ABSTRACT
The EU has key interests in peace, stability and development in the Western Balkans. Lying at the heart of Europe, instability in the Balkans entails dangerous spillover effects into the Union in terms of lawlessness and organized crime, refugee flows andmigratory pressures. Furthermore, in view of the EU’s acknowledged failure to deal with the unfolding tragedy of the disintegrating Yugoslavia in the early and mid-1990s, the Union is also resolute to contributing to the region’s stabilization. In the words of Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn (2006): ‘Too often in the 1990s, Brussels fiddled while the Balkans burned. We must not risk this happening again’. To many, success in the Western Balkans is viewed as the quintessential litmus test for the effectiveness of EU foreign policy (International Commission on the Balkans 2005). Were the Union to fail again, the credibility of its foreign policy ambitions could be irredeemably shattered.
