Political scientist Dimitar Bechev advises the EU to keep up the pressure on politicians in the Western Balkans.
Die Presse: The last new EU member to date, Croatia, joined almost a decade ago, since then there has been a standstill: has the enlargement policy failed?
Dimitar Bechev: I wouldn’t go that far. She is badly hit. But for the simple reason that we don’t have anything better, it’s still the standard. She’s very dysfunctional. But there is the informal enlargement process, at the level of the companies. Creating barriers to free movement, both for people and for companies, makes the process robust. You can see that in the case of Ukraine: Ukrainians get three years of access to the EU labor market. I’d be surprised if that were abolished, even if Ukraine didn’t become a member any time soon. Something similar will happen in the Western Balkans: a gradual uptake.
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