Is Serbia's EU bid dying?

Serbia's troubles

Is Serbia's EU bid dying?

Oct 1st 2011, 12:40 by T.J.

SERBIA'S government has banned a Gay Pride march scheduled to take place tomorrow in Belgrade, citing threats of violence from far-right groups. Earlier this week Serbs in northern Kosovo came to blows with KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force; there wre injuries on both sides.

Both developments are bad news for Serbia and the rest of the region. On October 12th the western Balkans states receive their annual reports from the European Commission; Serbia's government has been hoping to win a recommendation for candidate status for membership of the European Union.

That now hangs in the balance. Two weeks ago a source told me that Serbia's EU hopes depended on progress in the next round of EU-sponsored talks between it and Kosovo, which had been scheduled for September 28th. But when the violence erupted in Kosovo, Serbia's negotiator, Borko Stefanovic, said he was prepared to discuss only that and nothing else. Result: no talks. This could make the difference when the commission issues its report.

Neither will the Gay Pride march decision help much. The government is, admittedly, in an awkward spot. Last year's march saw riots and looting, and the government will not want to risk a repeat of that for a cause that evokes little sympathy in the country. On the other hand, its ban makes it look feeble and unwilling to stand up to threats from violent extremists. If the government can't even ensure a peaceful Gay Pride march in its capital, goes the logic, how can it be ready to join the EU?

On August 23rd Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, told the Serbs that they had to dismantle their "parallel structures"—Serbian municipalities and the like—in Kosovo before they could hope to gain EU candidate status. Since then German diplomats have "clarified" this by saying that Serbia simply has to "start" dismantling them.

Whatever. Either way, the Germans, bogged down with Greece's problems, appear to be in no hurry to allow more troublesome Balkanites into European institutions. Other EU countries are hiding behind Mrs Merkel's skirts, allowing the big angry mother to take the flak for halting western Balkan EU integration. This risks leaving the western Balkans to languish in the peripheral neverland.

Some may wonder why Serbia and its neighbours want to join a club that has more than a few problems of its own. The answer is that the process of moving towards the EU is a modernising force in itself, even if EU countries themselves don't always behave as they should. Milan Rocen, Montenegro's foreign minister, said recently that it would have taken his country ten years to reform as much as it has done in the last year in the absence of the pull of Brussels.

After Croatia joins the EU in 2013, there is a real danger that no Balkan state will be allowed in for years. This is not the time to rebuff them.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/10/serbias-troubles