Yugoslavia and the European Union - Conditions for Normalization of Cooperation

summary of lecture given at Universitas Danubiana (April 29, 1998)

These days Yugoslavia is likely to become isolated with a new wave of sanctions. The European Union, the most important Yugoslav economic partner, would be among those that would decide upon it. Such a decision would make worse the most specific sui generis place of Yugoslavia in the family of European states. It certainly would keep Yugoslavia at the place of the only European country which does not have any cooperation with the EU. Such a position would impede all the processes of transition and democratization in the Yugoslav society. Even more it would impede processes of cooperation and integration in the subregion of the former Yugoslavia and at the Balkans.

Conditions or preconditions for normalization of cooperation with the EU are numerous, they being general for all new democracies in Europe and very specific for Yugoslavia, due to the Yugoslav crises and a very old problem of minority rights in one of the Serbian provinces which resolution has been expected for decades.

After listing and analyzing all (pre)conditions numbered in many documents of the EU many open questions remain. Among them two of the most importance: first, would Yugoslavia be capable of fulfilling all these preconditions in the state of isolation and without the benevolent and genuine support from the European Union as the leading regional force, and second, what would happen with the development of subregional cooperation and integration.

[1] Research Fellow, Institute of International Politics and Economics, Belgrade
Specialization at the School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Bologna Center
Address: Makedonska 25, 11000 Beograd, SCG

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