Reform Without Transformation: The EU’s Diminishing Leverage in the Western Balkans

Abstract

This article explains why the European Union has not replicated Central and Eastern Europe’s (CEE) transformation in the Western Balkans (WB6). Drawing on the original External Incentives Model (EIM) conditions, the article argues that a different political climate in the WB6 requires attention to additional contextual conditions within the EIM framework to show how the weakened linkage between compliance and rewards emerges. Geopolitical enlargement and the presence of rival powers, a stability-over-democracy approach, bilateral vetoes, and the EU’s ongoing “permacrisis” negatively impact determinacy and EU credibility, while also increasing adoption costs. At the WB6 level, reforms become partial and reversible/at-risk, and even in cases of real progress (Montenegro and Albania), institutions remain fragile. The current arrangement serves both Brussels and local elites, providing short-term stability and keeping the WB6 on the EU path at the price of tolerating domestic capture and reforms without transformation. Yet, this arrangement carries a long-term risk of eroding the EU’s transformative power, as public dissatisfaction with local elites is not met with EU support, and rival powers exploit identity ties and elite channels.

1. Introduction

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the ultimate goal of Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries was re-assimilating into Europe. While CEE countries were completing the “return to Europe” journey in 2004, another part of Europe—the Balkans—was offered a sense of belonging in the Thessaloniki promise (European Commission 2003, art. 2): “The future of the Balkans is within the European Union”. Franjo Tuđman’s death in 1999, Slobodan Milošević’s overthrow in 2000, and the success of the pro-EU forces, accompanied by decreased US interest in the region and Russia’s decade-long internal turmoil, led to the EU holding the most prominent role in the Balkans. Yet, two decades later, most Balkan countries find themselves still striving towards the same goal from (almost) the same distance.

This article explores why the EU has not been able to replicate the success of CEE enlargement in the Western Balkans (WB6)—Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo1, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. This requires examining EU transformative conditionality2 in the context of how EU internal issues impact credibility, bilateral disputes between candidate and member states blur determinacy, and geopolitics shifts outcomes from transformation to transactional reform.

The article employs a qualitative, theory-guided, structured comparison across the WB6, anchored in the External Incentives Model (EIM). Empirically, it draws on a document analysis of EU enlargement and conditionality outputs (including the 2018 “credible enlargement perspective” strategy, the revised 2020 enlargement methodology, the 2024 and 2025 Commission country reports, and the 2025 Communication on EU enlargement policy), supplemented by descriptive indicators (GDP per capita as a share of the EU-27 average, EU trade and FDI, CFSP alignment, and Balkan Barometer data). The documents are read thematically across the WB6—focusing on democracy and the rule of law, economic and public-administration reforms, and CFSP alignment—to examine how shifts in credibility, determinacy, rewards, and domestic adoption costs relate to patterns of reform that are real, partial, or reversible.

The contribution of this article is threefold. First, it confirms the EIM’s original claim that high adoption costs and low credibility of EU rewards hinder Europeanisation. Second, it adapts the EIM to the contemporary WB context by examining how geopolitics, stabilitocracies, bilateral disputes, and the EU’s own “permacrises” reshape its core conditions of determinacy, the size and speed of rewards, credibility, and domestic adoption costs. Third, it shows that the current relationship between the EU and the WB6 is perceived as beneficial for both the EU and local governments: it allows the EU to retain influence in the WB6 without full commitment, to position the region as a geopolitical investment, while local elites use EU accession as a shield for authoritarian consolidation.

The article proceeds as follows: Section 2 sets out the EIM-based analytical framework and introduces four contextual factors—geopolitics, stabilitocracies, bilateral disputes and the EU’s “permacrises”. Section 3 examines how EU internal dynamics, including shifting benchmarks and the prioritisation of stability, affect the determinacy, size and speed of rewards, and credibility of conditionality. Section 4 analyses domestic adoption costs of reforms in the WB6 by distinguishing regulatory and institutional adjustment costs from political, sovereignty-related and rent-seeking costs, and illustrates these through patterns of real, partial and reversible progress. Section 5 discusses the implications of a stability-first approach for democratic backsliding, the risks of “reform without transformation”, and the role of rival powers.

