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1 This article was downloaded by: [University of Leeds] On: 16 June 2010 Access details: Access Details: [subscription number ] Publisher Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: Registered office: Mortimer House, Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Ethnopolitics Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: The Stabilization and Association Process in the Western Balkans: An Effective Instrument of Post-conflict Management? Claire Gordon a a London School of Economics, UK To cite this Article Gordon, Claire(2009) 'The Stabilization and Association Process in the Western Balkans: An Effective Instrument of Post-conflict Management?', Ethnopolitics, 8: 3, To link to this Article: DOI: / URL: PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Full terms and conditions of use: This article may be used for research, teaching and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, re-distribution, re-selling, loan or sub-licensing, systematic supply or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.

2 Ethnopolitics, Vol. 8, Nos. 3 4, , September November 2009 The Stabilization and Association Process in the Western Balkans: An Effective Instrument of Post-conflict Management? CLAIRE GORDON London School of Economics, UK ABSTRACT This article investigates the Stabilization and Association Process as an instrument of post-conflict management in the Western Balkans. It explores the appropriateness of the fit of the modified Central and Eastern European accession template with the added stabilization component to the post-conflict countries of the region. In addition, the article raises questions about the continued efficacy of the prolonged and faulty leveraging of conditionality as the EU s primary instrument for affecting transformative change in the Western Balkans. Finally, through the case study of minorities protection, the article suggests that insufficient attention has been paid to developing a comprehensive strategy for the stabilization of post-conflict societies and thus laying the foundations for stable consolidated statehood and a viable democratic peace throughout the region. The Stabilization and Association Process (hereafter SAP), which embraces all the countries of the Former Yugoslavia as well as Albania, has been the EU s flagship policy in the Western Balkans since 2000, intended both to contribute to the post-conflict stabilization of the countries of the region and to facilitate their progressive rapprochement and integration into the EU. Despite sporadic incidents, there has been no reversion to widespread violence in the Western Balkans since the end of the NATO air bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999 and the conclusion of the Ohrid Agreement in FYROM in This alone must be considered a success given the extreme excesses of violence that marred the break-up of the Former Yugoslavia. This article focuses on the postviolent conflict stage of the conflict management process in the Western Balkans and assesses the efficacy of the EU s Stabilization and Association Process in contributing to post-conflict peace-building processes, in embedding stable consolidated states and in facilitating the building of increasingly democratic polities and societies. While recognizing the evolution and adaptation of the policy instrument since its inception in 1999, the article questions the appropriateness of the policy fit between the SAP, an Correspondence Address: Claire Gordon, European Institute, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. c.e.gordon@lse.ac.uk Print/ Online/09/ # 2009 The Editor of Ethnopolitics DOI: /

3 326 C. Gordon instrument adapted from the Central and Eastern European accession template designed to ready these post-communist transition countries for EU membership, and the post-conflict countries of the Western Balkans, which arguably faced a rather different set of developmental challenges, necessitating a different sequencing of priority issues. Most of these countries, with the exception of Croatia, continue to be weak states with underlying ethnic tensions. At best, they are semi-consolidated democracies whose path to closer EU integration has been fitful and uncertain, as underlined in the and Enlargement Strategy Papers and accompanying individual country progress reports, which have deferred even further the prospect of full membership. 1 Informed by the wider literature on conditionality and its potential for inducing change, the article raises critical questions about the continued efficacy of conditionality as the EU s preferred lever for delivering institutional transformation and norm alignment in a broad range of economic and political domains in the countries of the Western Balkans. Finally, the article seeks to unpack the relationship between stabilization and association that lies at the heart of the SAP. 2 Much has by now been written on the failures of the EU s attempts at conflict management in the Former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. 3 The SAP that was developed by the EU in the early 2000s was intended to meet the post-conflict needs of the countries of the region after the EC/EU s earlier failures to stem violent conflict. The aim was to enhance stability on the Union s southeastern borders, and to prepare the countries for eventual accession. The article takes a three-pronged approach to investigating the efficacy of the SAP as an instrument for post-conflict management, examining the SAP from the point of view of: structure, content and outcomes. In the first part, it considers the emergence, development and structure of the SAP, raising questions about the relationship between stabilization and association in this policy instrument, and about the efficacy of the application of conditionality as the EU s main tool for securing compliance with its recommended policy reforms. In the second part, through an examination of SAP approaches to minorities protection, the article examines the EU s contribution to a critical aspect of policy essential for stabilizing post-conflict societies and laying the foundations for stable consolidated statehood and a viable democratic peace. The article suggests that while the EU has enmeshed the countries of the region in a set of contractual relations embracing a wide range of policy areas, it has devoted insufficient attention to developing effective policies on the political stabilization side of the SAP equation and thus to contributing to the embedding of the political aspects of the process of post-conflict transformation. Arguably this has resulted in a slowdown in the fulfilment of the association part of the SAP equation, potentially posing serious dilemmas for future progress in the Western Balkans region. 