EU enlargement policy the second act, and the position of Serbia

Writing for Kosovo Online: Zoran Milivojevic, diplomat

1. The war in Ukraine caused tectonic disturbances on a global scale. It confirmed multipolarism on the global stage and the beginning of a new realignment under the influence of two dominant blocs with global action - the collective West and the collective South, in the context of creating a new order.

Any dilemma about the conflicting interests of the two blocs was recently removed by Mr. Blinken with the opinion that the USA should mobilize partners and allies in the resistance to Russia and China, which were putting efforts to change the world order "which we created".

We mean, of course, the liberal-democratic concept based on "rules", represented by the USA at the head of the collective West.

All of this followed after the rapid shifts on the global stage with the expansion of BRICS, the recomposition of the influence of the G20, and new geopolitical groupings of a regional and other character in the Pacific, Africa, Gulf, etc. All together with global meaning and effects.

In all of this, the EU, as a key factor of the collective West and a concrete space for measuring the effects of global competition in conditions of immediate conflict between opposing factors, has an important place and role. It is particularly expressed by the fact about the concrete effects of the war in Ukraine and the European dimension of new movements towards a new order, bearing in mind the geostrategic, political, economic, cultural, civilizational, historical-developmental, and other importance of Europe on a global scale.

Europe is simply becoming a core for evaluation and promotion of the ideological and political strategy of the collective West in order to return to a dominant global position, and the EU is a mechanism for implementation. Accordingly, the function of the EU gets a certain priority in the geopolitical strategy of the West, and the return to the most important and successful policy in its history, the enlargement policy, gets a key place.

Hence, returning to this policy, especially within the framework of the war in Ukraine, the "Eastern policy" of the EU, becomes an important topic with a series of concrete moves (candidate status of Ukraine and Moldova, etc.), statements (Michel, Von der Leyen, etc.) and performances in on various occasions of leading people in the EU (numerous regional gatherings around the Western Balkans, etc.) with the announcement of a new take-off of the enlargement policy with a possible return to the political agenda of the EU institutions.

In the given circumstances, all this seems strategically-politically logical and operationally expedient, but for a full assessment of the effects, it is necessary to take into account both political and operational-organizational assumptions that inevitably determine the conditions for the implementation of all, including the EU enlargement policy.

2. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, a good part of the ideologically and politically undisputed European space (Sweden, Finland, Austria) was quickly rounded up by the EU enlargement policy, with an approach towards the newly opened East of Europe. In the ideologically and politically dominant position and the operation of the West in the conditions of a unipolar world, with a "big bang" at the beginning of this century in 2004, the EU was expanded to a dominant part of that space with 10 new members (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus, Malta).

Then the geopolitical strategic criteria (Black Sea, etc.) entered the scene in 2007 with the extension to Romania and Bulgaria with doubtful respect for the main criteria from Copenhagen, and finally in 2013 with Croatia, which is considered the last ideologically, politically and strategically undisputed subject in these areas in the global Western positions.

And that's where the policy of enlargement in the essential operative political sense stops, as it is removed from the work agenda of the new post-election EU set since 2014. Two things have simply been exhausted - a possible full consensus of the members around that policy, which was subsequently confirmed by the referendum (2016), and then the exit of Great Britain from the EU (2020) and the absorption potential of the EU in the given political and legal institutional foundations.

In this context, the opening of negotiations with Turkey, then Montenegro and Serbia, and bidding with the candidacies of others from the Western Balkans should be viewed as geopolitical interest inertia, based on the well-known strategy of the "European perspective" without concrete content and effects, and in order to control the space that is not encompassed, and on which the collective West counts for the full composition of the transatlantic community from European areas.

3. The first act in the attempt to return the enlargement policy to the EU agenda with the aim of making it politically operational was marked by the EU Commission headed by Jean-Claude Juncker in February 2018, and in the last year of the mandate, by adopting the appropriate decision defining the deadlines (2025) for the new approaches. The Council of the EU, as the supreme body of the EU, never adopted this decision, so it did not even produce political and legal effects. It remained at the level of the political will of the EU Commission and its composition, which did not reflect the consensus of the member states and their corresponding political will, which is the basis and essence of the functioning of the EU.