2. Analytical Framework

This research primarily utilises the EIM and its notion of conditionality (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004, 2019). The core idea of the EIM is that a candidate state complies with EU political and regulatory conditions if the benefits of EU rewards exceed the domestic adoption costs. This benefit–cost calculation has four conditions: determinacy, size and speed of rewards, credibility, and adoption costs (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004). Determinacy means that the candidate state is presented with a clear roadmap: higher determinacy simultaneously enhances credibility and reduces space for different interpretations and the potential manipulation of rules. The size and speed of rewards refer to the idea that the larger and more immediate the rewards, the higher the likelihood of compliance. The credibility of conditionality is based on the fact that if the candidate state complies, the EU will deliver its promise. It contains three requirements: interdependence must be grossly in favour of the EU, there must be consistency of rewards, and there must be no comparable alternative to the EU path. Adoption costs depend on domestic politics, with two key sources: costs for target governments and veto players.

In the case of the CEE countries, the EIM correctly predicted compliance. The EU provided clear rules with tangible and scheduled rewards, building a credible record by fulfilling promises, while the reward (membership) was higher than imposed costs (the CEE countries had no credible alternatives, and the number of veto players was relatively low). Therefore, the model suggests the differences between the WB6 and CEE are higher costs and the EU’s lower credibility, with credibility being “the only condition showing full correspondence with the pattern of compliance” (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2019, p. 829). However, Buscaneanu and Li (2024), in re-evaluating the EIM in the Eastern European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) region, emphasise transformation and regulatory costs as two distinctive kinds of cost conditionality. Transformation costs refer to democratic conditionality, while regulatory costs imply acquis conditionality.

While the EIM’s four-condition matrix remains relevant for the WB6, the original model on its own is insufficient to explain the dynamics between the EU and the WB6. Mesarovich and Schumacher (2025) point out that wartime enlargement exposes several blind spots in the model: its focus on discrete procedural moments, its neglect of the security–democracy nexus, and its narrow emphasis on formal conditionality. Schimmelfennig (2025) conceptualises “geopolitical enlargement” as a security-driven layer added to the traditional transformative approach, which strengthens the membership promise but weakens the credibility of withholding membership from non-compliers and generates new trade-offs for internal EU reform. To capture these dynamics within the EIM framework, the article introduces four contextual factors—geopolitics, stability versus liberal democracy, the EU’s own “permacrises”, and bilateral disputes—that reshape its four conditions (see Table 1, which provides a qualitative overview of how credibility, determinacy, adoption costs and related EIM factors differ between the CEE enlargements and the WB6).3

Table 1. EIM comparison: CEE enlargement (2004/2007) and the Western Balkans (post-2003).

EIM Factor	CEE Enlargement (2004/2007)	Western Balkans (Post-2003 Thessaloniki)
Credibility of Membership	Very high: strong EU consensus on enlargement, clear timelines, and eventual accession (10+ countries joined).	Weak: EU internal “permacrises”, intensifying geopolitics and repeated bilateral vetoes, which cumulatively signal a declining and increasingly politicised membership perspective; accession seems uncertain, distant, and vulnerable to obstruction.
Determinacy Conditions	Relatively precise and consistent.	Often vague and politicised (e.g., bilateral disputes).
Domestic Costs of Adoption	Moderate: regulatory and institutional adjustment costs were significant but largely framed as part of “returning to Europe” and nation-building; political and sovereignty costs were cushioned by a broad pro-EU consensus and comparatively weaker patronage structures.	High: regulatory alignment is often relatively advanced on paper, but political, sovereignty and rent-seeking costs of deep implementation are high, given entrenched patronage networks, state/societal capture, ethnonational veto players and, in some cases, contested statehood.
EU Leverage	Asymmetry of power, CEE highly motivated to “return to Europe.”	WB6 elites use EU process strategically for stability and international legitimacy, while resisting deep transformation.
Interim Rewards	Accession negotiations were fast-moving; interim rewards (visa liberalisation, funds) led towards a credible end-goal.	Some interim rewards (visa liberalisation, trade, aid), but membership perspective remains distant.
Rule Adoption & Implementation	High: widespread adoption of EU rules, relatively strong implementation.	Mixed: high formal adoption (laws on paper), but weak and selective implementation (“façade of compliance”).
Overall Outcome	Successful transformation of institutions, consolidation of democracy (with some backsliding later, e.g., Hungary/Poland).	Partial, uneven, and reversible Europeanisation; persistence of “stabilitocracies” and state capture.