4 The paper lays out several broad measures of success for evaluating the outcomes of the SAP in post-conflict management: (1) no return to widespread violence; (2) progress towards resolving stateness issues and building consolidated state structures; (this encompasses agreement on state borders and membership in the political community as per Rustow (1970), and agreement and acceptance of the new constitutional settlement); (3) democratic consolidation (drawing on Przeworski s (1991) parsimonious definition of consolidation having taking place when democracy is the only game in town and contestation and conflict are channelled through a transparent political process); 5 and (4) progressive rapprochement with the EU (according to the stages of the SAP and the formal accession process). Although these measures of success are not explicitly laid out in SAP documentation, they none the less could be considered broad parameters for

4 The Stabilization and Association Process 327 gauging the successful resolution of a post-conflict situation (with the additional European integration fourth measure). Inasmuch as SAP was designed to meet the requisites of the post-conflict Western Balkans, it would seem appropriate to measure outcomes in the region against such criteria. The EU s Post-conflict Management for the Western Balkans The emergence of the SAP marked a shift away from an ad hoc fire-fighting style of crisis management to a more long-term broadly integrationist approach to the Western Balkans region. Beyond the EU s involvement in the post-conflict settlements of the region through the institutions of the international protectorates and civilian missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH) and Kosovo through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, it was apparent by the late 1990s that the Union could also seek to make a positive contribution to post-conflict management by building on its experience of using the tools of soft power to induce third parties to stabilize politically and economically with the ultimate promise of EU integration. With all the potential ambiguities of its operation, the instrument of conditionality with the ultimate reward of EU membership was at the very least strengthening the domestic commitment to continued democratization and marketization in the Central and Eastern European countries. This shaped the EU s new approach to conflict management in the Western Balkans in the form of the Stabilization and Association Process. Drawing on its strengths, it sought to promote association by the promotion of trade and integration into EU markets, as well as political stabilization through more proactive peace-building policies, taking into account the specifics of the post-conflict setting in the countries of the Former Yugoslavia. Under this new incremental transformational strategy the states of the region were to be embraced in a multistage framework fostering political and economic development together with enhanced regional cooperation, all of which was to be underpinned by the prospect of EU membership at some point in the future. Following the election of more democratic-oriented governments and the departures of Franjo Tudjman and Slobodan Milosevic in Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, respectively, the EU, building on its earlier Regional Approach, formally introduced the new SAP in 1999, although the organization and components of the SAP were to be clarified over the following 3 years. 6 The SAP and the resulting Stabilization and Association Agreements (hereinafter SAAs), which were to embrace Albania, Bosnia- Herzegovina, Croatia, the FYROM and Serbia, and subsequently Montenegro and Kosovo, were considered the institutional contribution of the EU to the Stability Pact, an intergovernmental body set up in 1999 to bring together over 40 countries and a range of international organizations to coordinate technical and financial assistance and support for regional initiatives aimed at fostering the political stabilization of the Western Balkans region. 7 In addition to the conclusion of association agreements, SAP offered the prospect of EU membership, which was made explicit for the first time at the Feira Council of June 2000 together with an attendant strategy of support and EU convergence. 8 The prospect of EU membership was reiterated at the Zagreb summit in November As its name suggests, the dual but related processes of stabilization and association lie at the heart of the SAP and clearly there has been a complex interdependence between the two sides of the equation: stabilization is arguably not possible without association, the ultimate culmination of which is EU membership. At the same time progressive

5 328 C. Gordon association is not possible without stabilization. Thus, teasing out the complex at times complementary, at times contradictory relationship between the two and questioning the mix of policies in both these areas is critical to understanding the successes and shortcomings of the instrument to date. While the process of association has been markedly shaped by the previous Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) enlargement rounds, the EU at the same time sought to tailor the instrument to the conditions of the post-violent conflict states of the Balkans. Yet it is not entirely clear what the EU s definition and objectives were in terms of stabilization, let alone the exact relationship of stabilization with association. A careful reading of EU documentation would suggest that stabilization under SAP refers to a rather broad conceptualization of regional political stabilization embracing a range of elements, including compliance with peace agreements, reconstruction and reconciliation, refugee return, cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and regional cooperation though less comprehensive notions of domestic political stabilization and policy support directed at state and democratic consolidation. 