The EU’s raison d’état in the Western Balkans: Can the new enlargement methodology help?

Abstract

By employing the concept of raison d’état, the article questions the European Union’s role in the so-called Western Balkan region. While the region continues to be covered by the EU’s enlargement policy, we argue that the policy has been in paralysis. We explore whether the heightened geopolitical tensions in Europe have brought the EU to a turning point at which it would use its enlargement policy decisively to pursue its strategic interests in the region. We start with a theoretical discussion of raison d’état and its instrumentalization in the context of the European Union as a non-state actor. Then, we use the conceptual benchmarks of the raison d’état to analyze its empirical implementation through the EU’s relations with Western Balkan countries. We explore the EU’s available enlargement policy tools and the diverging positions within the EU towards enlargement. We pay special attention to the “New enlargement methodology” devised by the Commission in 2019. We argue that despite the Commission’s efforts to promote the EU’s common interest in the region framed in a geopolitical narrative, the diverging national interests still preclude the EU from aggregating its own and pursuing its raison d’état towards the region. The “new methodology” does nothing to overcome this situation. What is more, by insisting on a “stronger political steer” and by further facilitating the reversal of the accession process, the document pushes the Union further away from a common ground regarding the enlargement.