This article analyzes the European Union’s strategy towards the Western Balkans as a hegemonic project. The European Commission’s strategy is neither total exclusion nor rapid integration. The Commission’s aim is to restructure the Western Balkans in line with neoliberalism to prepare the region for the “preincorporation stage.” The Commission’s major initiatives show that this neoliberal restructuring need not end in full membership but remains an open-ended process. Two components of the Commission’s formula, neoliberal economy and democracy, have not fed one another; rather, the opposite has occurred. Local crises have exacerbated and been exacerbated by the Commission’s strategy, whereby existing social forces and structures have been dismantled, leading to the reproduction of authoritarianism. Despite the continuously shifting hegemonic discourses of ethnopolitical groups, their ultimate objective is integration with the EU. However, cycles of crises in the region have, in neo-Gramscian terms, undermined the formation of a historic bloc, and thus the EU’s hegemonic project is rather daunting.
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, Edited with an introduction by Joseph A. Buttigieg (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 21-21.
2.
Michael Lake, “Europe and the Balkans: A Strategy for Integration,” In Jody Jensen, ed., Europe Bound: Faultlines and Frontlines of Security in the Balkans, (Szombathely, Hungary: Savaria University Press, 2003), 21-39.
3.
Karen Smith, The Making of EU Foreign Policy: The Case of Eastern Europe (New York: St. Martin’s, 1999), 155-161.
4.
Hazel Smith, European Union Foreign Policy (London: Pluto Press, 2002): 253-254.
5.
Lake, “Europe and the Balkans: A Strategy for Integration,” 21.
6.
K. Smith, The Making of EU Foreign Policy, 160.
7.
H. Smith, European Union Foreign Policy, 254.
8.
and Andrew Moravcsik and Milada Anna Vachudowa, “National Interests, State Power, and EU Enlargement,”East European Politics and Societies17:1 (2003): 42-57.
9.
See http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/eca/europeanintegration.nsf (accessed 10 March, 2004). For Foreign Direct Investments in the Western Balkans, see also South Eastern Europe Economic Statistics (Bratislava, Slovakia: Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, 2001), 121-34. See also Country Reports, Economist Intelligence Unit, www.eiu.com.
10.
Mustafa Türkes, “The Double Process: Transition and Integration and Its Impact on the Balkans,” In Petar-Emil Mitev and James Riordan, eds., Towards Non-violence and Dialogue Culture in Southeast Europe (Sofia, Bulgaria: Iztok-Zapad Publishing House, 2004), 13-13.
11.
For the speech of Chris Patten, see the International Crisis Group, Brussels, 10 July 2001, http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/news/patten/sp_balkans.htm (accessed 18 January 2004).
12.
Heinz Kramer, “The European Union in the Balkans: Another Step towards European Integration,”Perception: Journal of International Affairs5:3 (2000): 22-38.
13.
Othon Anastasakis and Dimitrav Bechev, “EU Conditionality in South-East Europe: Bringing Commitment to the Process,”European Balkan Observer1:2 (2003): 2-4.
14.
David Chandler, “The European Union and Governance in the Balkans: Unequal Partnership,”European Balkan Observer1:2 (2003): 5-9.
15.
Charlotte Bretherton and John Vogler, eds., The European Union as a Global Actor (London: Routledge, 1999).
16.
Brian White, Understanding European Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave, 2001).
17.
Geoffrey Pridham, “EU Accession and Domestic Politics: Policy Consensus and Interactive Dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe,”Perspectives on European Politics and Society1:1 (2001): 58-58.
18.
I bid. 59.
19.
Mike Mannin, ed., Pushing Back the Boundaries: The European Union and Central and Eastern Europe (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1999).
20.
K. Smith, The Making of EU Foreign Policy, 49-49.
21.
Christopher Hill, “The Capability-Expectations Gap, or Conceptualizing Europe’s Foreign Policy,”Journal of Common Market Studies31:3 (1993): 305-307.
22.
John Peterson and Helene Sjursen, eds., A Common Foreign Policy for Europe? (New York: Routledge, 1998), 20-20.
23.
Ibid., 20.
24.
See also Bretherton and Vogler, European Union as a Global Actor, 25-25.
25.
Wallerstein, Geopolitics and Geoculture, 63-63.
26.
H. Smith, European Union Foreign Policy, 241-241.
27.
and Michael Smith, “Does the Flag Folow Trade?” In John Peterson and Helene Sjursen, eds., A Common Foreign Policy for Europe? (New York: Routledge, 1998), 77-94.
28.
and Robert W. Cox, “Structural Issues of Global Governance: Implications for Europe,” In S. Gill, ed., Gramsci, Historical Materialism and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 259-289.
29.
and Andreas Bieler and Adam David Morton, “Theoretical Concepts and Methodological Issues,” In Andreas Bieler and Adam David Morton, eds., Social Forces in the Making of the New Europe: The Restructuring of European Social Relations in the Global Political Economy (London: Palgrave, 2001), 3-24.
30.
Otto Holman, “The Enlargement of the European Union towards Central and Eastern Europe: The Role of Supranational and Transnational Actors,” In Bieler and Morton, Social Forces in the Making of the New Europe, 161-184.
31.
Bieler, “The Struggle over EU Enlargement,”575-575.
32.
See European Round Table of Industrialists’ Report on Wider Europe, “ERT’s Vision of a Bigger Single Market the Position of the European Round Table of Industrialists on the EU’s Neighbourhood Policy,” May 2004, http://www.ert.be/pe/ene_frame.htm (accessed 20 September 2004).
