Publication

This paper outlines that the European Commission intends to publish a new methodology for EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. The text’s authors contend that while the intention is to renew the EU’s exhausted policy towards the region, there are already signs that the effort will end up as a paper-pushing exercise. Indeed, they suggest that without tackling such factors as socio-economic regression and the backsliding of democracy in the region, the new method will actually diminish the EU’s regional leverage. What is needed instead is a human development-centered EU enlargement model.