Analyst: ‘Imperfect’ EU remains attractive for Balkans

The Balkan countries are under no illusions about the EU – it is an ''imperfect human creation'' but is still their best option for guaranteeing stability and prosperity following the wars of the 1990s, Ivan Vejvoda, executive director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, told EurActiv Slovakia in an interview.

Ivan Vejvoda is executive director of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, a project of the German Marshall Fund of the United States dedicated to strengthening democratic institutions in Southeastern Europe.
He previously served as a foreign policy advisor to Serbian Prime Ministers Zoran Živković and Zoran Djindjić and was a key figure in the opposition movement in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

European countries and EU foreign affairs chief Cathy Ashton recently persuaded the Serbian president to withdraw his original proposal for a UN resolution criticising the International Coirt of Justice ruling on Kosovo. It is considered a tremendous success for European diplomacy. Do you agree?

Absolutely. I would agree completely that it is a success overall, both for the European Union and for Serbia, and I would add Kosovo because what it demonstrates is the willingness on the part of everyone to go forward to find a solution to what would otherwise be a frozen conflict – something that is not possible to solve.

Here, because we have the European Union, we have a magnet for the whole region – including Serbia – to want to move forward and become a part of the EU itself, which means stabilising, bringing back normality and solving problems like all other countries have in the global economic crisis: unemployment, falling standards of living…

The only way to do that is to have allies and assess realistically what your position is, and I think the resolution and the compromise that was achieved point directly in this direction.... 

News source: EurActiv link: article