The National Politics of Eu Enlargement in the Western Balkans by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367432690
Goodreads: 52954423
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

4.5. Italian views on the Berlin Process, the further development of the EUSAIR, the refugee crisis in the Western Balkans and ‘Brexit’

Two developments have contributed to keep the Western Balkans afloat in the agenda of the European chancelleries in the last two years. On the one hand, the Berlin Process has purposefully intended to provide renewed impetus to the intergovernmental dimension of EU–Balkan relations. On the other hand, the refugee crisis along the Balkan route has ensured continued media attention, sometimes interfering with the very substance of the Berlin Process, as during the Western Balkans Summit in Vienna in late August 2015. In addition, the adoption of the EUSAIR provided a further stimulus for Italy’s Balkan policy, while occasionally interacting with the first two, more prominent elements.

For what concerns the Berlin Process,11 Italy initially developed some ill-concealed suspicion towards that initiative, due to its restricted format and its expected political and economic benefits for Germany’s stance in the region. Nonetheless, according to some interviewees, Italy’s absence in Berlin was viewed by some Balkan representatives as a missed opportunity for increasing the event’s political significance.

Following that, Italy successfully pleaded to be included in the follow-up conferences in Vienna (2015) and Paris (2016), and obtained to host the 2017 edition in Trieste. Its substantial contribution to the Berlin Process remains minimal, in yet another example of Italy’s traditional foreign policy of presenzialismo (i.e., mere attendance for the sake of status recognition).12 According to interviewees, Italy has come to understand and appreciate the Berlin Process as a consensus-building mechanism in the Western Balkan region, linked to concrete measures, and working as a surrogate of regional integration, not least to prevent the interference of (further) bilateral issues in the EU enlargement process. Yet, Rome also perceives the risk of a lack of ownership of the Western Balkan countries in the process.

Despite its declared aim of keeping the Balkans on the EU agenda, the whole Berlin Process risks becoming yet another vector of the process of re-nationalization of EU enlargement. This is due to the dominant intergovernmental dimension of the process, which ends up strengthening the relations between Balkan applicants and bigger EU Member States. As such, its hybrid format remains controversial, and its future unclear (Denti 2015c). This, in turn, poses a concrete challenge for Rome’s supra-nationalist preferences in EU external policies, including EU enlargement. Yet, as remarked by Italian interviewees, the need for an honest broker to assess and oversee the deliverables of the connectivity agenda has reopened some manoeuvring space for the Commission within the Berlin Process itself, demonstrating a persistent coexistence of intergovernmentalism and supra-nationalism in the EU enlargement policy. In the context of the forthcoming 2017 conference, Italy also plans to pursue the main working themes of the Berlin Process agenda as developed in the previous years, particularly connectivity, mobility and youth policies, while adding a specific initiative on SMEs.

Almost two years and a half after the launch of the EUSAIR, Italy’s most recent, high-profile diplomatic initiative for the Western

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