Table 1. EIM comparison: CEE enlargement (2004/2007) and the Western Balkans (post-2003).

EIM Factor	CEE Enlargement (2004/2007)	Western Balkans (Post-2003 Thessaloniki)
Credibility of Membership	Very high: strong EU consensus on enlargement, clear timelines, and eventual accession (10+ countries joined).	Weak: EU internal “permacrises”, intensifying geopolitics and repeated bilateral vetoes, which cumulatively signal a declining and increasingly politicised membership perspective; accession seems uncertain, distant, and vulnerable to obstruction.
Determinacy Conditions	Relatively precise and consistent.	Often vague and politicised (e.g., bilateral disputes).
Domestic Costs of Adoption	Moderate: regulatory and institutional adjustment costs were significant but largely framed as part of “returning to Europe” and nation-building; political and sovereignty costs were cushioned by a broad pro-EU consensus and comparatively weaker patronage structures.	High: regulatory alignment is often relatively advanced on paper, but political, sovereignty and rent-seeking costs of deep implementation are high, given entrenched patronage networks, state/societal capture, ethnonational veto players and, in some cases, contested statehood.
EU Leverage	Asymmetry of power, CEE highly motivated to “return to Europe.”	WB6 elites use EU process strategically for stability and international legitimacy, while resisting deep transformation.
Interim Rewards	Accession negotiations were fast-moving; interim rewards (visa liberalisation, funds) led towards a credible end-goal.	Some interim rewards (visa liberalisation, trade, aid), but membership perspective remains distant.
Rule Adoption & Implementation	High: widespread adoption of EU rules, relatively strong implementation.	Mixed: high formal adoption (laws on paper), but weak and selective implementation (“façade of compliance”).
Overall Outcome	Successful transformation of institutions, consolidation of democracy (with some backsliding later, e.g., Hungary/Poland).	Partial, uneven, and reversible Europeanisation; persistence of “stabilitocracies” and state capture.

Geopolitics has always played a role in shaping EU enlargement policy (Armstrong and Anderson 2007; Petrovic and Tzifakis 2021), and the EIM originally accounts for geopolitics under the assumption that the candidate state has no alternative path. However, the war in Ukraine has changed the perception of enlargement. Enlargement is now no longer only a tool of Europeanisation but also a geopolitical tool (Anghel and Jones 2024; Dopchie and Lika 2024; Schimmelfennig 2023, 2025). The EU initially responded to the war with unprecedented urgency, including backing the launch of the European Political Community (EPC) to establish common ground for EU members and partners vis-à-vis Russia (Alpan 2024; see also European Council 2025). In parallel, the EU granted candidate status to Ukraine and Moldova in June 2022, and Georgia in December 2023.4 Yet divisions among member states and the absence of Franco–German leadership indicate that credibility based on geopolitics comes at the cost of weakened standards and preparedness (Koval and Vachudova 2024); and since the EPC offers no acquis-based milestones, it does little to increase determinacy (Alpan 2024).5

These dilemmas reflect what Schimmelfennig (2025) describes as the trade-offs of geopolitical enlargement: while it enhances credibility, it lowers governance standards by prioritising security over democracy. In addition, while it adds urgency to the enlargement process, it pressures the EU to expand before its own institutions are ready. These dilemmas played a significant role in the WB6 years before Ukraine: the EU has cooperated with stabilitocracies6 trading credibility for stability.7 In CEE, stability and democracy were seen as mutually reinforcing; in the WB6, they have often been treated as competing aspects, undermining the EIM assumption that conditions are consistently enforced and rewards credibly linked to compliance.

