30 YEARS OF THE EU’S PEACE, STATE AND DEMOCRACY BUILDING EFFORTS IN THE WESTERN BALKANS: A FRAGILE PEACE, INCOMPLETE STATE BUILDING, SOME DEMOCRACY... AND NO EU ACCESSION

Ever since it failed to prevent the breakout of the post-Yugoslav wars in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (B-H) in the early 1990s, the EU has been extensively engaged in peace, state and security building and democratisation in the Western Balkans. However, the outcomes of this 30-year engagement are a mixed bag. Focussing on securing regional peace and stability through insisting on compliance with the SAP conditions and its own incentives for building state institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, and putting the democratisation and compliance with the original Copenhagen accession conditions in the second tier, the EU has not secured lasting political stability in the region nor brought the Western Balkan states close to EU membership.