This book contains collection of articles which provide policy implications related to the problem of achieving substantive reform on the basis of harmonising legislation in Western Balkan (WB) countries with the standards of the European Union (EU). While WB states have generally been successful in adopting legal reforms that make up a part of EU conditionality, many laws remain unenforced, amounting to "empty shells." In the space between law, as it is written, and practices as they are engaged in everyday life, exists a gap, characterized by informality, clientelism, and exchange often based on strong tie relationships. Some instances of informality undermine the goal of establishing rule law and contribute to corruption. Others offer valuable solutions to persistent social problems or represent traditional vehicles of social cohesion that should be promoted. The recommendations in this book seek to address both constructive and damaging instances of informality, and to identify policy measures that can help to harmonise not only legislation, but existing informal practices on the ground.

This book contains collection of articles which provide policy implications related to the problem of achieving substantive reform on the basis of harmonising legislation in Western Balkan (WB) countries with the standards of the European Union (EU). While WB states have generally been successful in adopting legal reforms that make up a part of EU conditionality, many laws remain unenforced, amounting to empty shells. In the space between law, as it is written, and practices as they are engaged in everyday life, exists a gap, characterized by informality, clientelism, and exchange often based on strong tie relationships. Some instances of informality undermine the goal of establishing rule law and contribute to corruption. Others offer valuable solutions to persistent social problems or represent traditional vehicles of social cohesion that should be promoted. The recommendations in this book seek to address both constructive and damaging instances of informality, and to identify policy measures that can help to harmonise not only legislation, but existing informal practices on the ground.

The book investigates the scope and limitations of the transformative power of EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. The extension of EU enlargement policy to the region has generated high expectations that enlargement will regulate democratic institution-building and foster reform, much as it did in Central and Eastern Europe. However, there is very little research on whether and how unfavourable domestic conditions might mitigate the transformative power of the EU. This volume investigates the role of domestic factors, identifying ‘stateness’ as the missing link between the assumed transformative power of the EU and the actual capacity to adopt EU rules across the region. Including chapters on Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, leading scholars in the field offer up-to-date comparative analysis of key areas of institutional and policy reform; including state bureaucracy, rule of law, electoral management, environmental governance, cooperation with the International Court of Justice, economic liberalization and foreign policy. Looking to the future and the implications for policy change, European Integration and Transformation in the Western Balkans provides a new theoretical and empirical focus on this little understood area. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of EU politics, comparative democratisation, post-communist transitions and Balkan area studies.

Today, more than fifteen years after the end of the wars that accompanied Yugoslavia's dissolution, the "Balkan question" remains more than ever a "European question". In the eyes of many Europeans in the 1990s, Bosnia was the symbol of a collective failure, while Kosovo later became a catalyst for an emerging Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). In the last decade, however, the overall thrust of the EU's Balkans policy has moved from an agenda dominated by security issues related to the war and its legacies to one focused on the perspective of the Western Balkan states' accession to the European Union. This Chaillot Paper, which features contributions from authors from various parts of the region, examines the current state of play in the countries of the Western Balkans with regard to EU accession. It brings together both views from the Balkans states themselves and overarching thematic perspectives. For the first time the European Union has become involved in the formation of new nation-states that also aspire to become members of the Union. The EU's transformative power has proved effective in integrating established states; now it is confronted with the challenge of integrating new and sometimes contested states. Against this background, this paper makes the case for a concerted regional approach to EU enlargement, and a renewed and sustained commitment to the European integration of the Western Balkans.

This Brief provides a survey of key political, social, and economic issues affecting the Western Balkans region. Taking a two-pronged conceptual approach focusing on fragmentation and integration, the volume highlights commonalities and differences in a number of simultaneous dynamics currently characterizing the region: Europeanization and EU access, market integration, and migration and socio-demographic transformations. Stressing the interconnectedness of these issues, the volume synthesizes key questions for the future of the region, such as the relationship between socio-demographic trends and economic development, the effects of depopulation on further EU integration, and the economic and political repercussions of enhanced intra-regional trade. Explicitly interdisciplinary, this Brief will be useful for researchers and students specializing in the Balkans and Western Balkans, post-socialist countries, European affairs, enlargement, foreign policy, international relations, regional studies, economics, economic transition, and socio-demographics.

The Western Balkans region has come a long way over the last two decades in achieving economic and social progress. With a population of 17.6 million, the region today boasts a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of close to EUR 100 billion, an average GDP per capita of about EUR 5 400 and a comprehensive process of integration with the European Union.

This report examines the prospect of the Balkan countries achieving sustainable economic growth, and what the donor community and international institutions can do to help.