This was made concrete by the French President Macron at the EU summit in the fall of 2018 in Sofia during the Bulgarian presidency, where the topic was the Western Balkans, by making it clear that France considers that the priorities are reforms on the institutional level and the adaptation of the EU to new conditions, such as prerequisites for the full return of the enlargement policy to the EU agenda. This confirmed the lack of consensus among the members and the absorption capacity. It should be remembered that this is the period of confirmation of the British referendum and new processes in the EU itself. Based on Macron's approach, a new methodology was established for accession negotiations with clusters, possible phased progress, reversibility depending on progress assessments, etc., which is now being applied, but without a serious effective change regarding the dynamics of access processes.

4. The second act we are witnessing is marked by the new set of the EU from 2019, again in the last year of the mandate. It also did not put enlargement policy at the beginning of its agenda, but rather geopolitics as the leading form of its performance. That is why it acts in the assumed positions exclusively with an emphasized geopolitical dimension and interest when it comes to concrete interventions in the line of enlargement policy.

The war in Ukraine gave it a special impetus by significantly strengthening concrete geopolitical interest at the expense of key valid criteria with an emphasis on the formal-political return to the "Eastern policy" of the EU. The candidacies of Ukraine with evaluations of "great progress" (Von der Leyen), Moldova, and even Bosnia and Herzegovina are unequivocal confirmations of this approach. History repeats itself so that this group at the top of the EU (Michel, Von der Leyen) in the last year of the mandate promotes the policy of enlargement in conditions where the key assumptions have not been met: full consensus of the members and the absorption potential of the EU itself.

What follows is the expected giving of the date of this set of EU at the end of the mandate to Ukraine, Moldova, and perhaps another of the candidates, for the beginning of the accession negotiations, which is more a reflection of the exclusive dominance of a narrow and emphasized geopolitical criterion and strategic interest related to war and global competition than a concrete and essential restoring of the enlargement policy and the basic criteria for it throughout the EU. It seems that two years ago, the institution and mechanism for the action of the EU towards the area that is not encompassed - the European Political Community, provides more promising opportunities in the given circumstances for concrete expressions of the realization of the interests of both parties in the context of the accession strategic goal. The current and very strong dominance of purely geopolitical criteria which are, for example, the sanctions against Russia, and the attitude towards global movements from the Western ideological and political position (liberal democracy, order according to "rules"), dictates a completely different dynamic and framework of the negotiation processes as a whole, both in terms of pace and qualitative content.

However, regardless of geopolitics and the interests that give it priority at the moment, it remains the fate of the EU as a whole and the very future of the enlargement policy that the EU implements appropriate internal institutional reforms and adaptation to new movements in conditions of multipolarity and new circumstances. The EU is no longer a factor with global influence, which is visible today in some movements where it had to be felt (Africa, the Mediterranean, the Caucasus, and Central Asia) with reaches where the interests of Europe are naturally manifested. It has a problem of identity and subjectivity in important political, economic, and cultural movements. This is recognized in the fact that it acts more as a mechanism for achieving the goals of the collective West in this space and time as opposed to concrete interests in the same context, but on its own soil where it should dominate with its identity and subjectivity.

5. When it comes to Serbia, its strategic goal - accession to the EU, after the October 5th  changes, was narrowly politically determined and non-standard, regardless of the expressed will of the ruling political elites in the replacement. Special political criteria were and remain an absolute priority in the EU's approach to Serbia in its undeniably voluntary European path, as Serbia's strategic goal is defined today. First of all, the initial position accepted in the West at the time of the disintegration of the SFRY with the disunification of Serbia and Montenegro had to be implemented. Then came the turn of special criteria related to The Hague and everything known. Finally, the issue of Kosovo and Metohija on known grounds.

Serbia was simply not in the position of the previous, as well as the current candidates, to confirm its strategic national interest and political will for realization on the basis of valid criteria (acquis communautaires) without special political conditions. This is still true today insofar as the political criteria are multiplying, and their conditioning is operatively concretized.

What the new group will bring to the EU in the domain of enlargement policy remains to be seen. In this regard, Serbia does not change the strategic goal of joining the EU. For Serbia it has political, economic, developmental, and other significance, so not formal but essential. But the same applies to key state and national interests such as the issue of Kosovo and Metohija, which is a part of the basic subjectivity and existence of Serbia in every sense.

In these determinants, any EU enlargement policy or approach towards Serbia will be relevant for the realization of the strategic goals of any of the parties in the accession process.