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Eastern dimension and the Balkans / Working Paper

The Stabilisation and Association Process: are EU inducements failing in the Western Balkans?

12/02/2008 By Sofia Sebastián

Almost eight years since the launch of the Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP), the framework under which the Western Balkan countries come closer to European institutions, the prospect of European membership seems further away than ever before. Even if the future of the WB remains within EU borders, accession to the exclusive club is still far off, probably at least a decade away.

Many analysts are now asking whether the EU’s approach to the region within the SAP has been ill-designed. Even if domestic politics are much to blame for the current state of affairs, a closer look at EU SAP policies in the WB is in order.

This paper argues that despite the fact that the prospect of EU membership and the conditionality-based reform process attached to it have made the greatest contribution to stability and democratic development in the region, problems of policy inconsistency, unclear benchmarking, disillusionment over the still remote European perspective and the gap between rhetoric and efforts on the ground have undermined EU policies in the Balkans and diminished the effectiveness of EU’s inducements.

The EU needs to readjust its framework and take into full consideration the different problems that afflict Balkan countries and provide real incentives to persuade them to accept the terms of stability while integrating into the EU. How European institutions respond to these challenges in the light of developments in Kosovo will prove critical for the future stability of the region.


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Keywords

Albania Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia Enlargement Europe European Neighbourhood Policy European Union Serbia

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Bio author: Sofia Sebastián

Sofia Sebastian is a PhD candidate in the Government Department at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she teaches a seminar on democracy and democratization processes. The title of her thesis is 'The Interplay of Domestic and International Actors in the Process of Political Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina.' Prior to her PhD studies, Sofia earned an MSc in Foreign Service with a focus on foreign policy and international security at Georgetown University under the sponsorship of the Fulbright Commission. Sofia received her BA in Political Science and International Relations from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid.