If the #Netherlands do block #Albania’s EU negotiations they’ll only be confirming what has so far been talked about only in hushed voices: there is no “Western Balkans 6”, there’s a “Western Balkans 2”. ALB, MK, BiH, KOS do not have membership prospects — not now, maybe never.
France & the Netherlands are merely out ahead of the pack. But it’s been clear for sometime that the Brussels establishment only has a credible commitment to Serbia & Montenegro. Bringing them into the fold, some believe makes membership for the other four a moot point.
As I describe in my book, logic is there’s enough of a political infrastructure to “contain/maintain” any potential chaos at acceptable levels (for the EU) in these 4 states, while “normalizing” relations w the 2 who have historically been architects of the worst troubles.
Moreover, keeping out the 4 regional states with the largest Muslim populations, is just good domestic politics, as they see it. With the far-right now a mainstay of EU politics, these states’ membership hopes seem increasingly pointless in the next decade, likely longer still.
To be clear: the Dutch are not wrong, per se. Albania is a mafia state. But then neither Serbia nor Montenegro are genuine democracies. In fact, their democratic standards have declined markedly in just the last 2-3 yrs.
If the EU wants to address these issues they need crackdown on the political architects of organized crime & corruption, not quarantine an entire country or region. Greece tried that w Macedonia & then Gruevski nearly caused a civil war. This is the wrong approach.
