Wider Europe

Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's new newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods. To subscribe, please click here.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and this week I'm drilling down on two major issues: a possible political deal between Serbia and Kosovo, and the many hurdles facing Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine before they can become members of the EU.

Brief #1: Serbia-Kosovo: Is A New Agreement Imminent?

What You Need To Know: The situation in Kosovo threatened to boil over at the end of 2022, with roadblocks set up by ethnic Serbs in the northern part of the country. The protesting Serbs were outraged over the arrest of a former Serbian police officer, Dejan Pantic, in Kosovo.

After pressure from both the United States and the European Union, Pantic was eventually placed under house arrest in order to defuse the tension. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic then promptly promised, on December 29, that all barriers and roadblocks would be removed.

The flare-up was similar to one in November following the walkout of hundreds of ethnic Serb police officers, judges, and prosecutors protesting the decision by Pristina to ban Belgrade-issued license plates inside Kosovo.

This latest crisis even reached the higher echelons of NATO, with Serbia at one point fielding a request to the military organization's KFOR peacekeeping mission for permission to deploy its troops in Kosovo. The international force, which has been present in Kosovo since 1999, ignored the call and stated publicly that it had sufficient capabilities to enforce its UN mandate. The mission then helped in the removing of the barricades, with the last one dismantled on January 5.

Deep Background: While Brussels is worried about the situation and the near-constant white-knuckle moments in recent months, several diplomats I have spoken to take this as an indication that both Belgrade and Pristina are edging closer to some sort of political deal, possibly in the next few months.

The two countries have been locked in an EU-led dialogue to normalize bilateral relations since 2011, a process that has produced few concrete outcomes in recent years. However, the changing security landscape in Europe since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine appears to be changing the parameters.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, European diplomats noted that Serbia, which so far has refused to align with any EU sanctions on its traditional ally Russia, is feeling the squeeze as the Kremlin is bogged down and suffering huge losses in Ukraine. That has no doubt contributed to the EU's lack of enthusiasm for letting Serbia into the union.

For Kosovo, meanwhile, baby steps are being made to get closer to Brussels. At the end of the year, EU member states finally agreed to green-light EU visa liberalization for Kosovar citizens by January 2024, and Pristina officially handed in its EU membership application. The European Commission is expected to sit on Kosovo's application for a long while, though, with five EU member states still not recognizing the fledgling country's independence.

Drilling Down

• Both U.S. and EU officials are traveling to the region in early January, and a French-German proposal that the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has been working on was presented to EU member states in Brussels before the holidays at the end of the year.
• A draft of the French-German proposal, seen by RFE/RL, doesn't include mutual recognition but is rather a potential building block to a much bigger and more comprehensive agreement further down the road. The document states that "while the present basic agreement constitutes an important step of normalization, both parties will continue with new impetus the EU-led dialogue process, which should lead to a legally binding agreement on comprehensive normalization of relations."
• Perhaps the most crucial part of the proposal is that "both parties shall mutually recognize their respective documents and national symbols, including passports, diplomas, license plates, and customs stamps." That is certainly a real carrot for Kosovo.
• Another part of the proposal likely to please Pristina is that Serbia will not object to Kosovo's membership in any international organizations -- a real bone of contention since Kosovo declared independence in 2008. There is also a call to exchange permanent missions, support each other's aspirations to join the EU, and that both parties can "proceed on the assumption that neither of the two can represent the other in the international sphere or act on its behalf."
• There are also sweeteners for Serbia. Pristina should formalize the status of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and "afford strong protection to the Serbian religious and cultural heritage and religious sites."
• Crucially, the proposal also mentions the need to "ensure [an] appropriate level of self-management for the Serbian community in Kosovo, including the possibility for financial support by Serbia." For a long time, Serbia has bristled at Kosovo's stalling on the creation of a community of Serb municipalities in the north of the country, a central requirement of the 2013 Brussels agreement between the two countries. Still unimplemented, the French-German draft proposal requires both parties to fulfill the requirements laid out around a decade ago.