Another factor that is absent from the CEE experience is the ubiquity of bilateral disputes between member states and candidates. Unlike in CEE, where bilateral disputes were settled outside the accession framework (e.g., Slovenia–Italy on property rights and Hungary–Romania: minority rights disputes), the WB6 enlargement has faced barriers directly within the accession process itself. Disputes such as Greece’s veto over the name for North Macedonia, which lasted until 2018 (Armakolas and Petkovski 2019), Bulgaria’s blockage of North Macedonia (Brunnbauer 2022), and unresolved Serbia–Kosovo tensions within the EU (Armakolas and Ker-Lindsay 2019) illustrate how the demands of member states politicise the enlargement process and push the WB6 into interstate bargaining to unlock procedural steps. Although these disputes create additional veto players, weakening both the determinacy and credibility of EU conditionality, such settlement agreements cannot be legally ensured once the parties join the EU (Basheska 2025).

Finally, enlargement policy in WB6 has been affected by a broader EU permacrisis, a state of a prolonged period of volatility that affects both governance structures and long-term strategic choices (Katsikas et al. 2025). While the permacrisis has made the EU more proactive in coordinating policies in certain areas (Ladi and Polverari 2025; Jones et al. 2021), for the WB6, it leads to inconsistent conditionality largely dependent on the EU’s capacity to resolve its own internal fragility, thereby further weakening the determinacy of the accession perspective and rendering crisis-driven rewards less predictable and less clearly tied to compliance.

3. EU Internal Issues: Increasing Targets and Diminishing Credibility

This section examines three conditions of the EIM: credibility, adoption costs of EU conditionality, and determinacy. The WB6 face more demanding accession requirements than the candidates from the 2004 and 2007 enlargements. Simultaneously, internal weaknesses within the EU prevent it from providing the level of commitment in the face of the increased demand. As a result, stricter conditionality increases adoption costs for candidates and diminishes EU credibility.

The Copenhagen Criteria (European Council 1993) formalised requirements for accession into three sections: political (stability of democratic institutions, rule of law, and respect for human and minority rights), economic (functioning market economy), and acquis (ability to adopt and implement the EU rules). While the Copenhagen Criteria addressed “absorption capacity” on the EU side, Agenda 2000 (European Commission 1997) set up tools to monitor the transition of post-communist societies. For Romania and Bulgaria, the conditionality path was tightened further, linking it to the fight against corruption, which became “essential for the effective implementation of the acquis” (European Commission 2005, p. 4). In the case of the WB6, conditionality became even more elaborate: alongside the states’ annual progress reports and the Thessaloniki Agenda (European Commission 2003), which set integration goals, the Stabilisation and Association Agreements (SAAs) provided the legal framework for reforms in both governance and economics. Further, “[a] credible enlargement perspective for and enhanced EU engagement with the Western Balkans” introduced clear benchmarks for opening and closing the chapters, as well as the requirement of a comprehensive and legally binding agreement between Belgrade and Pristina (European Commission 2018, art. 4). Finally, a revisited negotiation framework brought clustering of chapters and, more importantly, stricter monitoring mechanisms and a reversibility clause, which allows the EU to pause or reverse negotiations if backsliding occurs or reforms are not delivered (European Commission 2020b).

