EU enlargement to the Western Balkans appears to be in full swing. But scratch the surface and a much less rosy picture emerges. The magic of the EU’s offer is not working, and the number of countries weighing alternatives to membership is expanding. Political leaders believe there is a third way, in which countries can profit from close economic ties with the EU without accepting its accession-related demands. This model, originally espoused by Serbia, is getting traction elsewhere in the region.
The Western Balkans cannot complain of a lack of attention from the EU. On October 14, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosted the tenth annual summit of the Berlin Process, a platform for cooperation between the EU and the Western Balkans. The region’s six countries—Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia—signed an action plan for a common regional market. The EU is securing progress by promoting integration among the Western Balkans as a precondition for accession—the vision of the Berlin Process laid out by former German chancellor Angela Merkel a decade ago.
Encouragingly, Scholz declared that the Western Balkan six could make it into the EU within the next ten years. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sang from the same hymnal, talking up a €6 billion ($6.5 billion) growth plan aimed at improving connectivity and fostering reforms compatible with EU membership.
Yet, appearances can be deceptive. The political dynamics between Brussels and the region are mixed at best. While some countries are making strides toward the EU, others are stuck.
On October 15, Albania and the EU held their second intergovernmental conference (IGC) in Luxembourg, a key milestone in accession talks. Tirana was able to open the first five chapters of negotiations, the so-called fundamentals cluster. This covers dossiers such as reforming the judiciary, fighting corruption, and overhauling the public procurement sector, which are essential for upholding democracy and the rule of law.
The feeling in Luxembourg was bittersweet, however. One country was conspicuous by its absence: North Macedonia. Skopje remains in limbo. Back in 2022, North Macedonia held its first IGC, together with Albania, to formally launch its accession negotiations. Two years later, the two states are being decoupled because the North Macedonia’s government is reluctant to comply with an EU demand that Skopje insert a reference to a Bulgarian community into the country’s constitution. VMRO-DPMNE, the right-wing nationalist party that won this year’s North Macedonia’s parliamentary election, is vocally opposed to what it decries as Bulgarian blackmail.
North Macedonia had already changed its name from Macedonia after pressure from Greece and expected a fast track to EU membership. But all Skopje got in return was a veto from another neighbor—and perhaps not the last one, skeptics point out.
North Macedonia’s Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski therefore wants to renegotiate with Sofia. Let us pass the constitutional amendment, he argues, but postpone its implementation until all EU members have ratified North Macedonia’s accession treaty. Bulgaria’s rejoinder is that the amendment is both nonnegotiable and part of a common EU position, rather than a bilateral matter. Take it or leave it, Sofia says. Speaking on October 15, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock hinted at a compromise going forward. Yet, there is no fundamental change in Brussels’s stance.
In the meantime, Mickoski and others are considering alternatives. The example of next-door Serbia has traction. Because of the country’s unresolved dispute with Kosovo, Belgrade is not moving ahead with its stated goal of joining the EU, either. But Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has built a profitable relationship with key EU member states and politicians, including Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and, notably, Hungary’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Pursuing a multipronged foreign policy, Serbia receives plenty of Chinese investment and enjoys close ties with Russia. In other words, there is life outside the EU accession process.
North Macedonia’s government seems to agree. Last month, the country rolled out the red carpet for Orbán, who brought a much publicized €500 million ($540 million) loan. Suspicions abound that the money comes from China, not Hungary, whose fiscal situation is far from optimal. A chunk will be invested in the north–south transportation corridor that connects North Macedonia with Serbia and Hungary. Another part of the corridor is the Chinese-funded Belgrade–Budapest high-speed railroad. Money from the loan will also be pumped into North Macedonia’s municipalities, strengthening VMRO-DPMNE’s hand in the country’s upcoming local elections.
Friendship with Serbia and Hungary is welcomed by North Macedonia’s society, particularly Mickoski’s ethnic Macedonian voters. Neighborliness also goes hand in hand with disappointment in the EU, whose approval ratings have fallen as a result of the setbacks on the path to accession. Serbia’s stock, meanwhile, is rising, with Vučić regularly topping popularity charts of foreign leaders.
The people running Serbia and North Macedonia are awaiting the outcome of November’s U.S. presidential election. It is an open secret that the country’s leaders are rooting for Donald Trump, much like Orbán, who is an iconic figure among the Trumpist wing of the U.S. Republican Party. The waiting game weakens the EU’s leverage. Why should Western Balkan leaders heed the calls of Brussels, Berlin, or Paris today if the United States could step in and tilt the balance of power tomorrow?
To be sure, there are risks for North Macedonia, too. A continued impasse with the EU could put interethnic relations under strain. Ethnic Albanians are already raising the alarm about a recent decision by North Macedonia’s constitutional court to strike down ethnic quotas in the country’s public institutions. Albanians also fear that a landmark 2017 law that made Albanian an official language of North Macedonia could be on the chopping block.
For the time being, the VLEN Coalition, a group of ethnic Albanian political parties, is happy to stay in North Macedonia’s governing coalition and profit from the patronage opportunities this brings. But pressure from the Democratic Union for Integration, the country’s largest ethnic Albanian party, which is currently in opposition, could force VLEN’s hand to demand concessions from VMRO-DPMNE. In that scenario, tensions would mount, raising red flags for the EU.
The notion that there is an alternative to EU membership could face a harsh reality check, too. North Macedonia has been here before. From 2006 to 2016, the country spent a decade in no-man’s-land, its EU aspirations blocked by Greece. There was no flood of foreign investment from outside the EU, which is North Macedonia’s biggest economic partner by far. State capture became rampant, while frictions between the ethnic North Macedonia’s majority and the Albanian community periodically tore across society. Pressure kept building in the form of popular protests, until VMRO-DPMNE rule collapsed in early 2017. A similar scenario could easily unfold this time around, except that North Macedonia does not have the luxury of another decade to waste.
It is clear that the EU has no magic wand to fix North Macedonia’s problems, from corruption in high places to volatile interethnic relations. What happens going forward is contingent on the choices of citizens, not least at the ballot box. Yet, it is also clear that as things stand, EU membership is the best offer available. The government in Skopje may well reject it, either for purely instrumental reasons or for moral ones. But spurning the EU would be a lose-lose option for the union and North Macedonia, along with the rest of the Western Balkans.
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