Former Yugoslavia

BALKANS. The term “Balkans” stems from the Ottoman Turkish word balkan, defined as a pass through wooded and rocky mountains.

The Balkans had been a crossroads for war for centuries, bridging the East and West. The Byzantine Empire expanded into the lands during the last centuries of their reign, bringing Christianity to the tribes that resided in the mountains of the Balkans. The Byzantines battled with Arabs and Barbarian forces in the area, driving many residents from the barbarian confederacies in the region as they fled from the endless war between conflicting empires.

The Balkans has the unfortunate curse of being in the middle of two major regions of the world that have been historically at odds. The Cold War provided no refuge and only temporary support from the Soviet Union as the communist nation elected puppet states that served to provide for the military and Soviet interests, and seldom ever provided sufficient resources for workers.

In this, both the ethnic and cultural diversity of the region and the region’s geographical location have contributed to long periods of destabilized governments that have served poorly to protect innocent people residing in the region.

Winston Churchill remarked that the Balkans displayed a distinct tendency to produce more history than could be consumed locally. But following the collapse of communism and the end to the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, it seemed possible to hope that the Balkans would enjoy a period of stability, and that the countries of the region could make progress in establishing themselves as secure and independent democratic states.  All of them expressed the ambition to join NATO and the EU; Croatia, along with Albania joined the former in 2009, Croatia the European Union in 2013; and Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia have been confirmed as candidate EU members. Montenegro is expected to join NATO in the coming months.

The Balkans form a highly sensitive, coherent geo-strategic unity.  The need to secure access to the region and to influence events there explains the centuries-old temptation of non-Balkan powers to interfere in its affairs.

The ethnic conflicts due to still unsettled territorial disputes in the Balkan region, especially on the territory of former Yugoslavia, lead to marginalization when, more than the others, they need solid European perspective until the moment when solid democratic societies will be established.

In the international union and in the South-Eastern Europe the future of the region is increasingly perceived as one whole for the purpose of which all interested countries must jointly work. This is very important for the cooperation in the matter of the mutual boundaries. Borders must be stable. The delimitation and demarcation of these are fundamental for their stability.

The European Commission has no jurisdiction over the border demarcation process.
There is no acquis communautaire relating to border issues and no methodology for tracking progress in this field. However, regional cooperation and good neighbourly relations are considered to be “an essential part of the process of integrating with the European Union”.