EU-toetreding voor Balkanlanden op lange baan geschoven: meer economische en sociale hervormingen zijn nodig (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The European Commission is set to recommend holding off on Western Balkan enlargement until the "medium to long-term" in a keynote report today, urging all the six states in the region to do more on political and economic reform before the accession process can move forward.

"Further accessions are likely to occur in the medium term to long-term, given the present state of pre-accession preparations," a draft of the Wednesday (8 November) study states, adding that "negotiations with candidates and potential candidates should be pursued in a rigorous manner, fully respecting agreed conditions."

The text says "the question of Kosovo's future status, relations with Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina's assumption of the greater ownership of its governance" will top EU priorities in 2006-2007, while stressing differences in the degree of compliance with EU criteria in six the Western Balkan states that eye future membership of the union.

"At present it appears unlikely that a large group of countries will in future accede simultaneously," the commission warns, as Croatia and Macedonia lead the pack having gained official EU candidate status while Serbia remains bogged down in problems over war crimes fugitives and its territorial claim to Kosovo.

Croatia is praised as the most developed in the region, with formal EU membership negotiations to continue but with Brussels keeping quiet on any target accession date until at least the end of 2008. By that date, the fate or the failed EU constitution and its plans for reforming EU institutions for an enlarged bloc should be more clear.

Zagreb's main challenge for 2007 will be "to accelerate the pace of reforms, notably in the key areas of judicial and public administration reform, the fight against corruption and economic reform."

The pace of reform in Macedonia slowed in 2006, Brussels states, commending Skopje on new legislation to improve the rights of ethnic Albanians but urging the government to heal divisions with ethnic-Albanian opposition parties as well as to boost police and judicial standards before formal EU membership talks can be launched.

The most problematic country - Serbia - gets kudos for its "constructive approach to Montenegro" which split from its state union with Serbia after a peaceful referendum in May and is encouraged to continue with its administrative reform.

But Belgrade's EU association talks remain frozen due to Belgrade's refusal to cooperate with the UN over the handover of war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic.

Brussels also criticises Serbia's approach to Kosovo - a UN-administered territory that is seeking independence from Belgrade in ongoing UN-led negotiations - after Serbia in a new constitution agreed in October made a unilateral claim to sovereignty over the war-scarred territory.

The semi-autonomous ethnic-Albanian government in Kosovo is praised for recent efforts to reach out to ethnic-Serb minority enclaves but told to do more to establish the rule of law - especially related to minorities - with the commission voicing alarm over the economic situation in the region that has 50 percent unemployment.

Meanwhile, Bosnia is still engaged in talks on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) - the legal step before gaining EU candidate status - but in practice deep divisions between the Sarajevo authorities and the ethnic-Serb minority in Republika Srpska are delaying the treaty.

The rift has seen Bosnia fail to push through EU-demanded police reforms and a new constitution designed to pull the country together, with Bosnia also tarnished by insufficient cooperation with the UN over Serb war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic - "a key part of the conditionality under which the country can draw closer to the EU" - according to Brussels.

The remaining two states - Albania and Montenegro - are both urged to press ahead with the fight against "corruption and organized crime" as well as pursue administrative reforms to enable future adoption of EU law - the acquis communautaire - with a Transparency International study this week placing Tirana the worst in the region on corruption.

Montenegro is the youngest country out of the six after proclaiming independence from Serbia in June, followed by separate SAA talks with Brussels. The commission calls on Podgorica to "to strengthen its institutions sufficiently to move forward" and to boost war crimes cooperation with the UN "so that [SAA] talks can be concluded in the coming months."

Heavy EU engagement in the Western Balkans has come as a response to several armed conflicts in the region in the 1990s, with Macedonia seeing heavy fighting as recently as 2001 and with the bloody wars in Bosnia and Kosovo still fresh in Brussels policy-makers' minds.