Brief #2: The Nitty-Gritty Of EU Enlargement

What You Need To Know: In June 2022, after a recommendation by the European Commission that the 27 member states swiftly endorsed, Moldova and Ukraine were granted EU candidate status, and Georgia was placed one rung below as a potential candidate country. This was only three months after the trio applied for membership in the wake of Russia's February invasion of Ukraine.

For a process that normally takes well over a year, this was decided on at breakneck speed, partly due to some creativity by the European Commission. Firstly, the commission reversed the normal order of things, granting Kyiv and Chisinau candidate status immediately and then asking them to fulfill a number of reforms, notably regarding the rule of law, in order to proceed to the actual start of accession negotiations. For Georgia, though, the usual rules still applied: Take note of our recommendations, do your reforms, and only then can you become a candidate.

All three countries are now eagerly anticipating the European Commission's annual enlargement report in October, where a thorough assessment and recommendations will be made. As soon as this spring, the commission will give an update on how the trio is doing. And by the end of the year, EU member states could decide that Ukraine and Moldova can start to negotiate and that Georgia will become a candidate country, if the commission so recommends. But there does need to be unanimity among the 27 member states, which isn't easy when European capitals are often swayed by domestic events and popular opinion.

Deep Background: This past summer, the European Commission was creative in another regard. In assessment reports delivered on June 17 on Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, the commission repeated the political criteria needed to become a member. However, a second installment of the reports, due to be published this month, is much more technical and comprehensive. It looks at how aligned each country is with EU legislation in all policy fields -- from science and research to environmental protection and foreign and security policy.

The drafts for each of the three countries, which I have seen, are more than 50 pages of Brussels outlining what needs to be done across 32 policy fields (called chapters). They use an assessment scale to mark each country's progress: early stage; a certain level of preparation; moderately well-prepared; good level of preparation; and well-advanced.

Drilling Down

• This is very much the nitty-gritty of EU enlargement. Once a country gets past the politically symbolic moves of getting candidate status and opening accession talks, this is where the hard work starts. And also, the part where many candidate countries get stuck. Take Montenegro and Serbia as examples. They have been negotiating with Brussels for the best part of a decade and have each "closed” (i.e. aligned with EU legislation) just a handful of the more than 30 chapters. Lack of administrative capacity or political will to undergo serious reform are often the reasons cited.
• If Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia are hoping to become members of the EU within the next five to 10 years, the commission reports make for sober reading. Horrific war aside, Ukraine has a large administrative capacity and strong political will to join the bloc. Enthusiasm might not be enough, though. The European Commission notes that, for most policy chapters in Ukraine, there is only "a certain level of preparation," the second-lowest grade.
• It notes, among other things, that the "public procurement control environment is complex and weak due to lack of staff," that there is "no independent fiscal institution," and that the country should establish and manage a fleet register and a data collection framework for fisheries.
• Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ukraine scores the highest on foreign relations and security and defense policy, where the country receives "a good level of preparation" in both fields. It is also deemed to be "moderately well-prepared" in key areas such as customs, energy, and digitalization and media.
• For Moldova, the report is even tougher, with the commission deeming Chisinau to be at an "early stage of preparation" in the majority of chapters and at a "certain level of preparation" for pretty much all the rest, making it the worst performer of the three. An EU official with insight into the process who prefers to remain anonymous points to the fact that this is because previous Moldovan governments have failed to reform the country sufficiently.
• Georgia appears to have the strongest report, reflecting years of pro-EU and relatively reform-minded governments. In quite a few chapters, notably those related to economics and finance, it is deemed "moderately well-prepared," even though it is lagging behind in sectors such as justice, intellectual property, and agriculture.

