ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, the relationship between the EU and the Western Balkans has developed in a new direction with the opening of the prospect of EU membership to all the countries of the region. The EU has taken a leading role in providing financial assistance to promote democratization and economic development and to support pre-accession adjustment. The ensuing process of European integration has been a major influence in shaping the path of institutional reform and economic development. The early reformers, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, have embraced the opportunity for integration and taken decisive steps to introduce reforms and institutional adaptations in accordance with the requirements of the accession process, while the late reformers, BiH and Serbia, have had a more ambivalent approach and have been more hesitant in engaging with the complex and costly reforms required by the accession process. Montenegro, however, has made rapid strides towards EU integration since independence in 2006. Countries have therefore differed in the extent of their progress with EU accession, partly from their own choosing and partly from the decisions of the EU to speed up or slow down the pace of the integration process depending on each country’s compliance with a set of conditionality criteria.
