully integrated part of the EU, are simultaneously giving a blank check to business, environmental and governance practices that would never be accepted within the Union itself.
One can imagine an optimistic scenario in which these natural resources are responsibly exploited and used to revitalize a once-proud engineering sector. In that case, the raw materials extracted from the country could enable the Western Balkans economy to move up the global value chain. Political leaders, working with local communities, European companies and experts, could restore quality jobs, invest more in education and innovation, and finally emerge from thirty years of stagnation.
Unfortunately, this is not the most likely scenario given the pervasive institutional culture of political and economic corruption in the region. Already, the prospect of expanding the exploitation of key raw materials is attracting local and European companies that often show little interest in good governance and other liberal values.
One might think that the EU would see this as an opportunity to strengthen the institutional and legislative mechanisms necessary to prepare these countries for membership. Instead, European leaders have shown themselves fully prepared to do business with the same illiberal and autocratic political elite that has been holding back reforms for a generation. For example, last summer, then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz traveled to Serbia to announce a new “megaproject” for lithium mining, despite opposition from Serbian citizens who see it as environmentally harmful and insufficiently beneficial to their communities.
This brings us to another phenomenon: neo-imperialism and the struggle for spheres of influence. European governments and companies justify their role in the exploitation of key raw materials in the Western Balkans by claiming that “if we don’t do it, Russia or China will.” This logic is extremely convenient. While they claim that the region will one day become a fully integrated part of the EU, they are simultaneously giving a blank check to business, environmental and governance practices that would never be accepted within the Union itself.
This approach comes at a price. By excluding human rights, transparency, and democracy from the economic and business spheres, EU leaders are undermining what made the European experiment unique. The principle that liberal governance is a necessary component of comprehensive security is being rejected.
Paradoxically, but not surprisingly, this approach actually fuels the broader geopolitical trends that many European leaders claim to want to counter. By removing the values that form the foundation of the EU, it paves the way for short-term, transactional realpolitik, further enabling illiberal powers like Russia and China to strike their own, value-neutral business deals with Balkan elites.
While China has long sought to use the region as a hub for its Belt and Road Initiative, Russian interests are more cultural and political. The Kremlin seeks to strengthen its imperial project of creating a Russkiy mir ("Russian world") by promoting its regional version, the "Serbian world", in Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro (all NATO members). A key part of this strategy is to undermine faith in democratic governance, which is portrayed as neither possible nor desirable.
The third issue that will play a key role in the Western Balkans and the rest of Europe is migration, which can be divided into two forms. The first form involves migration from Pakistan, the rest of the Indian subcontinent, the Middle East and parts of sub-Saharan Africa to countries such as Germany and Sweden. While capsized boats in the Mediterranean make the news most often, land routes through the Western Balkans account for a significant part of the overall migration flows.
That's why a key pillar of EU immigration policy includes Turkey and the Western Balkans. Europe has made deals with illiberal leaders in the region to encourage them to tighten control of their borders, and has also empowered EU member states like Croatia to push migrants back to Bosnia and Herzegovina or Serbia, which serve as convenient geographical "reception centers."
Another form of migration involves the departure of workers from the Western Balkans to the EU, where they are employed in the health, transport, hospitality and other industries, often with the full support of European governments and private recruiters. Over time, these migration flows result in more citizens from the region moving north and west, while migrants from more distant eastern and southern parts of the world are brought to the Western Balkans - either to fill jobs in construction, mining, tourism and other industries, or to use the region as a temporary stopover on the way to the EU.
Due to its position at the center of both migration flows, the region is conducting a massive social experiment that could test the social cohesion of small towns and communities in a way not seen since the wars of the 1990s.
Given all these worrying developments, the future of the Western Balkans may seem bleak. Those who still hold out hope that a Western-oriented, pro-European perspective will transform their societies for the better are increasingly aware that their European interlocutors may not live up to the liberal values they publicly advocate.
Yet the "transitions" after the 1990s have at least made the people of the region more resilient to the anti-democratic viruses of disinformation and manipulation, kleptocracy, inequality, and crude transactional politics that now afflict even supposedly "consolidated" democracies. Student and civic protests in Serbia show that people there have not given up on trying to shape their future.
Those in the West who remain committed to liberal values must find allies with similar beliefs wherever they can. This is the only way to restore democratic confidence - without it, the global tide of illiberal opportunism will continue to grow.
The author is a senior associate at the Council for Democratization Policy.
Projectsyndicate.org
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