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International Pan‑European Union

South-East Europe - a No Man's Land?

Organised by the Pan-European Union of Germany in cooperation with the Bavarian State Chancellery and the European Institute for Political, Economic and Social Affairs, the 62nd Andechs Europe Day took place on 19/20 October 2024. The focus was on the question: South-East Europe – a no man's land?

President of the Pan-European Union Germany Bernd Posselt called on the EU to resume the accession process for the countries of the Western Balkans, which has been blocked for years, and to develop a coherent strategic concept as quickly as possible. Otherwise, according to the long-standing CSU MEP, Russia, China and Islamism would fill the power-political vacuum left by the EU in this region. With regard to Serbia, Posselt emphasised that under no circumstances should it become an EU member state before Kosovo, because it continues to make claims to the territory of this neighbouring country in its constitution and wants to block its EU membership on this basis. Belgrade is thus violating one of the decisive admission criteria, according to which no country can join if it has unresolved border issues with its neighbours.

Posselt warned emphatically against attempts by ‘Putin and his Serbian allies to destabilise Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro, as well as Macedonia and Albania.’ This is why these countries need a clear perspective of full membership ‘because if you continue to starve them to death, you increasingly destroy the trust of these peoples in European integration. But trust is the most important capital for a functioning security policy.’

The concluding panel, which raised the provocative question ‘Can we not care about the Balkans?’, was chaired by the European and constitutional law expert Dirk H. Voß, International Vice President of the Pan-European Union, who began by referring to the action plan of the Western Balkans Summit held a few days earlier in Berlin.

The High Representative of the international community for Bosnia-Herzegovina, former Federal Minister Christian Schmidt, criticised ‘not the EU, but our policy: in truth, we have not taken the Western Balkans seriously politically. Our last Balkan cause célèbre was the successful attempt to admit Croatia to the EU.’ The name of Prime Minister Ivo Sanader should also be mentioned. After that, the country no longer got involved because it no longer wanted any new accessions – which is now paying off because the security risks in the region are ‘no longer calculable from the outside’, especially ‘because Putin is playing with the peaceful future of the region’.

Bosnia-Herzegovina, a kind of Yugoslavia in miniature, is made up of the three ethnic groups of Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs, who have to get along with each other. Sometimes it gets lost in disputes, so that there is even a risk of whether the money for the EU's growth plan can be utilised. ‘That is why it cannot be the way to say that we no longer recognise differences, that there are only citizens. We must try to establish a democratic structure that also respects ethnic sensitivities,’ explained the High Representative, who is currently facing a shitstorm over the issue, claiming that he was betraying democracy. He also vigorously rejected ideas ‘like Woodrow Wilson's’: ‘Anyone who believes that new stability can be achieved by shifting territories has no idea of the situation and is ignoring history. This would create a no-man's land where we need ethnic equalisation.’

Finally, Schmidt urgently called for haste in the accession process, which has been stagnating since 2003 and where a solution for Ukraine must now be found. ‘We do not have time to wait until the last EU regulation has been adopted, but we must not turn a blind eye either. That is why we must at least find a way to involve the countries in security policy very quickly. If we pursue such an enlargement policy for another twenty years, we won't have a no-man's land there, but no one left in the country due to frustration and emigration!’