While the WB6 have to fulfil more demanding requirements today, many of the challenges they encounter are hardly new: the transition from post-communist societies (Big Bang enlargement of the EU, 2004), identity costs (the Baltic states, 2004), corruption (Romania and Bulgaria, 2007), and reconciliation and good neighbourly relations (Croatia, 2013). Anastasakis and Bechev’s (2003, p. 3) remark from over two decades ago also applies today: “the conditionality drawbacks in the Western Balkans are a direct result of the deficit of commitment.” In other words, what distinguishes the WB6 is not unique or more substantive challenges, but rather the weaker credibility of EU promises, which makes compliance less attractive and reforms more easily postponed. EU internal issues further undermine its credibility. First and foremost, the required unanimity in the Council in foreign and security policy and enlargement, accompanied by a permacrisis, absorbs political capital and diverts leadership attention (Qorraj et al. 2024). Some even argue that it produces an institutional solidarity crisis (Vasiljević 2022). At the same time, the EU faces a phenomenon largely absent during the previous enlargements—democratic backsliding (Pech and Scheppele 2017; Gora and de Wilde 2022). Second, the EU is more likely to tolerate illiberal practices that challenge its core values than threats to its policies (Kelemen 2020; Blauberger and Sedelmeier 2024).8 This signals to national leaders that they can engage in anti-EU braggadocio in their domestic arenas—as long as they do not obstruct EU policies. For the WB6 elites, these institutional and normative weaknesses suggest compliance may not yield credible rewards, encouraging them to hedge with partial or symbolic compliance rather than pursuing genuine reform.

Finally, bilateral disputes play a veto role within the accession process, most notably Greece’s and Bulgaria’s vetoes of North Macedonia’s accession talks over the name, historical and identity disputes, and the question of Serbia–Kosovo normalisation. Although the 2018 Prespa Agreement between Greece and North Macedonia resolved a decades-long name disagreement and lifted Greece’s veto on EU membership, the “creative but ambiguous” nature of the Agreement (Armakolas and Petkovski 2019) suggests that it is still a work in progress (Nimetz 2020). The North Macedonia-Bulgaria dispute proved to be more profound: while the 1999 and 2017 agreements formalised relations, Bulgaria still denies the Macedonian language and even questions the Macedonian identity (Marolov 2022). As Brunnbauer (2022) argues, Bulgaria’s “phantom pains”, which are rooted in nationalist obsession with North Macedonia, seem to resonate even within certain EU circles.9 Allowing a member state to hijack enlargement over domestic agendas undermines the EU’s credibility, risks regional stability, and emboldens other states to pursue similar tactics.

The question of Kosovo’s statehood not only divides Belgrade and Pristina but also EU members, who can be separated into non-recognisers (Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia, and Spain) and recognisers (all other members). Moreover, there is a significant difference in the quality of engagement with Kosovo even within the two groups (Armakolas and Ker-Lindsay 2019). This internal split compels the EU to combine processes of institution-building and integration, whereas its neutrality “operates as both a legitimising principle and an authorisation mechanism” (Doli and Xhaferri 2025, p. 16). Such an approach allows the EU not only to keep both parties on the EU path but also to ease the internal split. However, over 30 agreements signed under the auspices of the EU did little to build trust between the parties (Dorda et al. 2024), and each crisis in the relationship between Belgrade and Pristina is a reminder of the absence of political consensus (Bargués et al. 2024). The case of Kosovo illustrates both the EU’s capacity to operate in an environment of stark internal division and the extent to which member states’ individual interests continue to shape its engagement with prospective members.

Besides increased adoption costs and lower credibility, the 2007 enlargement indicates a lack of clarity and consistency in rules—determinacy. The gap between the CEE and the WB6 in terms of democratic preparedness (Böhmelt and Freyburg 2017), economics, and the size of the markets (Daviddi and Uvalić 2024; Jovanović et al. 2022) is significant. There is also a significant difference in the EU approach to the two regions: while CEE enlargement in 2004 followed a group logic that helped laggards catch up, the Balkans were placed on differentiated and competitive tracks, resulting in fragmented accession paths: Romania and Bulgaria (2007), Croatia (2013), and the rest of the Balkans.