10 The EU Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilization aid programme (hereinafter Cards) and later SAP reports introduced the notion of democratic stabilization to refer to activities subsumed under refugee return, civil society development and media reform, but with limited focus on the exigencies of post-conflict statebuilding. Elsewhere there has been reference to regional stabilization and macroeconomic stabilization. In practice, the predominance of bilateral institutional interaction between the Commission and SAP countries diminished attention to the regional aspects of political stabilization. In addition, the lack of clearly formulated benchmarks for political stabilization more generally suggests that SAP has suffered from the same problems of measurement, moving targets and the risk of politicized judgments that have beset other aspects of EU conditionality in this and other association processes. Nevertheless, the EU placed increasing stress on the need for fair and rigorous conditionality in Enlargement Strategy Papers from 2005 onwards and emphasized the need for benchmarking following lessons learned from the fifth enlargement. 11 Moreover, as the operationalization of its policy approach to the Western Balkans evolved and the accent gradually shifted from stabilization to association, the initial (albeit limited) top-down focus on peace-building and regional political stabilization was, to a degree, superseded by the top-down drive to meet the requisites of EU membership conditionality. This corresponded in part to the shift of responsibility for the countries of the Western Balkans to Directorate General (DG) for Enlargement from Directorate General (DG) for External Relations in the wake of the European Council in Thessaloniki and the greater experience of many DG Enlargement officials with the association and integration side of the equation. It is only more recently in view of the limited progress that there has been a renewed recognition in certain quarters of DG Enlargement of the need to devote more attention to the political stabilization dimension to reinforcing the rule of law, good governance and facilitating political dialogue and compromise including on ethnic-related issues. 12 The institutionalization of the SAP also marked the beginning of the downgrading of the regional approach introduced in 1997 and reflected in the Stability Pact in favour of the traditional Brussels-individual country bilateral mode of interaction, though even the regional approach favoured bilateral frameworks for cooperation over regional ones. In the publication The Western Balkan Countries on the Road to the European Union (2006), the Commission outlined the rationale for SAP as follows: (1) it acknowledged

6 The Stabilization and Association Process 329 that the prospect of EU membership based on conditionality could serve as a strong driver of reform in the region; (2) it stressed the need for establishing bilateral relationships among the countries of the region; and (3) it outlined the development of a flexible country-by-country approach based on assistance programmes and contractual relations that would embrace the whole gamut of issues ranging from conflict reconstruction and stabilization to technical assistance with approximation of legislation. 13 With respect to the process of monitoring, as was the case with the CEE countries, the SAP s key mechanism is the Commission s annual progress reports, which were instituted in 2001 with the aim of assessing the compliance of the countries of the Western Balkans with the 1997 Council criteria as well as measuring progress towards achieving the objectives set up in the SAP. 14 The Commission s annual reports all follow the same structure, divided into three parts based on the Copenhagen criteria (political, economic and European standards), allowing for comparison across countries and across time. In the wake of the 2003 Thessaloniki European Council, the instrument of the European Partnership was also introduced to tie the priorities identified in the annual progress reports more closely to plans for action in the short and medium term for the individual countries of the region. 15 The European Partnerships are a similar legal instrument to the CEE Accession Partnerships, identifying the priorities that individual countries need to focus on in their preparation for accession and serving as the basis against which progress is assessed. 16 Thus, instruments designed to propel and measure the progress of CEE countries towards accession have been reproduced in a different regional context and contributed to the focus on accession-oriented policies. At the same time, an increasingly explicit link has been drawn between enlargement and conflict prevention, reflected in the introductory section of both the and Enlargement Strategy Papers, which both state Enlargement is one of the EU s most powerful policy tools. It serves the EU s strategic interests in stability, security, and conflict prevention without spelling out exactly how. 17 The SAP, Multi-stage Conditionality and Conflict Transformation Over time the instrument of the SAP has been refined for a number of reasons relating both to internal developments in the countries of the Western Balkans and to intra-eu factors as well. The Commission itself has undergone a learning curve about the political and economic situation in the countries of the region as well as deriving lessons from the use of conditionality in previous enlargements, in particular with regard to Bulgaria and Romania. This has been coupled with mixed and often hesitant progress in terms of stabilization and adjustment in the SAP countries themselves, as reflected on an annual basis in the Commission s progress reports. 18 Progress has also been slowed by divisions in the European Council about how far the EU should enlarge and the perceived tensions between widening versus deepening, which contributed to so-called enlargement fatigue inside certain quarters of the EU itself after 2004, as well as in certain member states. Such concerns have multiplied in light of the current global economic crisis. 19 Along with the perennial concern about candidates administrative capacities, increasing weight has been attached to the rather vague notion of absorption capacity, the fourth condition of Copenhagen 1993 with a proposal tabled (though rejected) at the European Council in June 2006 by France, Austria and the Netherlands for it to be made a formal part of the accession conditionality criteria. Though adding stages to the conditionality

