European Student Think Tank

At least 16 Kosovo Serbs and 4 NATO Peace­keep­ers were injured dur­ing clashes at a dis­puted bor­der cross­ing. Viol­ence in North­ern Kosovo has flared up again after the situ­ation seemed to have sta­bil­ized some­how after the end of the Balkan wars. What makes things worse is that this alarm­ing situ­ation might cause Ser­bia to lose its EU mem­ber­ship can­did­ate status: Ser­bia now faces a dilemma: its national pride on the one hand and its pos­sible European mem­ber­ship on the other.

Ten­sions in the Eastern–Mediterranean area are escal­at­ing: A short time ago, Cyprus begun to con­duct drilling for oil and gas in its exclus­ive eco­nomic area, facing the con­tra­dic­tion of Tur­key. Tur­key claims a share in the “con­tro­ver­sial” Block 12.

Ratko Mladic is caught, but Ser­bia has not changed much. Instead of act­ing as though the coun­try is stead­ily mov­ing toward the European Union, Europe’s lead­ers should reject Ser­bia until it truly deals with its past. The pop­u­lar Ser­bian sup­port for a gen­o­cidal gen­eral is sig­nal­ing a clear mes­sage that it has all but done so.

The nego­ti­ation pro­cesses that were applied dur­ing the last dec­ades pro­duced an enorm­ous policy frame­work that was estab­lished in the Maastricht Treaty and the Copen­ha­gen cri­teria– and there were many more attempts. Moreover, every new round of enlarge­ment always brought up the ques­tion “how big shall and should the EU become?”. At the moment, the EU is still strug­gling with its last enlarge­ments in 2004 and 2007, which raised the ques­tion if there should be and end to the enlarge­ment process.

The 8th of Novem­ber. The Coun­cil of Min­is­ters unan­im­ously agreed to ease the visa rules on Albania and Bos­nia. All cit­izens from these coun­tries can now freely travel through­out the Schengen-area. A bless­ing or a curse?