Custom essays on European Union

It goes without saying that significant involvement of the European Union needs significant political involvement and massive influx of the costs for the reconstruction and further development of the countries in Balkan area. The European Security Pact is the solution dictated not by economical but rather political, strategic and moral reasons. Central Europe with their experience of democratic and economical transformation could and must provide the positive income in the reformation on the Balkans. But the current situation on the Balkans could be described in such a way: “Therefore, the current state of affairs in Southeastern Europe can be described as the establishment of an elite security community. It is a type of a nascent security community that promotes a framework for strategic interaction between the EU and Balkan state elites, through which the EU advances its interests and values, while building regional consensus on the objectives of policy-making. The EU’s power of attraction (i.e. coercion) maintains a broad agreement on the fundamental rules of such contractual relations. The interaction among elites within this context promotes the transfer of Euro-Atlantic standards to their policy-making. In such pattern of relations, Balkan state elites are bounded by the norms of prescribed behavior (which includes regional cooperation) or risk punishment. Thus, the experiences from following prescribed patterns of behavior inform the decision-making process and modify its framework towards expected habits and policy outcomes.” (Milan Kavalski, 2004). Taking into account all the factors we should understand the urgency of the changes in Balkans. They were providing real threat to the European security being so severe destabilization area, which is located tightly to the borders of European Union. It is not surprising that the process of stable and consolidating democracies would be stopped. But we should not forget that the most perspective candidates such as Bulgaria, Slovenia, which are located in the area, have joined the European Union, the same time it should be noted that the other countries met. The direct involvement of European Union in the solution of the Balkans’ problems caused rethinking the strategy of its enlargement. It goes without saying that strategic position of European Union and its interest on the Balkans is still very high, as too many efforts were undertaken to regulate different problems: “The EU has played a large role in state-building and conflict-prevention measures, but it suffers from a credibility problem for not having intervened effectively in curbing ethnic violence when it first broke out in the Former Yugoslavia in the 1990s” (EES and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2004). The Balkans are in the priority interest of European Union and the unity of Central European countries understand what role the Balkan peninsular is playing for the whole Union, being the core point in the integration to the East, providing the same time strategic area for further activity of the Union. It goes without saying that the role and the presence of the Union in the Western Balkans. Nowadays European Union is trying to apply the policy of increased political and security integration as the core interest of the Union is to prevent further conflicts between the opposite sides in the Western Balkans as it creates real threat to the security of the European Union. The same time EU does not want to slow the process of economical integration. But it should be noted that for quite a short period of time the Balkan countries got to solve a number of the significant problems – the heritage of the nearest past. The last decade of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century every country located in the region experienced severe conflicts and every of the countries regulated these problems differently.

That is why contemporary political and economical situation in these countries as well as social sphere are significantly different from each other and there were a number of the problems in the middle of the first decade in 21st century: “Nevertheless, problems still exist, most notably in high unemployment rates, huge trade deficits and in the fact that, in some places, the informal sector represents as much as 50 percent of the local economy. To help the region climb out of this situation, Fisher offered a general prescription of increasing foreign aid, foreign direct investment (FDI) and trade. Foreign aid has been quite high in the region, but as the violence is quelled, international actors must begin shifting aid from conflict management and refugee support to institution building” (EES and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2004). It goes without saying that the reforms and changes the life facilities in the Balkan region for better became possible because of significant involvement of the European Union and it should be noted that nowadays the life in the Balkans have been significantly changed: the reforms have already started, the measures to prevent the corruption and organized crimes are undertaken, the connections, broken by the conflicts are renewed. It goes without saying that the economical interest of European Union in the region is obvious: “. But prior to improving product quality, regional trade within the western Balkans needs to expand, so that products that are not necessarily competitive in EU countries can find regional markets. Offering a perspective on foreign investors, Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations member Michael Harms asserted that EU-US bilateral economic interdependence is strong, which creates a solid platform for pursuing common interests in the Balkans. Meanwhile, European companies are involved in a broad range of activities, tend to concentrate on medium-size enterprises and are motivated by cost reduction. Finally, European companies have a long-term orientation to the region” (EES and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2004). The good example of the developing economics in the region would be resort area. Serbian tourists could now visit Croatian resorts and Croatian government reduced visas for the Serbian visitors, this provides the establishment of mutually positive development of region, establishment of the old connections between the confronting sides. It goes without saying that without economical interest of European Union it would be impossible to organize the reconstruction of economic relationship between the countries.