7 330 C. Gordon and thus prolonging the possibility for hands-tying and potential leverage on the part of the Commission may have been considered a shrewd approach, given the complexity of the post-conflict situation in the countries of the Western Balkans, the continued problematic operationalization of the conditionality has in part undermined the credibility of the EU. The increasing uncertainty over the eventual membership prospect undermines the capacity of the instrument to provide the necessary incentives to domestic governments to overcome political constraints and deliver the requisite reforms at home. Thus, the SAP is now a multistage, protracted process of setting and meeting conditions. The arrangement of a Stabilization and Accession Agreement by each of the countries of Southeastern Europe is the focal point of the SAP, which over the long term leads to formal integration into the EU via the route of candidate status and the subsequent commencement of formal accession negotiations; but the countries of the Western Balkans cannot automatically sign SAA agreements. 20 The first stage of the conditionality for the participating SAP countries comprised the common principles outlined in the 1996 Regional Approach and the conditionality criteria laid out at the 1997 Council, which incorporated both general conditions as well as a number of individualized country demands. Included in the general conditions were cooperation with ICTY, willingness to re-establish economic cooperation with one another, respect for democratic principles, human rights and minority rights, the creation of the rule of law, the privatization of stateowned property and the introduction of a market economy. Although no direct reference was made to minority rights in the specific country conditions, the need to address majority minority relations was clearly implied, thus underlining some recognition at the Commission level of the need to normalize inter-group relations in the wake of violent interethnic conflict. In relation to Croatia, compliance with the obligations of the November 1995 Erdut Agreement and cooperation with UNTAES (the United Nations Transitional Authority in Eastern Slovonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium from January 1996 to 1998) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which would necessarily have a minorities component, were stipulated; as regards the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), credible pressure on the Bosnian Serbs to cooperate in the institution building and the implementation of provisions of the constitution as well as for evidence of cooperation with ICTY and the granting of a large degree of autonomy to Kosovo were itemized. 21 Respecting these criteria was considered to be the foundation for the development of bilateral relations with the EC in the field of trade, assistance and contractual relations. 22 These were preconditions for the negotiation of SAAs. Furthermore, the Commission also conducted a feasibility study to assess whether the country in question has progressed sufficiently to negotiate and meaningfully implement an SAA. 23 Once the SAA has been agreed, the agreement has to be ratified by all EU members and the associated country. Between 2000 and 2003, additional conditions and instruments were incorporated into the SAP framework; in certain cases this included an extension of the conditionality, in others a more precise specification of already stated conditions. The final declaration of the Zagreb Summit of November 2000 emphasized the stage between the signing of the agreements and the opening of formal accession negotiations. It stated that before commencing membership negotiations, SAP countries had to respect the criteria defined at the Copenhagen Council in June 1993 as well as implement the stabilization and association agreements. The Copenhagen criteria involved: (1) the democratic political criteria, an integral element of which was respect for and protection of minorities; (2) a functioning

8 The Stabilization and Association Process 331 market economy and ability to withstand competitive pressures; and (3) the ability to take on the obligations of the extensive acquis communautaire. 24 In addition to these three primary criteria, Copenhagen 1993 also included a fourth condition for entry, which has been described as the EU s so-called let-out clause : The Union s capacity to absorb new members while maintaining the momentum of European Integration. As indicated above, this latter condition has taken on an increasing importance due in part to the slow progress of stabilization and transformation in the Western Balkans, as well as internal EU constraints, including the stalemate over Lisbon and disagreements over the extent of future enlargement, including over Turkey. Once the SAA has been implemented, the country is in a position to apply for candidacy status, opening the way for accession negotiations; though in contrast to the CEE accession process, significant time lags can emerge between signing an SAA and being designated a candidate, as well as between being designated a candidate and commencing the negotiations process with additional monitoring stages. The benchmarks for clearing these stages are not clear. 25 Macedonia is a good case in point, having signed its SAA in 2001, being designated a candidate in November 2005, but it is yet to be invited to start formal accession negotiations. According to the rather vaguely formulated European Commission 2005 Enlargement Strategy document, the country needs to reach a sufficient degree of general compliance with the Copenhagen criteria. What the EU understands by sufficient is not made transparent. Furthermore, in January 2008 Commissioner Oli Rehn specified eight benchmarks that Macedonia would have to fulfil before obtaining a date for the start of negotiations. The fact that Brussels retains the political upper-hand in deciding when negotiations commence was also acknowledged in the same document, which states The European Council decides whether and when negotiations can be opened, based on a recommendation from the Commission. 