Romania’s and Bulgaria’s accession is particularly relevant in the context of the WB6. Thanks to unprecedented EU efforts to curb the issue of corruption and organised crime (Noutcheva and Bechev 2008; Ivanov 2010), both Romania and Bulgaria were accepted despite remaining clear laggards on rule-of-law and corruption indicators compared to the 2004 entrants and were even slightly outperformed by Croatia (Spendzharova and Vachudova 2011). The 2007 enlargement is an outlier case based not on objective assessment but “rather a reflection of wider security imperatives which led the EU to allow the accession of ‘imperfect’ new member states instead of risking the unpredictable costs of their exclusion” (Papadimitriou and Gateva 2009, p. 22). Most notably, Kosovo’s instability and concerns regarding Russia’s influence on Bulgaria due to their historical ties played a substantial role in accelerating the EU accession process (Veleva-Eftimova 2023). In other words, EU conditionality was applied inconsistently alongside significant discretion in interpreting and enforcing rules. Such inconsistency, where geopolitical considerations outweigh acquis conditions, stimulates WB6 governments to engage in “fake” or “partial” compliance, selectively implementing reforms based on domestic political interests rather than pursuing genuine reform (Noutcheva 2009).

4. Western Balkan Six Reforms

The previous section discussed how the EU’s inconsistent conditionality and internal weaknesses undermine credibility, increase adoption costs, and even blur determinacy. However, the sluggishness of integration cannot be attributed solely to the EU: domestic adoption costs in the WB6 also play a central role. In EIM terms, these costs can be divided into (a) regulatory and institutional adjustment costs, such as legislative alignment, administrative capacity-building and fiscal burdens, and (b) political, sovereignty and rent-seeking costs, including the dismantling of patronage networks, losses for entrenched elites, and challenges to contested statehood or identity narratives. Although the WB6 have made significant economic progress, including EU market alignment, their progress in democratic consolidation and institutional reforms remains uneven and reversible, suggesting that the second type of costs remains particularly high. Thus, the progress of the WB6 is grouped into three categories in Table 2: “real (but fragile)” where reforms deliver tangible outcomes and show a track record of implementation but remain vulnerable to institutional crises or capture; “partial” where adoption is largely formal and implementation weak or selective; and “reversible/at risk” where backsliding is observable or key reforms can readily be undone.

Montenegro is the frontrunner in the WB6 group, having opened 33 of 35 chapters (all except chapters 34 and 35, which are outside the cluster system—opened/closed at the very end) and, by June 2025, provisionally closed seven chapters. It has made real progress in external relations, civil society protection, and economic integration. However, its institutions remain “fragile and vulnerable to political crisis and potential institutional blockages” (European Commission 2024d, p. 23). For instance, the Anti-Corruption Agency director was indicted on charges of abuse of office and corruption, while only 26% of citizens perceive judicial independence as “fairly or very good” (European Commission 2025c, pp. 3, 8). These developments suggest that, while regulatory adjustment and sectoral reforms have advanced, the political and rent-seeking costs of consolidating genuinely independent institutions remain relatively high, leaving even real reforms in a “fragile” category.

Albania, after being decoupled from North Macedonia in 2024, has been on a fast track to the EU: by 17 November 2025 it had opened all 33 negotiating chapters, completing the opening of all six clusters in just over a year (Council of the EU 2025, pp. 2–3). Accession negotiations with Albania are described by the European Commission as having “reached unprecedented momentum”, and the government aims to close them by the end of 2027 (European Commission 2025a, p. 28). On this basis, Maillard (2024, p. 1) argues that Albania’s 2030 accession target is “tacitly encouraged by the European Commission”, since Albania demonstrates real progress in economic preparedness and full alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (European Commission 2024a, 2025b). However, persistent shortcomings in judicial efficiency, corruption prevention, media independence, parliamentary accountability, and civic space mean that reforms often fail to deliver the intended outcomes (European Commission 2025b, pp. 1, 7). Albania combines relatively low regulatory and institutional adjustment costs with persistently high political and rent-seeking costs in the rule-of-law and media domains, which helps to explain why formally ambitious reforms and rapid progress in opening chapters still might yield only partial or fragile outcomes.

