Enlargement of the European Union in the Western Balkans and Russia's Geopolitics in the Region

• Author: Angela-Mihaela Ene
• Position: Senior Lecturer, PhD, Danubius University of Galati, Romania
• Pages: 328-333

European Integration - Realities and Perspectives. Proceedings 2019

328

Enlargement of the European Union

in the Western Balkans and Russia's Geopolitics in the Region

Angela-Mihaela Ene1

Abstract: The European construction at the level of establishing an economic, political, social and cultural

unity between its constituent states and those which are to complete it,represent the ultimate vision of a united

and solid Europe, designed to generate welfare and security for all its members. Our approach attempts to reveal

the functionality and substance of the Union's enlargement objectives in the area, generically called the Western

Balkans. These goals, which have recently been translated into a strategy, will be achieved in 2025 for Serbia

and Montenegro and for the other countries in a more distant future. Obviously, the European Union is not the

only geopolitical player in the area and, certainly, the proposed objectives are directly or indirectly li nked to

Russia's regional geopolitical strategy. Thus, we show that in this enlargement process we are already in the

collision phase of the two macrostates, the European Union and Russia, state entities which have so far prepared

strategies of influence and have also undertaken approaches of strategic anchoring in the Balkan region. The

present paper focuses on the geopolitics of the two powers, which is already in progress and produces effects

in the Balkan bloc. Given that the Balkan bloc is more a strategic security area t han an economic pulse, the

centering of the two forces will materialize according to the interests of security and socio-political stability. It

is to bementioned that the European Union will usually bet on the strengths of the six Balk an bloc states and

Russia on their weaknesses, even more, on the Union's cumbersome response mechanism. If Serbia and

Montenegro have a horizon in 2025, Northern Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo will

remain in this dispute for a longer period of time.

Keywords: European Union; Russia; the Balkan bloc; strategy; Serbia; Montenegro; Albania; North

Macedonia; Bosnia and Herzegovina; Kosovo

Introduction

At this point, the world scene is clearly configured in terms of the power exercised and constituted by

the great powers, the struggle going only to consolidate these elements and possibly to seize new areas

of influence that would only have a defensive role. Therefore, we know that the West maintains the

same mechanism of external action and the East and Asian powers count on a strategic and operational

flexibility that has often proved to be more effective in strategic geopolitics.

In this global and especially regional context, the European Union wants to be an inter-state macro-

entity that dictates and develops a socio-political concept that has the role of coagulating nations and

stimulating a form of cohabitation based on sustainable criteria from the perspective of the individual to

the social and cultural macrogrup.

1 Senior Lecturer, PhD, Danubius University of Galati, Romania, Address: 3 Galati Blvd., Galati, 800654, Romania, Tel.:

+40372361102, Corresponding author: angelamihaela.ene@univ-danubius.ro.