Western Balkans and Decades 'Eaten' by the EU's Double Standards.

Byline: IFIMES

Regular autumn meeting of the European Council (EC) shall be held on 17th and 18th October in Brussels. Although the importance of meeting of the EU leaders is focused on Brexit on October 31st 2019, the Western Balkans expects that the Republic of North Macedonia and the Republic of Albania get the date for the start of the negotiations with the EU. The EU was made as peace project after the end of the World War II and it enabled to ensure permanent peace in Europe and long-term stability. In recent past, in the Western Balkans though, several wars were going on. Therefore, a fragile peace was established and temporary stability.

The analysts believe that the EU leaders must be aware of the fact that if they want the EU peace project to be continued, it needs to be implemented in the Western Balkans countries, because through the EU membership, it would be ensured that countries of that region achieve permanent peace and long-term stability. As long as the Western Balkans is an unstable region, the EU shall not be able to address the key issues and long-term strategic positioning in the international framework.

Is the Western Balkans a stepchild of Europe

European leaders have often confirmed their support to the Western Balkans and its Euro Atlantic road, expressing at the same time concerns about the impact of individual states in the region, particularly Russia, China and Turkey. The EU with its enlargement stalemate practically pushes the Western Balkans counters to Russian hug, to blame in the end those countries for their close relations and cooperation with Russia.

However, some EU states always set new requirements and membership criteria for the Western Balkans. Some experts have been pointing out that 15 EU member countries would not be able to fully meet the membership criteria now, which are required from the Western Balkans countries. They also note that Bulgaria and Romania were admitted to the EU membership, as well as Croatia recently, without imposing so strict requirements of the membership. In 2004 only 9, 5 countries were accepted to the EU membership, because only half the Cyprus was accepted.

The French region Corsica and the Italian region Sicily are also mentioned as those, where the EU regulations do not function at all as stipulated by the EU standards, regulations and directives. (None) functioning of the EU can be illustrated best on the example of the dialogue between official Belgrade and Pristina on normalization of the relations, which is mediated by the EU. Although so called Brussels agreement on dialogue was signed on April 19, 2013 the dialogue was terminated and its destiny is not certain.

The dialogue was held nontransparently, while on the other side the EU demands transparency from the Western Balkans countries, though the EU is nontransparent itself. It proved in the cases of tax evasion for certain transnational companies, which were happening in Luxembourg in times when its prime minister was the current president of the European Commission Jean-Cloud Juncker (EPP). There are numerous examples of non-transparency and unacceptable role of the EU.

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