Looking Ahead

After a couple of weeks of vacation, the Brussels machinery will start grinding again this week. European Union ambassadors will be busy rubber-stamping some of the decisions taken by EU leaders before the break. One of those decisions is the prolongation of all the bloc's sanctions on Russia by six months to July. The move will mean that all of the various restrictive measures taken against the Kremlin by Brussels throughout 2022, as well as the sanctions adopted back in 2014 for the annexation of Crimea, will now have the same expiry date.

EU diplomats will also look into the final details of the first proper big meeting of the year: the annual EU-Ukraine summit, slated for February 3. The initial idea was to hold it in Odesa or Lviv, but in the end the meeting looks set to be held in Kyiv, with the presidents of the European Council and the European Commission, Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen, respectively, traveling to the Ukrainian capital.

That's all for this week. Feel free to reach out to me on any of these issues on Twitter @RikardJozwiak or on e-mail at jozwiakr@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Rikard Jozwiak

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Welcome to Wider Europe, RFE/RL's newsletter focusing on the key issues concerning the European Union, NATO, and other institutions and their relationships with the Western Balkans and Europe's Eastern neighborhoods. To subscribe, please click here.

I'm RFE/RL Europe Editor Rikard Jozwiak, and for the last newsletter of the year I'm looking back at 2022, a year that has been truly historic.

In 2022, The EU And NATO Found Their Mojo Again

What You Need To Know: In the nearly two decades I have spent covering the European Union and NATO's relations with its eastern neighborhood and the Western Balkans, 2022 has been the most interesting and dynamic year I have ever seen. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is, of course, at the center of all this. In many ways, the war has renewed the raison d'etre for both organizations after several tough years.

Brexit, the chaotic presidency of Donald Trump, the French President Emmanuel Macron calling NATO braindead, Turkey becoming an increasingly awkward ally and partner, the EU's slow and chaotic COVID-19 vaccination rollout -- there were plenty of questions and uncertainty surrounding both institutions going into 2022.

But now, at the end of the year, it is noticeable that both the EU and NATO have come out stronger. In a truly historic decision, both Finland and Sweden decided to join NATO. And in an equally symbolic move, the EU agreed that Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine can become members of the bloc and even bestowed official EU candidate status on the latter pair.

In the Western Balkans, things also started to move. Bosnia-Herzegovina got the same EU candidate status as Ukraine and Moldova, Albania and North Macedonia launched EU accession talks over the summer, and Kosovo applied for EU membership and finally got the highly prized thumbs-up from Brussels that its citizens can enjoy visa-free travel to the bloc by 2024.

The Expansion Of NATO

Deep Background: For a while, Sweden and Finland have been the two NATO partners closest to the alliance without the political or popular backing to join. Both countries were heavily influenced by their history.

To date, Sweden had enjoyed over 200 years of military nonalignment and Finland was still living in the shadow of its unique Cold War status, which led to the coining of the term "Finlandization," where the Soviet Union allowed the country independence in exchange for Helsinki not opposing its bigger and more powerful neighbor's foreign policy.

The Russian attack on Ukraine and the pronouncement before the outbreak of the war by Russian President Vladimir Putin that he didn't wish to see any more NATO enlargement changed all that.

In the spring, there was already a firm majority in both Nordic countries' parliaments and among the populace for joining the military alliance. In May, their NATO applications were lodged in Brussels, and, in June, they were invited to join at the NATO summit in Madrid.