26 However, despite this evident power asymmetry, the EU can also weaken its own position and lessen the incentives for compliance on the part of the SAP countries through inconsistencies in its application and enforcement of conditionality, the most eloquent recent case in point being that of Serbia, with the conditionality zigzags over the independence of Kosovo, EU involvement in recent presidential and parliamentary elections in Serbia, and the impact of the signing and suspension of the country s SAA, which have served to undermine further the credibility of the mechanism. A brief survey of the stages reached by the countries of the Western Balkans some 9 years after the policy s inception underscores the tardiness and apparent lags that have characterized the entire SAP process. With the exception of Croatia, which signed its SAA in 2001, proceeding to candidate status in June 2004 and opening negotiations a year later in October 2005 and having until recently made good progress, none of the other SAP countries has commenced formal membership negotiations. 27 Macedonia, despite clearing key hurdles, as indicated above, has yet to be invited to start membership negotiations. In the case of the other countries in the region, it was not until at least 6 years later that they reached agreement on their SAAs Montenegro signed in October 2007, and Bosnia-Herzegovina in July 2008 following delays in police reform. In late April 2008 the EU and Serbia also finally signed an SAA, but it was then immediately suspended pending full cooperation with ICTY. Kosovo (which is, of course, a unique case ) has recently commenced the feasibility study phase. Thus, in effect, through the instrument of the SAP additional formal layers of conditionality were introduced into the accession process, building on the path followed by CEE

9 332 C. Gordon (shaped as it was by adjustment to the Copenhagen criteria and to European standards), but at the same time creating a prolonged, multi-phased process during which conditionality could be leveraged on the countries of the region. It has become increasingly apparent that, in practice, many of the problems and shortcomings with the broadening of the stages of conditionality, and its political interpretation by the EU, as identified by Hughes et al. (2004) in their analysis of the CEE accession process, have been magnified in the case of the SAP in the countries of the Western Balkans. Such limitations including the inherent fluidity, and inconsistency of the conditionality and the consequent moving target problem as a result of unclear benchmarking procedures, imprecise measurements of progress and the predominance of politically influenced decision procedures have contributed to a loss of credibility and exacerbated the difficulty on the part of participating governments of delivering compliance with EU demands. The stress on the need for fair and rigorous conditionality, which has been underlined in the introduction to Enlargement Strategy Papers since 2005 and in the case of the 2005 Strategy Paper of the EU keeping its own promises, is tantamount to an implicit acknowledgement of potential shortcomings in the operationalization of conditionality, though this does not mean that good practice has always been followed. The Appropriateness of SAP s Fit The experience of SAP raises serious questions about the continued efficacy of the instrument of conditionality to deliver policy change in the Western Balkans and also further afield in the context of the EU s European Neighbourhood Policy. It also raises critical questions about the appropriateness of a template developed largely for a set of countries in rather different circumstances and then modified with the introduction of additional stages of conditionality and the stabilization component to fit the current situation in the Western Balkans. This is especially the case given that on the whole the countries of this region continue to be characterized by weak state institutions, economic backwardness and ethnic tensions. Of course, the fundamental difference between these two regions was that the CEE countries, in contrast to the Western Balkans, experienced a different degree of ethnicization of politics and varying state- and nation-building challenges in the wake of Communist collapse. Moreover, the CEE countries did not have to find ways of accommodating complex majority minority relations within states as well as across former federal structures in the wake of the massive disruption, dislocation and devastation wrought by war. It is precisely this aspect of the SAP, its contribution to the post-conflict stabilization, to which insufficient attention has been paid and which has consequently hampered the process of closer association and subsequent integration with EU institutions. The majority of countries in the region remain weak states, hampered by limited state capacities, beset by underlying ethnic tensions between different groups, lingering stateness issues and high levels of corruption and state capture, all of which are hampering the process of institutional alignment with the EU as per the SAP. As noted earlier, of the SAP countries only Croatia, despite continuing shortcomings in the implementation of its minority policies, is making reasonable progress in its accession negotiations. The new acquis chapter 23 Judiciary and Fundamental Rights is supposedly imposing more rigorous standards of minority protections on countries albeit somewhat indirectly through

10 The Stabilization and Association Process 333 provisions on non-discrimination and the work of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights in this regard. 28 Sasse (2004) has argued that EU engagement with minority rights during the CEE enlargement was characterized by normative overstretch whereby there was an asymmetry between EU declarations on the need for compliance on minority rights but a lack of rigour in following up to secure implementation in the candidate countries. This fundamental flaw in the operation of EU conditionality was even more acute in relation to SAP and the Western Balkans. Two clear areas of weakness can be highlighted in the SAP s approach towards minority protection in the Western Balkans. First, the SAP fails to tackle adequately the distinctive nature of the problems of minorities in the Western Balkans as well as the diversity of legal frameworks and actual practice within particular countries of the region (Wolff & van Houten, 2008). Second, inherent problems remain, as suggested above, with the definition and implementation of a policy towards national minorities. Closer examination of the progress reports, European partnerships and evolving EU enlargement strategy papers reveals that despite attention to the establishment of appropriate legal frameworks for the respect for and protection of minorities, the EU s approach in this area remains beset by a lack of clear benchmarks and standards, difficulties in measuring progress, ill-targeted activities and a general disregard for differences among the countries of the region as well as at the subnational level within particular countries. In terms of the lack of precise standards and benchmarks in certain minority-related issues, the 2007 Enlargement Strategy article stresses that all countries need to encourage a spirit of tolerance towards minorities and take appropriate measures to protect persons who may be subject to discrimination, hostility or violence. This is essential to achieve reconciliation and stability. Later it states that in the area of the protection of minorities further efforts are necessary to combat intolerance and ethnic discrimination, as well as to improve the implementation of legislation concerning minorities. 