Boosting Cooperation in the European Integration Process: East-Central Europe as a Model for the Western Balkans

Doi: https://doi.org/10.58603/SBRY5157

Abstract: This article investigates how East Central Europe’s (ECE) successful— though uneven—experience of European Union enlargement can help reinvigorate the Western Balkans’ stalled accession process. Through a comparative review of more than two dozen academic and policy studies, it distils four interlinked lessons. First, credible and phased EU conditionality must be coupled with early “integration dividends” that keep domestic publics and reform coalitions motivated. Second, the rule of law agenda should tackle state capture up front, empowering watchdog institutions and civil society before the EU’s leverage wanes. Third, regional cooperation—modelled on the Visegrád Group and now advanced through CEFTA, the Common Regional Market and the Berlin Process—acts both as rehearsal for, and condition of, EU membership. Finally, reconciliation and transitional justice initiatives are indispensable to durable stability and should be treated as core accession benchmarks. The article concludes that a coordinated regional approach, backed by a consistent EU commitment, remains the most viable path to completing Europe’s unification and delivering lasting prosperity to the Western Balkans.