If Yugoslavia Were an EU MemberWhat would Europe look like if the Balkans hadn't disintegrated?

Category: European Union, South-­East Europe

by Cornelius Adebahr, Polish Institute of International Affairs

In the third installment of the PISM/DGAP counterfactuals project, DGAP's Cornelius Adebahrexplores the implications of hypothetical Yugoslavian unity and its effects within theEuropean Union, revealing both strengths and weaknesses of today's EU reality.

It is an intriguing thought: imagine how Europe might look had the Federal Republic of Yugoslavianot disintegrated but, say, merely shed its “Socialist” prefix. It would have spared the societies ofwhat are today Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, andSlovenia hundreds of thousands of dead. The European Union would not have looked so dividedand impotent in the face of the killing on its doorstep. And the US would not have had to sendsoldiers to fight on European soil for the first time since World War II. In short, the region might wellhave been a “better place” – an assertion with which many citizens of the now-­independentsuccessor states would concur.

Of course, the entry of Yugoslavia into the EU would have meant a number of challenges, beingsomething of a multiethnic “mini-­Europe” in itself and one held together by a now-­alien ideology andauthoritarian system. But let’s assume that the European Commission successfully offered economicand financial aid to dampen the nationalist forces in the various Yugoslav republics and maintain thecountry’s integrity. Granted, the centrifugal forces that did tear Yugoslavia apart were by no meansmerely economic. However, in our scenario, the EU’s offer was substantial enough to provideincentives for citizens to cling to a Yugoslav Federation capable of accommodating their concernsand to jointly become part of the bigger Union next door.

Such a scenario allows for speculation about three real-­world EU policies, all facing a combination ofgridlock and rudderless flux: enlargement, common foreign and security policy (CFSP), and thesetup of the EU’s membership. While this exercise is probably too hypothetical to draw practicallessons for today’s policy from it, imagining such an alternate path challenges our picture of what isnormal and accepted today. These, after all, are policy areas in which distinctions between insidersand outsiders are key and in which the EU is seeking to promote its norms. The idea of the westernBalkans not as a messy counterpoint to the EU, but rather as a full member of the bloc, challengesour real-­world perceptions.

Alternative Enlargement

In our scenario, Yugoslavia applied for membership in 1991 and two years later started negotiationstogether with Austria, Finland, and Sweden. The relative economic health of its three coapplicants,which had been developing in close relation with the Community thanks to their membership in theEuropean Free Trade Association (EFTA), served to highlight Yugoslavia’s own fundamentalchallenges: unemployment was high, as were public debt and inflation, and socially-­ownedcompanies were no longer competitive. A privatization effort initiated in 1989 as quid pro quo for

much-­needed IMF loans was pushing the country towards disintegration. In turn, the emphasis onYugoslav convergence highlighted problems with corruption and the rule of law, which also croppedup throughout the bloc’s eastern expansion.

As a result, the leitmotif of a “reunification of Europe” was ditched early on, the process becomingless geopolitical and more merit-­based. The fifth enlargement was thus split into different phases:Yugoslavia became a member at the turn of the century together with the more advanced statesfrom the CEE group – Hungary, Estonia, and Malta. Thanks to the early onset of its economictransition, Yugoslavia could also adopt the euro as a second-­round member alongside Greeceshortly thereafter. The simple fact of having a transition country like Yugoslavia apply formembership in the eurozone led the “old members” to insist on stricter controls for all aspirants. Asecond, larger group of countries entered the EU in the mid-­2000s, including recently unified Cyprus:Given Greece’s smaller leverage thanks to the emphasis in the enlargement process on technicalconvergence as well as Yugoslavia’s fragility in terms of internal borders, the EU made the prioracceptance of the Annan Plan a precondition for accession. A third group around Romania andBulgaria joined only in the present decade.

A Different Foreign Policy

Defusing the specter of war in Yugoslavia by means of enlargement policy, the EU avoided thepiecemeal and reactive development of its own foreign policy capabilities. It had time to devise a newforeign policy system based on its 1992 Maastricht Treaty – which, however, would probably neverhave seen the light of day without the outside pressure to put it into practice. Distaste for violenceand a focus on peaceful transition in Eastern Europe meant the EU did not intervene in bloodyconflicts in the heart of Africa – Somalia, Rwanda, or Congo – avoiding military integration. Instead,NATO developed as the alliance of choice for many EU member states, enlarging eastward itself andat the same time engaging in peacekeeping and peacemaking missions mostly beyond Europe’sborders.