29 The individual country progress reports also lay out similarly worthy objectives, but neither the Strategy document nor the country-specific progress reports contains operational tools, specific confidence-building measures or measurable benchmarks with which to address these issues, nor are concomitant financial allocations provided. If levels of funding are indicative of the priority attached to a particular issue for the EU, then it can be deduced that minority protection is not a priority area. Under Cards there was not even a separate budget line devoted to minority protection. Minority protection figures as a separate line only for Croatia under Phare Even so this line accounted for only 1% of total allocations under Phare. In 2005, for example, human rights and protection of minorities received only E1.3 million of allocations out of a total of E71.5 million (i.e. 0.9%). On the whole the protection of minorities is subsumed under the rubric of democratic stabilization, which entails activities in the areas of refugee return and civil society development. 30 In the case of FYROM, interethnic relations and civil society were included under the rubric of democracy and rule of law, receiving only E3 million out of more than E40 million each year for the period In democracy and rule of law was aimed at minority rights but received only E2 million out of the 85 million allocated for this country during the period. Moreover, following the introduction of the Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA) in an attempt to streamline the focus and delivery of funding provision, allocations to minority protection for the period are even more difficult to gauge, given that funding distribution falls into two main components for potential candidates, i.e. transition

11 334 C. Gordon assistance and institution building and cross-border cooperation. 31 Minority protection and refugee return are subsumed under the first component but the multi-annual indicative planning fails to disaggregate allocations within each component. The priority areas within the first component include activities such as support for civil society, media, public administration, rule of law, judicial system, refugee return and support to minorities and vulnerable groups, etc. The Enlargement Strategy Paper specifically identifies minorities as a priority civil society area for IPA funding 2009, perhaps underlining the renewed recognition of the need for greater attention to democratic stabilization inside the Commission, although the actual substance and details of such commitments remain to be seen. 32 The only minority protection area that received significant funding under Cards was that of refugee return. Refugee return was the most important allocation under Cards for BiH for the period , though this allocation has decreased significantly since Not surprisingly, refugee return has been more easily quantifiable and thus lends more easily to measures of progress, but even in this area the passage of laws on refugee return and the enumeration of numbers of returnees tell us little about the actual economic and social reintegration of returnees, the record of which has proved rather problematic. Thus, for example, the BiH 2003 Progress Report pointed out that by the end of 2002 almost one million refugees and displaced persons, among them around 390,000 minority returnees have been able to return home. Estimates put the number of remaining displaced persons registered in BiH at around 367, The report does acknowledge that minority returnees have faced considerable local socio-economic difficulties and harassment. It is striking that none of the SAP countries is rated more highly than semi-consolidated democracies by the Freedom House Nations in Transit report of FYROM, which has yet to open membership negotiations with the EU, remains hampered by the underlying ethnic fault-line between the Macedonian and ethnic Albanian elites, which has continued to put in doubt elements of the Ohrid and post-ohrid institutional settlement. Ethnic tensions have destabilized several FYROM governments, and recently resulted in a renewed outbreak of violence at the time of the elections in June Though Montenegro does not face the equivalent problematic minority majority relations, it is a small semi-democratic country with limited state capacity and is beset by high levels of corruption and crime. Bosnia-Herzegovina is still struggling with the legacies of conflict and of the Dayton Peace Agreement of The agreement was arguably necessary to bring an end to the violence, but its imposition of a highly fragmentary political institutional framework and entrenchment of institutionalized ethnicity at multiple levels has undermined the legitimacy of its confederal structures. Thirteen years after Dayton, Bosnia-Herzegovina remains a weak state, dependent for its stability on the international presence in the form of the Office of the High Representatives (OHR), EUFOR (European Military Force) and accompanying institutions. Although the lack of resolution of Kosovo s status issue did arguably hamper progress in many parts of the Western Balkan region, the problem did not go away with the unilateral declaration of independence by the Kosovan Albanian leadership in February Kosovo remains an international protectorate, whose independence is not recognized by the UN, several EU states, Serbia or by the small number of Serbs who still reside in the territory. Moreover, a creeping policy of de facto partition appears to be tolerated by the EU mission in Kosovo, as the Serbpopulated area north of the Iber River around Mitrovice refuses to recognize Kosovan state institutions.

