AP, December 10, 2009
Montenegro: EU should accept Balkans by 2014
Montenegro's prime minister urged the European Union on Wednesday to grant membership to all nations of the west Balkans in time for the 100th anniversary of the 1914 outbreak of World War I.
Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said this is the only way to ensure stability in a region where more than 100,000 people died in a series of wars in the 1990s. These only ended only after the intervention of tens of thousands of U.S. and allied ground troops and a NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999.
The EU may be overcoming its reticence to further expansion that gripped the bloc following the integration of most Eastern Europe nations in 2004. Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia are all seeking membership in the 27-nation bloc.
Djukanovic said bold action was needed from the EU.
"I strongly urge that all the nations of the western Balkans become members of the European Union by 1914, the anniversary of an event that so drastically changed all of Europe," Djukanovic told The Associated Press.
The assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne during his visit to Sarajevo in 1914 touched off a cataclysm that echoed through Europe for much of the 20th century. Tens of millions perished in the ensuing two world wars.
The event will likely be marked in the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo. Forteen years after the peace agreement ended a bitter 3 1/2-year sectarian war, Bosnia remains ethnically divided and dysfunctional as a state.
"EU expansion must continue without any interruption," Djukanovic said, adding that experience had shown that some of these nations were now fully capable of meeting EU standards.
In recent months, all the nations of the western Balkans have moved closer to the EU and NATO.
Croatia and Albania were made full members of the Western defense alliance last spring and Montenegro was granted pre-membership status.
The European Union recently abolished punitive visa requirements for the citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, and has lifted restrictions on membership talks for Croatia and Serbia.
In addition, NATO has accepted Montenegro into its pre-membership program, making it likely that the tiny state of 650,000 people could soon become the 29th member of the Western defense alliance.
Slovenia, the sole ex-Yugoslav state to have joined the EU this decade, is widely considered the most problem-free of all the former communist nations that joined the EU in this past decade.
The five other former Yugoslav republics lagged behind in the integration process while the EU focused on welcoming nine former Soviet satellites, despite their lack of market-oriented credentials and economic performance.
But in contrast to those East European nations where living standards rose signifivantly in the past decade, the western Balkans has fallen significantly as a result of the wars and their isolation from the EU, economists say.
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