It has been more than a decade since a Western Balkan nation joined the European Union and long-simmering tensions between neighbours in the region are beginning to fray. In this special episode, largely recorded at the Globsec conference in Prague, we speak to those keeping the peace including Miroslav Lajčák, Christian Schmidt and former Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
This week in Berlin, an assortment of European ministers gathered for a summit of the Berlin Process, an initiative established a decade ago to maintain the momentum of European Union enlargement in the Western Balkans.
On that criteria, it is difficult to adjudge the Berlin Process much of a success.
It is more than a decade since any country from the Western Balkans, or indeed anywhere else, was welcomed into the EU Croatia in 2013.
In that time, resentment has swelled among those countries of the western Balkans still standing in what appears a static queue.
And anxiety has grown among outside observers that this inertia might yet agitate the flammable nationalist tendencies still very much at large in the region.
Two flashpoints are of particular concern.
Republika Srpska, the predominantly ethnically Serbian entity within Bosnia Herzegovina, the leadership of which is, and with ill disguised encouragement by Russia making noises about secession.
And Kosovo, now recognised by most of the world as a sovereign state, but which Serbia still insists is a temporarily rogue province.
In this special episode of the Foreign Desk, mostly recorded at the recent globesec Forum in Prague, we'll meet people who have contemplated these issues up close.
How far from the peace and stability offered by the EU are the western Balkans now?
What is it like trying to clear that path for a living?
And is there still a danger that the region could erupt again?
This is the Foreign Desk.
In a region where conspiracy theories are very common, we could get out of control if there is not a force to cool it down.
This could generate a situation of destabilization with the consequences that people would not see that there is any danger of a big war.
What I would like to see more is support from the society, because there is no quest for normalization in neither of the two societies.
They are rather criticized for making progress down the path of normalization, and this is really not helpful.
That means there are still people who believe that either you can live with the status quo or you can win and defeat the other party.
Neither of the two is realistic and neither of the two is helpful for Serbia, for Kosovo and for the Balkans.
My own family, they were all anti fascist and anti Nazi, but they were also anti communist.