Drilling Down:

• The hopes for a speedy ratification from the current 30 members over the summer and early fall were quickly dashed. Hungary dragged its feet and announced that its parliament will deal with the issue in February 2023.
• All eyes have always been -- and will continue to be -- on Turkey. Turkey agreed to give a green light to invite the Nordic pair, as long as they both took a number of what Ankara sees as anti-terrorism measures. On that, there has been some progress. Sweden's 2019 arms embargo on Turkey was lifted in September and there have been moves to stop Swedish financing for Kurdish groups in Syria, which were two of Turkey's key demands.
• For Turkey, that isn't yet far enough. Sweden, with an estimated 100,000 people of Kurdish origin living in the country, had also promised to clamp down on Turkey's foe, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), plus extraditing people that Turkey deems to be terrorists.
• There has been progress on that, too, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has on numerous occasions said Stockholm (and by extension Helsinki) has done enough to join. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be the final judge. He's set to fight a tricky presidential election in June, and it's possible that the Nordic NATO question could become a key issue.
• Sweden and Finland will almost certainly become NATO members in 2023, and the alliance will change radically. The entire Baltic region, with the exception of Russia, will soon be NATO territory. Finland's 1,300-kilometer border with Russia will become the military alliance's longest, with what is currently its biggest adversary.
• Updated NATO defense plans are under way. As partners, the Nordic pair has already participated in numerous joint exercises with NATO, but now the alliance needs to figure out how to jointly defend two of the largest countries in Europe with numerous islands and archipelagos, mountain ranges, and deep forests.
• The two countries will also be security providers. Finland already meets NATO's 2 percent defense spending target and will have one of the alliance's biggest armies; Sweden is a big arms producer. In the future, it's likely both will help bolster NATO's eight battle groups active in the eastern part of the alliance -- a reassurance measure against further possible Russian military advances.

Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine Move Closer To EU

Deep Background: Only five days before the June Madrid summit, the European Union took the equally momentous decision in Brussels to confirm that Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine had a so-called European perspective, an EU term indicating that one day they can become members of the club. For the trio, which had previously concluded visa liberalization deals and association agreements that included trade pacts with Brussels, this was a pipe dream coming true.

But for Ukraine and Moldova, it didn't stop there. The EU also agreed to bestow them the title of EU candidate countries, putting them on the same level in their path to accession as many EU hopefuls in the Western Balkans. Because of Brussels' serious concerns about democratic backsliding, Georgia was placed one rung lower as a potential candidate country.

In truth, these titles and statuses are highly symbolic and don't mean anything for certain. The countries might not necessarily get more money from the EU budget, and there is no concrete timeline for when they can become members.

However, it reverses years of hesitancy in Brussels about the further enlargement of the bloc. It was only last year that some western EU countries were skeptical even about including the word "enlargement" when referring officially to the Western Balkans -- despite Brussels, for nearly two decades, repeating that those countries will become members one day. (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia are all official candidates to join the EU. The newest wannabe, Kosovo, has been given the status of a potential candidate.)

Before this year, whenever any official EU text was to be negotiated with Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, it was always made abundantly clear that any wording alluding to future membership was most certainly off the table.

Once again, the war in Ukraine changed everything. The European Commission even suggested -- and got all 27 member states onboard -- changing the very process of EU enlargement. Before, an applicant country would wait for years and have to undergo serious reforms to become a potential candidate, let alone a candidate country. But in the case of Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, they were given their statuses immediately but with the provision that they pass reforms later, notably fighting corruption and improving the rule of law.

Drilling Down:

• The conditions the EU gives to potential candidates are sometimes intentionally vague. How does one, for example, accurately measure "a proven track record in fighting corruption"? The ambiguity allows lots of wiggle room, which can help appease enlargement skeptics within the bloc. Some countries want this to take as much time as possible, arguing that the EU still isn't ready to bring in new (and poorer) countries into the fold.
• An important thing to look out for in 2023 is the European Commission's annual enlargement report in October, which will feature the eastern trio for the first time. Will the commission be ready to suggest opening EU accession talks with Moldova and Ukraine, and possibly even Georgia? Much will depend on political developments next year. A first indication will come in the spring when the commission delivers a midterm assessment.
• In the fall, Ukraine formally applied to join NATO, even though the country (together with Georgia and Bosnia) had been a NATO aspirant country for a long time. The decision, made in Bucharest in 2008, that Kyiv will one day be welcome to join the military alliance, officially still stands. But it won't be anytime soon, as NATO is adamant that it is not a party to the war in Ukraine, something having Ukraine as a member would radically change.
• Another key moment to watch out for in 2023 will be NATO's summit in Vilnius in mid-July. The host, as well as many other Central and Eastern European members, is very keen to give Kyiv (and possibly even Tbilisi) something tangible. It could be a Membership Action Plan (MAP), a sort of pre-accession NATO program of advice, assistance, and practical support tailored for a prospective member. To calm the nerves of the more reluctant members of NATO, however, that might be watered down to a "MAP in all but name."

