Berlin Process: Gaslighting the Western Balkans (Brussels Morning)
Channel: Sam Vaknin's Musings
Date: 2023-10-18

Column here: https://brusselsmorning.com/berlin-process-gaslighting-the-western-balkans/35071/

In Tirana, another summit of the Berlin Process between the EU and the Western Balkan polities has ended in grandiloquent and largely empty promises.

The impoverished, hopelessly corrupt, and badly governed countries of the region – Albania, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia – are caught in the EU’s delusional hall of mirrors aka “accession” and “enlargement”.

These backward locales are supposed to miraculously undergo two revolutions: green and digital. In the meantime, they are faced with multiple dangling carrots such as freer movement of goods and services into the EU common market and within it as well as investments in roads, other transport modalities, and energy, including electricity. Hope springs eternal.

The EU imposed a few “minor” and equally delusional conditions on this utopia: a better business climate, fewer regulations, integration of the domestic markets, and the perennial fight against corruption.

The truth is that the Western Balkans will never accede to the EU. The war in Ukraine, Brexit, and the rise of authoritarian regimes in new members such as Hungary made sure of that.