33.
Evans’s definition of the “the triple alliance”—local capital, international capital, and state capital—has some relevance to our point. Evans, however, used the term triple alliance in the framework of dependent development analysis and in the Brazilian case of the 1970s without using the term hegemonic project. For this, see Peter Evans, Dependent Development (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), 11, 53, 275. In the case of the Western Balkans of the 1990s, it is not possible to argue that the hegemonic project is formed only on such a “triple alliance”; ethnopolitical groups and NGOs are also involved in the formation of hegemonic projects in this region.
34.
and Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origin, History, Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984).
35.
The term return to diversity is borrowed from Joseph Rothschild, Return to Diversity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
36.
Türkes, “The Double Process: Transition and Integration and Its Impact on the Balkans,” 20.
37.
The Contact Group was formed with representatives from the United States, Britain, the Russian Federation, France, Germany, and Italy.
38.
Alexandros Yannis, “The Creation and Politics of International Protectorates in the Balkans: Bridges over Troubled Waters,”Journal of International Relations and Development5:3 (2002): 264-264.
39.
Marc Weller, “The International Response to the Dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,”American Journal of International Law86:3 (1992): 603-603.
40.
Yannis, “The Creation and Politics of International Protectorates in the Balkans,”265-265.
41.
David Chandler, “The Bosnian Protectorate and the Implications for Kosovo,”New Left Review235 (1999): 134-134.
42.
Levent Bilman, “The Regional Cooperation Initiatives in South East Europe and the Turkish Foreign Policy,”Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs3:3 (1998), www.mfa.gov.tr (accessed 17 January 2004).
43.
Personal interviews between the authors and representatives of the Balkan countries in Ankara in 1999.
44.
For details, see “The Regional Approach,” http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/docs/reg_approach_96.htm (accessed 18 January 2004).
45.
Anastasakis and Bechev, “EU Conditionality,”7-7.
46.
Bodo Hombach, “Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe: A New Perspective for the Region,”Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs5:3 (2000), www.mfa.gov.tr (accessed 17 January 2004).
47.
Available at http://www.stabilitypact.org/about/ (accessed 18 January 2004).
48.
Available at http://www.europe.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/region/europe_integration.pdf (accessed 19 January 2004).
49.
Available at http://www.stabilitypact.org/about/ (accessed 19 January 2004).
50.
Text of Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, Cologne, 10 June 1999, http://www.stabilitypact.org/about/ (accessed 18 January 2004).
51.
Kramer, “The EU in the Balkans,”27-27.
52.
Available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/sap/index.htm (accessed 18 January 2004).
53.
Kramer, “The EU in the Balkans,”29-29.
54.
Available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/sap/rep2/com03_339.htm (accessed 30 January 2004).
55.
Available at http://www.stabilitypact.org/about/ (accessed 18 January 2004).
56.
Anastasakis and Bechev, “EU Conditionality,”7-7.
57.
Kramer, “The EU in the Balkans,”33-33.
58.
Ibid., 32.
59.
Michael Emerson, “Reconsidering EU Policy for South East Europe after the Regime Changes in Serbia and Croatia,”Europe South-East Monitor, www.ceps.be/Default.php (accessed 18 January 2004).
60.
“The Declaration of the Zagreb Summit,” http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/sum_11_00/index.htm (accessed 18 January 2004).
61.
Article 2 of “EU-Western Balkans Summit Declaration,” http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/sum_06_03/decl.htm (accessed 19 January 2004).
62.
Wim van Meurs and Stefani Weiss, “The Next Europe: Southeastern Europe after Thessaloniki,” C.A.P. Working Paper, July 2003, www.cap.uni-muenchen.de/bertelsmann/soe.htm (accessed 16 January 2004).
63.
Available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/sum_06_03/decl.htm (accessed 30 June 2003). See also van Meurs and Weiss, “The Next Europe,” 1-8.
64.
van Meurs and Weiss, “The Next Europe,”3-3.
65.
Available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/sum_06_03/decl.htm (accessed 30 June 2003).
66.
van Meurs and Weiss, “The Next Europe,”3-3.
67.
European Stability Initiative (ESI), “Western Balkans—Assistance, Cohesion and the New Boundaries of Europe: A Call for Policy Reform,” www.esiweb.org (accessed 20 October 2003).
68.
ESI, “The Road to Thessaloniki: Cohesion and the Western Balkans,” www.esiweb.org (accessed 20 October 2003).
69.
ESI, “Western Balkans,”9-9.
70.
Ibid., 5.
71.
Ivan Krastev, “The Balkans: Democracy without Choices,”Journal of Democracy13:3 (2002): 40-40.
72.
Anastasakis and Bechev, “EU Conditionality,”17-17.
73.
Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,”Journal of Democracy13:1 (2002): 15-15.
74.
The letter, sent in mid-July to EU Ministerial Council Chair Bernard Bot and EU Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, was apparently leaked to the Montenegrin paper Vijesti and published on 10 September 2004. For the published letter, see “Serbia and Montenegro Special Issue,” IWPR’S Balkan Crisis Report no. 516, 17 September 2004.
75.
See “Annan: Broad Agreement Reached on Integrated Strategy for Kosovo,,””Southeast European Times, 23 September 2004, http//:www.setimes.com (accessed 24 September 2004).
76.
Ivan Vitànyi, “The Future of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europeans in the New Europe,” In Jody Jensen, ed., Europe Bound: Faultlines and Frontlines of Security in the Balkans (Szombathely, Hungary: Savaria University Press, 2003), 15-15.