Meanwhile, In The Western Balkans…

Deep Background: While the Nordics rushed toward NATO and the eastern trio made confident strides toward the EU, it seemed for a while that the Western Balkans were being forgotten. Bosnia failed to get candidate status in June, when Ukraine and Moldova were given a green light.

But when EU leaders reconvened again in Brussels in December, Sarajevo finally got the thumbs-up -- and that was despite the progress report on Bosnia presented by the European Commission in the fall that showed the glaring shortcomings of Sarajevo's application and how much more work the country had to do.

Brussels did, however, recognize that the same "formula" given to Kyiv and Chisinau could work for Bosnia, as well. The candidate status was given along with eight very strict recommendations to fulfil before Bosnia can advance further. Few believe, though, that will happen anytime soon in the highly divided nation.

While EU leaders were green-lighting Bosnia's candidate status in Brussels, Kosovo handed in its EU membership application in Prague on December 15. This will prove to be a real legal head-scratcher for Brussels going into the new year, as it will be the first time ever that a country that isn't recognized by all EU member states is formally asking to become a member of the club.

The most likely scenario is that EU member states will quietly opt to send over the file to the European Commission to prepare an official legal opinion on Kosovo's membership application -- a process that will take years. That gift of time allows for the possibility that the political reality in Europe will change by the time it comes to Kosovo's recognition.

Much of this is connected to the country's EU-facilitated dialogue with Serbia, which has been stalling in recent years. But there is now a proposal on the table that, while not offering Serbian recognition of Kosovo's statehood, at least calls for the mutual recognition of national symbols such as passports and support for each other's EU bids.

Drilling Down:

• This year also saw EU member states finally give a green light to Kosovo, so its citizens can travel without visas to most EU countries. This has long been an irritant for Pristina, as all other Western Balkans states have already enjoyed this for over a decade.
• The new visa regime doesn't start right away. Rather, it should enter into force at the same time as the European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS), which would mean November 2023 at the earliest. The implementation of ETIAS has been postponed several times before, so early 2024 is a much safer bet.
• Finally, North Macedonia (together with Albania) opened EU accession negotiations nearly 17 years after having been granted EU candidate status.
• This came after a compromise with Bulgaria to amend the Macedonian Constitution to recognize the Bulgarian minority, although many sticking points between Skopje and Sofia still remain. For years, Bulgaria had blocked North Macedonia's path to the EU because the two countries disagree over a long list of linguistic and historical issues.
• North Macedonia offers a cautionary tale for just how difficult (and long!) the road to the EU can be, with the country being blocked by Greece, France, and Bulgaria at different stages for different reasons. This is the reality of what asymmetrical relations between EU members and those hoping to join look like.
• Crucially, the member states have to decide unanimously when EU accession chapters are opened and closed, plus add to that the interim benchmarks that also need to be approved. That means there are close to 100 potential vetoes for each and every EU country throughout the process. Amid all the enlargement euphoria of 2022, that is worth keeping in mind in the years ahead.

Finally, I would like to wish you, the readers of the Wider Europe Briefing, a happy holidays and best wishes for the new year. Thank you for subscribing, reading, and offering suggestions and feedback. I will be taking a break over the next couple of weeks, with the next briefing arriving in your in-boxes on Monday, January 9.