Croatia is one of the most perspective candidates on joining the European Union. It has already sent a request to Brussels in order officially became a candidate for joining the United Europe. According to the experts Croatia has quite bright perspectives for joining the European Union: “With respect to regional cooperation, it was indicated that there had been some resistance in the past but Croatia had done better in achieving regional cooperation, especially after making significant progress on its path towards Europe while also gaining confidence that regional cooperation would not undermine its bids for integration” (FRIDE, 2008, p. 4). Romano Prodi even provided Croatia as a good example, on the meeting at Thessaloniki, making a stress on the fact that European Union would like to welcome Croatia as a member of the Union as far as possible. Croatian Politicians were not also left indifferent to the success of their country on the European arena and started to use the symbolic of European Union in order to promote themselves as the core ideologists of joining the European Union. The local press is also welcomes European initiatives and the magazines and newspapers were highlighted with the titles like “EU is impossible without the Western Balkans”, It was quite popular after the meeting EU – the Western Balkans. But it should be noted that in the current day situation the members of the Eastern part of Balkans, such as Bulgaria and Romania are going far quicker through the reforms process and are already members of the Union: “Nevertheless, EU enlargement is the region’s best chance at political and economic transition, and the international community must do all it can to ensure that this process is successful. The largest barriers to accession are in meeting the economic criteria. High budget deficits, trade deficits and low FDI have led to a development impasse. Moreover, competition is further distorted by rampant favoritism and corruption. Even Croatia, which is the clear front-runner in the enlargement process, is still behind the eight new member states from Central and Eastern Europe” (EES and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2004). But the Croatian government wishes to improve the situation and provides different programs, which would guarantee collaborative practice according to the certain question. Without the solution of this questions, it would be impossible for Coratia to join the European Union. The core of them is collaboration with the International Tribunal on the question of former Yugoslavia as well as the solution of the ethnic Serbs problem, who were deported from Croatia during the conflict proceed. The economical interest of European Union in Croatia is obvious, but there should not be also forgotten the conflicts that occurred in the religion. The representatives of European Union understand that only the presence of the EU contingent could be the grant of stabilization, but also including the countries of the region, such as Croatia into the integrational Process: “It is in the self-interest of the EU to stabilise South Eastern Europe and the enlargement process should not be considered a charitable act of the Union. The discussion should not be about the cost of enlargement, but the costs of non-enlargement. The main bottleneck of enlargement is the limits of progress in the Western Balkans. But while the reduced pull-factor of the EU should not be neglected, this should not be used as an alibi for ignoring the failure of many South East European governments to engage in crucial reforms of their countries” (Björn Kühne, 2010, preface). The EU has already marked their strategic and economical interest in the Western Balkans but the same time the countries representatives mark the negative attitude of people to the enlargement policies and the same time the difficulties the state met, during the enlargement process (despite the bright perspectives Croatia became on this difficulties) the Union has met severe confrontation and misunderstanding of the Europeans. Europeans express their opinion on referendums and despite the significant interests the Union has on the Balkans, the European Governments have to meet the difficulties occurred in the present day situation and dealing with European integration to the East: “Croatia being the first to experience this increased scrutiny: »no credit accepted, everything has to be paid in cash« i.e. laws have to be passed and implemented, before negotiations can continue on a certain chapter. Furthermore, benchmarking is applied as a condition for opening and closing of chapters. This has made the process much more transparent, but also provides for even more stages for blockages by individual EU member states or even simply procedural delays. But more importantly, this benchmarking system prevents a country from entering the EU before being ready for it. This needs to be publicised more to address the public concern about repeating the experience of Bulgaria and Romania joining the EU ahead of time” (Björn Kühne, 2010, p. 1). The situation is really not among the pleasant one but despite the interest the European Union needs to take into account other different factors. But Croatia is not the most problematic country despite the difficulties things there are going much better than on the Eastern Balkan Turkey and Western Balkan Bosnia and Herzegovina.