Dr. G?zim Visoka:

Honourable members of the committee, I am an associate professor of peace and conflict studies in the school of law and government at Dublin City University, where I have been based since 2010. I have published extensively on international interventions, the western Balkans, peace building in Kosovo, and on state recognition. I am honoured to be here and I thank the members for the invitation.

Today, I would like to make three fundamental points. First, while the EU’s enlargement policy is supposed to be guided by a clear merit-based methodology, in practice it is often crisis-driven, geopolitical, and uneven, which has had far-reaching consequences for the EU and the region. Second, without clear resolution of two nodal conflicts, namely, the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, and the preservation of Bosnia's territorial integrity and political functionality, the EU's enlargement policy is unlikely to succeed. Third, Ireland should continue to promote EU enlargement and encourage the speedy accession while also sharing its unique experience of peace, prosperity, and economic growth due to European integration.

I will start with this first point. The EU’s enlargement policy is one of the central pillars in managing relations with its neighbours and a powerful stimulus for extending democratic and economic reforms in countries that aspire to join the EU. Over the past 20 years, the EU has offered a clear perspective of membership to the western Balkan countries, as well as investing over €30 billion through its pre-accession investments. Despite this extensive support, the six countries from the western Balkans are still behind in meeting the key criteria. However, due to internal disagreements within the EU, the enlargement policy increasingly looks more like a containment policy, where the EU member states tend to drag and prolong the accession process and move the targets while offering countries in the region incentives to only comply with the EU's own foreign policy. The containment policy was formalised in 2014 by the Juncker Commission, which announced that no country would join the EU in the next five years, and then it was championed by France, which overwhelmingly has had a negative view of the enlargement until recently. However, the containment policy has contributed to many domestic and regional crises in the western Balkans. Paradoxically, it has been the main driver for the EU member states to unite and put the enlargement back on the EU's agenda. The EU's recent decision to grant Ukraine and Moldova candidate status has raised many questions in the western Balkans about the credibility of the enlargement process. In response, the western Balkans leaders are gradually renouncing EU frameworks and turning to ethnonationalist rhetoric to settle bilateral disputes. Again, one could argue that this is partially due to the EU's ambiguous political commitment and unclear timeline for accession. A case in point is Serbia, where we see a serious erosion of democratic principles, an aggressive approach towards the Kosovo issue, and ever-closer ties to both Russia and China. Political polarisation is resurfacing in Montenegro and reforms are progressively slowing down. In Kosovo, the EU’s influence is waning due to its divided approach to the country’s independence and an inability to effectively follow through on commitments, such as on visa liberalisation.

Even though the EU has recently taken steps to increase regional connectivity and has reaffirmed its commitment to an accelerated accession process, concrete actions should support these initiatives. Accession talks must intensify with all countries in the region and necessary supports should be provided to ensure a speedy progress through the negotiating chapters. Finally, the EU should end experimentation with different proposals on the enlargement methodology and settle for one which is fair, realistic, credible, and mutually beneficial. Moreover, the western Balkan countries should join as a group. Otherwise, we run the risk of experiencing within-region conditionality, in instances where countries that join the EU first impose unfavourable conditions on their neighbours who want to join. This has been an overwhelming problem in the region in the past 20 years.

I will now move to the second point. One of the most challenging features of the EU’s enlargement policy has been the focus on resolving outstanding disputes between states in the western Balkans prior to joining the EU. While we have seen progress in the resolution of outstanding issues in North Macedonia, the situation in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina continues to be of great concern. Despite strong diplomatic investment, the EU has proven so far unsuccessful in delivering on its goal to normalise relations between Kosovo and Serbia through a legally-binding agreement that would resolve the question of mutual recognition, as well as finding appropriate accommodations for the Serb minority in Kosovo. Instead, we have recently seen a reversal of progress with an escalation of violence in the north of Kosovo, obliging the EU to change its focus from normalisation to crisis management and threatening to impose sanctions on Kosovo in an effort to de-escalate the situation. However, these tensions are also a byproduct of EU talks themselves, which lack a clear framework and mutually-agreed end goals, as well as insufficient monitoring of the implementation of agreements and the exertion of unbalanced pressure on the parties, especially Kosovo. Although the EU has set the normalisation of relations as a precondition for both Serbia and Kosovo, Kosovo’s perspective is uncertain since five EU member states, namely, Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain, still refuse to recognise its independence. For as long as the EU, and these five member states in particular, do not recognise Kosovo’s independence, other actors in the region, including Russia, are likely to exploit these loopholes to create frozen conflicts and ultimately derail the Euro-Atlantic perspective of the region.

The second nodal conflict in the western Balkans is the political dysfunctionality of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which goes back to the complex power-sharing system, coupled as well with recent threats for secession by Republika Srpska. For Bosnia and Herzegovina to become a functional state ready to join the EU, fundamental reforms are required. However, these reforms tend to threaten the political agency and influence of ethnonationalist parties that continue to capture the state and hold back societal progress. The EU made the right call last December in offering Bosnia and Herzegovina candidate status to prevent further internal strife, quell calls for independence among the Bosnian Serbs, and weaken Russia’s malign role. However, more robust measures by the EU are required to end the appeasement policy towards these spoilers in the country and also to mitigate the destabilising role which even Serbia and other original actors have played in this instance.

I now move to the third and final point. Ireland has had, and continues to have, a long-standing supportive attitude towards the EU’s enlargement in the western Balkans and has also welcomed the decision to grant candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova. However, there is a case for a more active Irish involvement in the western Balkans. Ireland’s support for EU enlargement in the western Balkans should be seen as a valuable and long-term investment to strengthen existing goodwill and build new alliances in Europe to defend common security and prosperity.

Thus, Ireland should join existing EU member states from central and eastern Europe that promote a credible and fast accession for western Balkan countries and discourage veto positions among member states that risk and have risked the EU’s credibility, values and geopolitical interests. A swift and merit-based EU membership for the western Balkans is crucial to prevent a repeat of a Ukraine-type crisis and to reduce Russia’s interference in a region encircled by EU and NATO member states. Most important, supporting EU enlargement for the western Balkans could be a significant way for Ireland to pay back its central and east European allies for the crucial diplomatic support they provided to Ireland when it came to Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol. Since Ireland is unlikely to join NATO in the near future, aligning with these allies in central and eastern Europe, especially those within the enlargement portfolio, could send a positive and important message that Ireland is keen to contribute to European security in a different way.

To promote this strategic alignment, Ireland should lobby for the collective recognition of Kosovo by the EU, including the five non-recognisers, and also reiterate support for a functioning state in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is crucial that the EU forms a joint and collective position on Kosovo; otherwise, it risks undermining its own credibility and efforts to resolve the conflict, as well as moving the EU integration process on. Moreover, Ireland should consider setting up different support schemes, from diplomatic to technical areas, to offer civil servants, students and future leaders a perspective and a shared knowledge and experience of Ireland's own beneficial experience of European integration. I thank the committee very much.