Serbia’s European choice

Serbia has to adapt to the EU and not the other way round if it wants to become a member, argues David Gowan in a June 2007 paper for the Centre for European Reform (CER).

The EU must stand ready to encourage and reward any shift in Belgrade’s stance towards Kosovo by resuming association talks and eventually offering candidate status, he believes. However, Serbia must earn this by genuinely and consistently demonstrating European values and maturity of behaviour if membership is to become a reality, he adds. 

Serbia has become the most intractable obstacle to stability and progress in the Western Balkans, believes Gowan. Deep-seated nationalism stands in the way of finding a sustainable solution to Kosovo and dealing with indicted war criminals, he claims. This reluctance frustrates Serbia’s aim of joining the EU, he adds. 

However, the new governing coalition – led by the centre-left Democratic Party – could bring opportunities for real progress towards the EU, believes Gowan – if the Serbs prove ready to break with the past. Gowan is optimistic that Serbia will become more willing to negotiate on the question of Kosovo’s final status. 

The report argues that the Ahtisaari’s UN plan to give ‘supervised independence’ to Kosovo is the only fair and workable way forward on the issue, and that Serbia’s reluctance to accept this – together with its insistence on transferring sovereignty over the province back to Belgrade – is simply out of touch with reality. Moreover, the peaceful separation from Montenegro shows that negotiated solutions are feasible, he adds. 

Gowan remarks that political leaders do not seem to realise the negative consequences for its EU prospects of keeping Kosovo under its sovereignty. They have thus far hardly been involved in the technical preparations for EU integration – considering the reform process to be an arcane activity rather than at the centre of government policy, he believes. 

However, the new government has made considerable progress on a range of structural reforms, including modernising banking, competition and bankruptcy laws, and improving the health, education and social security systems. Meanwhile, the economy could soon turn a corner, he believes – with the budget in surplus, rapid GDP growth and impressive increases in foreign direct investment. 

The Commission needs to offer short-term visible rewards to Serbia to keep its EU preparations on track, insists Gowan – while the government should do more to highlight the positive impact that aid from the EU has on the country’s economy. 

Gowan concludes that if Serbia can deliver on the war criminals issue, and bring itself genuinely to work for stability in Kosovo, then the EU should grant candidate status as soon as is reasonably possible. The message should continue to be that Serbia has to cease living in the past and switch its focus to meeting the conditions of EU membership, he adds.