EVER since the end of the Balkan wars in 1999, the most important question in the region has been when and how to join the European Union. Slovenia made it in 2004 and Croatia followed in 2013. For the rest, however, the goal is still far off. The prospects of Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia—all at different stages of EU integration—have appeared stuck for some time.
But recent months brought progress, mostly unnoticed in the rest of crisis-ridden Europe. On August 25th Kosovo and Serbia signed several EU-aided agreements, including one giving Kosovo’s Serb-dominated municipalities more rights. The EU also mediated an agreement leading to new elections in Macedonia, where a political crisis had come to boiling point. An unworkable EU policy blocking Bosnia’s advancement was abandoned.
The single biggest change, says Remzi Lani, an Albanian analyst, is that western Balkan leaders now take their cue from Berlin, not Brussels. “It is the German moment,” he says. The shift was on display at a regional summit in Vienna on August 27th. Heads of government met as part of...
from The Economist: Europe http://ift.tt/1EmAsog
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