Western Balkans

As geopolitical competition intensifies, EU enlargement has become a strategic necessity rather than a technical process. To remain the dominant actor in its neighbourhood, the bloc must strengthen democratic resilience and reduce external dependencies

The EU is still seen as the Western Balkans’ anchor for stability and modernisation. But where reforms remain invisible and institutions remain captured, European support risks strengthening expectations without delivering democratic trust.

The Democracy School Framework for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia provides a comprehensive roadmap for strengthening democratic governance beyond formal institutional reform. Combining practical training with country-specific analysis, it equips political, civic and public-sector actors with the tools to tackle corruption, improve accountability, counter disinformation, foster inclusive participation and advance democratic resilience in support of long-term European integration.

This paper examines how persistent trust deficits and fragile social cohesion shape EU democracy promotion in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Drawing on original survey-vignette data from Sarajevo and Tuzla and process tracing of EU-funded democracy initiatives, it shows how low institutional trust, perceptions of elite capture, and weak local ownership constrain democratic resilience despite strong public support for EU integration

This paper examines how acute political crisis and mass civic mobilisation are reshaping trust, social cohesion, and EU democracy promotion in Serbia. Drawing on original survey-vignette data and process tracing, it shows how rising horizontal trust alongside collapsing institutional trust conditions citizens’ engagement with reform, complicates EU interventions, and exposes the limits of democracy promotion in a hybrid regime under strain

This paper outlines five plausible geopolitical futures for the Western Balkans by 2035 amid intensifying great-power competition and a shifting European security order. Drawing on scenario-building and collaborative foresight, it examines how EU enlargement, external actors, and domestic political dynamics could interact to shape stability, fragmentation, or renewed democratic momentum

How does EU democracy promotion operate in a country that is firmly pro-European yet persistently hybrid? Drawing on original survey data and process-tracing of EU-funded justice and media reforms, this paper argues that selective trust and informal power mediate Europeanisation in Albania, shaping how citizens experience reform, allocate credibility, and engage with EU-linked institutions

The global order no longer favours Western dominance, and Europe’s peripheries have become battlegrounds for competing powers. Yet, the EU’s enlargement policy has not kept pace with this new geopolitical reality

Summary This paper grapples with several questions central to the RE-ENGAGE research agenda: How do geopolitical shifts and interventions by non-Western actors affect the commitments of Serbia, Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina to building functional democracy and these countries’ aspirations for EU integration? To what extent, and by what…

Summary: Almost three years into the war in Ukraine, the EU enlargement remains central to the EU’s efforts for resilience and stability in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Neighbourhood. In a fast-changing geopolitical situation, the EU’s threat perception of external actors depends on their behavior regarding the EU…