12 The Stabilization and Association Process 335 For many years Serbia has shown an ambivalent attitude towards the EU and the SAP has largely served as an instrument for domestic political struggle between the more nationalist-leaning and reformist parties, with the issue of cooperation with ICTY serving as a major litmus test of Serbian compliance with EU demands. The results of the May 2008 elections, which brought to power a new reformist, EU-oriented government, may well lead to a new departure in Serb EU relations, and the arrest of Radovan Karadzic is considered a positive step in this direction. It remains to be seen whether the new government will be able to follow up with the arrest of Ratko Mladic, whether the EU will hold firm to this stated condition, and whether Serbia, which, though still politically polarized, will finally move ahead with the implementation of its SAA and greater rapprochement with EU integration. The fragile peace in the Western Balkans is, as Rupnik noted, threatened not only by weak democratic institutions, economic backwardness and legacies of the war, but also by the question of statehood that remains the main obstacle. The consensus over the territorial framework is also a key precondition for EU integration (Rupnik, 2005, p. 6). Equally, questions can and should be raised about the appropriateness of the EU s chosen policy instruments both in terms of form, content and delivery mechanisms and in terms of the incentive structures for compliance. Answers to such questions enable us to explain the complex dynamics of the interaction of the SAP with the difficult domestic context in the participating countries that have also contributed to the relatively slow progress in both stabilization and association policies. The overwhelming focus on a topdown approach to the organization of the SAP, the concentration on national elites and the centralized fund management may have appeared in the short term to have been the most appropriate approach given the limited technical, infrastructural and human capacities even at the central level in the Western Balkans; but this approach has stored up other problems. After all, the top-down imposition of policies from outside and the primary concentration on preparing for meeting acquis-related requirements may not be the most appropriate approach to post-war societies where a different set of priorities (including funding priorities) may deliver more effective outcomes over the long term. These might include more carefully targeted policies at all levels to develop domestic governance structures and co-opt subnational elites into the political and socio-economic processes of domestic transition and EU integration. Cultivating domestic and regional ownership of conflict management and reconciliation must also be fostered. 36 The EU has attempted to address some of the institutional shortcomings documented in the Court of Auditors Special Report on the management of Cards of EU funding is now streamlined to the Western Balkans in the single overarching IPA and greater emphasis is placed on national delivery mechanisms and the Commission s country delegations. This illustrates the EU s focus on technocratic solutions as there has not been any shift in substance in terms of how to deliver political stabilization. 37 Conclusion This article has sought to assess the efficacy of the EU s Stabilization and Association Process as an instrument of post-conflict management in the Western Balkans. The absence of major violent conflict since the late 1990s suggests that there is a correlation between this outcome and the evolution of EU policy instruments, notably the SAP. Although the instrument of the SAP has evolved and been modified since its inception

13 336 C. Gordon in 2000, this article raises serious questions concerning the efficacy of the SAP in terms of both its structure and its content. The paper highlights the emergence of the SAP as a modified template of the CEE accession model relying on conditionality as a means of delivering change. The major innovation of the SAP with respect to EU conditionality was that it prolonged the stages of the conditionality and provided for an even more vague and inconsistent application of conditionality by the EU. The article questions the problematic relationship between stabilization and association that lies at the heart of the SAP, suggesting that the Commission underestimated the need for more comprehensive contextualized approaches to post-conflict political stabilization in the countries of the Western Balkans. The countries of the Western Balkans, with the exception of Croatia, are still grappling with unresolved stateness issues, which have the potential for violent conflict. These countries, at best, meet only the criteria for semi-consolidated democracies. 38 Not only has the SAP not delivered post-conflict stabilization, but there has also been a stalling in the EU association side of the equation. The EU s attention to stabilization has wavered, in part because of the greater focus over time on the association part of the SAP, which is, after all, what DG Enlargement knows best where EU capacity is concentrated. Obfuscation by the EU on progressing association has undermined the credibility of the EU to induce compliance among domestic elites in the countries of the Western Balkans. The top-down imposition of policies from outside and the primary concentration on preparing for meeting EU acquis-related requirements does not appear to have been the most effective means for managing the post-war developmental needs of the Western Balkans. A different set of priorities may have delivered more effective outcomes over the long term including more carefully targeted policies at all levels to develop domestic governance structures, to cultivate conflict management and reconciliation capacities and to foster domestic and regional ownership. The satisfactory resolution of inter-state relations and intra-state majority minority relations must lie at the heart of any long-term political stabilization of the region. Given the considerable socio-economic and political disparities among different communities in the region, and the contested nature of the state in many of the SAP countries, conflict potential remains a major challenge and the EU has yet to devise an appropriate policy mechanism to address this challenge. Acknowledgements The author wishes to acknowledge the financial support of the Sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission for this research which was conducted at the LSE as part of the project titled Human and Minority Rights in the Life-Cycle of Ethnic Conflicts ( This article has benefited greatly from collaboration with James Hughes and Gwendolyn Sasse as part of the MIRICO project. The author also wishes to thank the two anonymous reviewers as well as other contributors to the special issue for their useful and incisive comments. Notes 1. See 2. The operation and efficacy of EU conditionality particularly with regard to CEE countries has given rise to a number of heated debates in the academic literature: Bronk (2002), Grabbe (2006), Hughes et al.

