3/31/2018 How far from EU admission standards are western Balkan states?

EU enlargement
How far from EU admission standards are western Balkan states?
Region is poorer than bloc’s members but there is time to make up some of the GDP per capita gap 

Kosovans wave a banner made of the EU, Albanian and US flags © FT montage; AFP/Getty Images
Valentina Romei MARCH 26, 2018

EU enlargement is a divisive issue — misgivings over the process played a part in the 2016 Brexit
referendum in Britain and in national elections in France, Austria and elsewhere.

Now the bloc is moving ahead towards one of its most controversial expansions to date, setting out
plans to absorb the six countries of the western Balkans, a region battered by war in the 1990s and
still afflicted by many territorial disputes.

An EU strategy in February set a target date of 2025 for the accession of Serbia and Montenegro —
the two most advanced countries in the process — and for Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia
and Herzegovina.

This would be the biggest EU enlargement in terms of the number of countries since the 2004 big
bang that took in 10 mainly ex-communist states. So what difference will it make to the bloc? And
how far do the sometimes troubled countries of the region have to go to meet the bloc’s admission
standards?

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3/31/2018 How far from EU admission standards are western Balkan states?

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Balkans and EU

Not so big . . .
The combined population of the western Balkans is about 18m. That is fewer than the 20m
inhabitants of Romania (which joined the EU in 2007, along with Bulgaria).

Wars and poverty led to high emigration from the region in the 1990s and 2000s. Today, according
to World Bank figures, about one in four people from the western Balkans lives outside their native
country.

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3/31/2018 How far from EU admission standards are western Balkan states?

Population
2017 (m)
Kosovo, Macedonia
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Bulgaria, Serbia Other EU countries

1111I j Iml I I
LL Albania
Montenegro
LRomania

0 20 40 60 80
Source: World Bank
© FT

Nor are the economies of the western Balkan countries particularly large. Their output is the
equivalent of 1 per cent of EU gross domestic product. At present levels, five out of the six countries
would be among the eight smallest EU economies. The exception is Serbia, the region’s biggest
economy, which has a larger GDP than EU members Croatia and Lithuania.

A long way to catch up
The lag between the economies of the western Balkan countries and those of the EU has caused
considerable concern. Overall, the region’s GDP per capita is only about one-third that of the
average of the bloc’s 28 members.

But with seven years to go before the target accession date, there is time to make up some of the
gap. Seven years before they joined, Bulgaria and Romania had lower levels of GDP per capita
relative to the EU average than Montenegro, Serbia and Macedonia have today.

GDP per capita seven years before EU accession

Constant 2011 international $, PPP-adjusted, countries joining in or after 2004

Bulgaria Bosnia-Herzegovina Other EU countries Cyprus

Latvia -----i I I Serbia1 I
I 11 I II 1111 I
I
Kosovo
L
Mac~donia
Albania Montenegro
Romania
5,000 10,000 15,000 20 ,000 25 ,000 30,000
Source: World Bank
© FT

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3/31/2018 How far from EU admission standards are western Balkan states?

According to a recent blog post by Marek Dabrowski and Yana Myachenkova of the Bruegel think-
tank, the western Balkan countries made headway in converging with the rest of the EU in the
years before the 2007-08 financial crisis.

That improvement made a difference to some of the poorest people in the region. In the early
2000s, roughly one in three people in the western Balkans lived on less than $5 per day, but the
proportion dropped to one in five in 2008, according to the World Bank. 

GDP per capita,six Balkanstates combined

EU=lOO
34

32
30

28

26

24

22
2000 02 04 06 08 10 12 14 16
Source:World Bank
© FT

The convergence lost steam with the financial crisis and has slowed over the past decade.

Strong ties with the EU
On average, 70 per cent of the region’s goods exports go to the EU, a proportion that has been
rising in the past decade. Federica Mogherini, the EU’s foreign policy supremo, recently hailed
“economic ties . . . as strong as they have ever been”.

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3/31/2018 How far from EU admission standards are western Balkan states?

Western Balkans exports

By destination, % 2016
• EU28 Rest of Europe • Russia • China
0 10 20 30 40 so 60 70 80 90 100

TFYR of Macedonia

Albania

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Serbia

Montenegro

Source: Calculation from Unctad

©FT
Investment by EU companies has created more than 240,000 jobs in the western Balkans since
2003. That is nearly 60 per cent of all jobs created by foreign investment in the region.

Greenf ield investment in the Western Balkans countr ies

2003-2017, '000 of jobs created

us
--
0 204060

EU

Israel -
Turkey .
Russia .
Switzerland .
China .

UAE.
South Korea I
lndial
Taiwan I
Japan I

Source: fDI Markets

©FT
The region already receives EU money. It is scheduled to get €1.07bn in “pre-accession” funds this
year, on top of almost €9bn over the past 10 years.

How tough are the conditions?
Ms Mogherini emphasises that the western Balkan accession is far from a done deal, since “the
process is merit-based and depends on the pace and the success of negotiations and

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3/31/2018 How far from EU admission standards are western Balkan states?

reforms”. None of the countries yet meets the entry criteria. 

The big priority, according to the European Commission, is strengthening the rule of law. In a
February report it said the six counties “show clear elements of state capture, including links with
organised crime and corruption at all levels of government and administration”. All rank at the
bottom for perceptions of corruption in Europe.

Perceptions of corruption
2017 (low score= worse)
Macedonia Kosovo Bulgaria Romania Other EU countries
I I I I
I II I I II III IIII I I I 11 11 II II
Bosnia- I I
Herzegovina, Serbia Montenegro
Albania

30 40 50 60 70 80 90

Source: Transparency International

©FT

The EU paper adds that none of the countries “can currently be considered a functioning market
economy” but contends that the perspective of joining the union has helped them make significant
progress. The World Bank concludes that all of the countries have become easier places to do
business in the past decade, with Macedonia scoring the best. 

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3/31/2018 How far from EU admission standards are western Balkan states?

The Balkan states are quickly convergingwith the EU in terms of

the ease of doing business
Level of regulatory performance (100 = best score possible)
2009 2017
UK, Denmark 84.1 Denmark 84.1
Ireland 82.6 UK 82 .2
Sweden 81.3
Sweden 80.9
-=======:::::::=::~::::::==:
~~ Macedonia 81.2

Bulgaria 67.7

Macedonia 64 . 7
Romania 63 .4
Greece 61.8
Albania 61. 7
Croatia 61.4
Montenegro 60 . 7

Serbia 57.5
Kosovo 56.6

Bosnia-Herzegovina 51. 7
2009 2017
Source: World Bank
© FT

Geographical disputes remain another unresolved issue, a legacy of the region’s war-torn past.
“There are many border disputes in the west Balkans and they must be resolved before we can go a
step further,” Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, told the annual Munich
Security Conference. 

Finally, the countries have to want to join the EU. As the commission notes, membership requires
“political and societal consensus and the support of the hearts and minds of the people” —
something that has not always been the case in the past.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2018. All rights reserved.

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