Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1990), the countries that emerged from the former Yugoslavia failed to make economic and political progress. Poland and the Baltic states, in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, were much poorer and have now surpassed the countries of the former Yugoslavia in terms of prosperity.
Only Albania has managed to grow significantly, although it remains one of the poorest countries in Europe, while the rest of the Western Balkans suffer from low growth, demographic shrinkage, widespread corruption, rampant organized crime, political anomalies, and open issues. scattered minorities in their territories.
by Thanos S. Chonthrogiannis
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Photo by the www.epp.eu
The rule of law is permanently absent. Most countries are governed by hybrid regimes, which affect election results (see recent elections in Serbia).
The EU is tired after fifteen years of continuous European crises, including the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty (2005), the € (2010) crisis, the refugee-immigration crisis (2015), Brexit (2016) and the Covid pandemic. 19 (2020) and does not want to add another with the integration of the Western Balkans, and as they are presented today, in her family.
But the only hope for a reunification of the Western Balkans is to integrate into the EU.
The EU-27 dominates economically in the Western Balkans, accounting for about 75% of foreign direct investment and international trade. But from the moment it was decided to enlarge the EU with the countries of the Western Balkans – to offset the geopolitical blow of Brexit, the problems of the countries of the Western Balkans are the responsibility of the EU and not NATO.