Alongside formerly neutral members such as Austria, Finland, and Sweden, Yugoslavia not onlypushed for a clearly civilian approach to EU crisis management;; as a founding member of the Non-­Aligned Movement (NAM), it also allowed the EU to establish relations with important emergingpowers such as India, South Africa, Indonesia, and Malaysia. While Belgrade did have to drop itsNAM membership upon entering the European club (just like Cyprus and Malta), it built on itspreferential contacts – both personal and institutionalized – to capitals of the Southern hemisphere.This became an important asset for the EU, given that its “special relations” with many world regionsotherwise suffer from the colonial past of individual member states.

Shifting Membership

With nearly 24 million inhabitants, Yugoslavia became the EU’s fifth largest member state, droppingto sixth only when Poland (with 38 million people) joined. Until the reforms in 2001, it carried sixvotes in the Council, more than the Netherlands, Portugal, or Belgium respectively. And until morerecently, it wielded seventeen votes, equivalent to Sweden and Finland or Austria and Denmarktogether. Relatively powerful on paper, Yugoslavia, however, remains fragile. The country issometimes described as a big Belgium – organized in a highly federal, dysfunctional way. The sixrepublics have used the EU to strengthen their hand vis-­à-­vis their federal government, not least viathe Committee of the Regions in Brussels. In particular, the Slovene and Croat Republics haveteamed up with regions such as Bavaria, Catalonia, and Scotland to fight for European influence andmoney. The Serbian Republic, in contrast, is held back by a complicated power-­sharing deal with itsautonomous Kosovar minority.

As a result, there has been a new power distribution within the EU, with a shift of competences away

from the member governments in favor of both the European and regional levels. Economic andsocial policies, including issues such as employment, migration, and social security systems, arelargely set in Brussels, whereas policies for infrastructure and transport, education, and culture havegone to the regions. This leaves the member states with clearly fewer competencies. Yet, the forceof Yugoslav decentralization has become so strong – despite or even because of the economic andfinancial benefits of belonging to the EU – that the EU very recently had to facilitate the breakaway ofone republic. This “velvet divorce” sets a precedent for independence movements in old memberstates, with the EU now facing a regrouping of its membership towards a greater number of small-­ tomid-­sized states.

Tempting as the thought of non-­war is, it is hard to imagine for those knowing the region that thetransition from the Yugoslav slogan of “brotherhood and unity” to the EU’s motto “unity in diversity”would have been without friction. Still, looking through the hypothetical glasses of this exercise, adifferent kind of “normality” can highlight where the weaknesses of today’s EU lie.

Three lessons stand out, two of which the real EU has started to address. First, the EU would haveadapted its rules for enlargement earlier in the process, thanks to knowing about the difficulties of acontinued transition in its new member states. The economic and social pains of Yugoslaviaadapting throughout the 1990s to join the euro would also have taught the EU a lesson about crisis-­ridden Greece and Spain today. In reality, the EU has only recently started to address the questionof conditionality, especially with regard to its Neighborhood Policy (and stands to see its magnetismfade vis-­à-­vis Ukraine). Second, the Union would have a much less developed security and defensepolicy, instead focusing on a more global foreign policy with even fewer military teeth than it hastoday. Here, the EU did make some progress by carefully trying to develop a more global CFSPinvolving various partners and regional groupings, something where it could still become a lotstronger.

The third and final lesson of Yugoslavia’s assumed entry to the EU, however, remains an openquestion: whether the nation state is still the determining framework to solve Europe’s challenges ofthe 21st century? A multiethnic member state with a weak federal structure would haveforeshadowed today’s debates about eroding national sovereignty in the aftermath of the financialcrisis, the recurring complaints about a democratic disconnect throughout Europe, or theindependence movements in Catalonia and Scotland. That’s where the EU needs to urgently tacklethis fundamental challenge. Far from providing useful answers itself, a member state calledYugoslavia at least would have forced the EU to address this question much earlier.

CORNELIUS ADEBAHR is an associate fellow at the Alfred von Oppenheim Center for Policy Studiesat the DGAP.