14 The Stabilization and Association Process 337 (2004), Schimmelfennig & Sedelmeier (2005) and Vachudova (2005). There has been less attention given to the operation of conditionality under SAP, with a few exceptions including Pippan (2004). 3. See, for example, Caplan (2007), Gow (1997), Judah (2000, 2002), Malcolm (1996), Phinnemore & Siani-Davies (2003), Weller & Wolff (2005) and Woodward (1995). 4. The need to refocus energies on stabilization policies has been acknowledged in some quarters of the Commission, although there are also tensions with officials who continue to privilege association. Interview with DG Enlargement official, 1 June Gordon (2007) differentiates between the post-conflict stages of laying the foundations for state- and nation-building and democratization in recognition of the fact that though these processes may be closely related and overlapping, they are not synonymous. 6. For discussion of the Regional Approach, see Gordon et al. (2008), pp See Economides (2001) for a critical assessment of the Stability Pact. 8. See Presidency Conclusions, Santa Maria Da Feira, 19 and 20 June, 2000, available online at: See Zagreb Summit, Final Declaration, 24 November 2000, available online at: enlargement/enlargement_process/accession_process/how_does_a_country_join_the_eu/sap/zagreb_ summit_en.htm 10. See Thessaloniki Agenda 2003 and other SAP Progress Reports. 11. See On benchmarking, see in particular Enlargement Strategy Paper , p See, for example, Enlargement Strategy Paper, available online at: enlargement/press_corner/key-documents/index_en.htm 13. The Western Balkan Countries on the Road to the European Union, available online at: eu/enlargement/enlargement_process/accession_process/how_does_a_country_join_the_eu/sap/ history_en.htm 14. See Zagreb Summit, Final Declaration, available online at: process/accession_process/how_does_a_country_join_the_eu/sap/zagreb_summit_en.htm 15. The Thessaloniki Agenda for the Western Balkans, available online at: enlargement_process/accession_process/how_does_a_country_join_the_eu/sap/thessaloniki_agenda_ en.htm 16. European Partnerships and Accession Partnerships follow similar lines of logic and structure; the former, developed after the 2003 Thessaloniki European Council, are modelled on the latter ; available online at: Enlargement Strategy Papers, available online at: According to a DG Enlargement official, enlargement is no longer top of the agenda, momentum has slowed down and it is hard to get other Directorate Generals on board ; interview in Brussels, 1 June To give one example, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced in March 2009 that with the exception of Croatia, Germany would block further EU enlargement in favour of a period of inner-eu consolidation. Available online at: Further_EU_Enlargement / html 20. For details, see EC Enlargement Strategy (2005), pp Only limited funding was released to Bosnia and directed towards projects in support of the peace agreement rather than to democratic reforms. 22. Council Conclusions on the Development of a Comprehensive Policy Based on the Commission Communication on the Stabilisation and Association Process for Countries of South-Eastern Europe, Brussels, 21 June 1999, available online at: docs/pressdata/en/gena/09008.en9.htm 23. For feasibility studies, see countries key documents, available online at: enlargement/press_corner/key-documents/sap_en.htm 24. See European Council (1993) Presidency Conclusions para. 7 (iii) Copenhagen European Council, June, available online at: See also Grabbe (2006). 25. SAA implementation may be affected by a range of factors, mainly though not solely domestic, including decision-making procedures, elite consensus over European integration, domestic administrative