Serbia long ran neck-and-neck with Montenegro in the EU accession race. Since the start of the war in Ukraine, however, Serbia has neither opened nor provisionally closed any chapter. On the one hand, it has made notable progress in economic integration. The EU accounts for almost 60% of its trade (European Commission 2024f), but it experiences similar rule-of-law and governance issues to those in Montenegro and Albania (European Commission 2024f, 2025d). Additionally, over the past year Serbia has experienced mass student protests, a more repressive response by the authorities, and a deteriorating environment for critical media and civil society, which further reinforces the picture of partial and fragile political reforms (European Commission 2025d). On the other hand, Belgrade faces two specific obstacles on its accession path: foreign policy alignment with the EU’s CFSP (it refuses to join the EU’s sanctions against Russia) and the normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. Serbia’s case illustrates how sovereignty and geopolitical considerations significantly raise domestic adoption costs: aligning fully with the EU’s CFSP and accepting a comprehensive normalisation agreement with Kosovo would impose high political and identity costs on ruling elites, even as economic integration with the EU deepens.

North Macedonia is a peculiar, even contradictory, case. In the mid-2010s, it was projected to reach the 2004 acquis benchmark by 2023 (Böhmelt and Freyburg 2017). It performs well in terms of the Maastricht criteria10 relative to some EU members (Minovska 2023) and has shown a willingness to make compromises (Daskalovski 2023). Yet, according to the EC’s reports, North Macedonia is clearly behind Montenegro, Serbia, and Albania. Not only has North Macedonia not managed to open a single chapter since accession negotiations began in 2022, but it has also moved from mere failure to enforce adopted rules to inability to adopt important laws (European Commission 2024e). Additionally, the Prespa Agreement has not yielded tangible results in its accession path, and the French Proposal weaponises Bulgaria to condition its progress on identity-related demands (Marolov 2022; Daskalovski 2023), signalling that politics trumps policy (Mojsovska 2021). North Macedonia therefore faces not so much high regulatory adjustment costs as exceptionally high sovereignty and identity costs, since further compliance has been de facto tied to concessions over language, history and constitutional identity without a commensurate and credible progress in the accession process.

Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has made some progress in regional integration and market economy, yet it lags far behind the rest of the WB6. The democratic institutions in BiH are constantly undermined by the country’s highest political actors: the Republika Srpska (RS) continues to defy decisions from the Constitutional Court questioning its authority, political leaders from all three main party blocks are engaged in historical revisionism, and hate speech is employed in the official discourse and online media (European Commission 2024b). Furthermore, Bosniak parties push for a unitary state and abolition of the RS veto power, the Croat camp seeks more political influence and confederal drift, and Serb parties are content with the status quo, keeping the “original” Dayton (Perry 2015; Tolksdorf 2015). Even though the current state generates “frustration among the local population”, the EU remains to favour “gradual adaptability to crises over structural changes” (Bargués and Morillas 2021, p. 1331). For BiH, domestic adoption costs are dominated by veto-player and sovereignty costs: any structural reform of institutions or the constitutional set-up threatens the power bases of the three main ethnonational blocs, making deep implementation of EU-related commitments costly for elites.

Kosovo has made some progress in the market economy and limited progress in areas such as the fight against corruption and promotion of media freedom (European Commission 2024c). Nevertheless, Kosovo’s statehood remains disputed both globally and within the EU: by incorporating the EU Proposal into Serbia’s Chapter 35 benchmarks (European External Action Service 2023b, Annex), the EU explicitly confirms that a comprehensive agreement between Belgrade and Pristina is one of the requirements for membership. While the EU secured that “Serbia will not object to Kosovo’s membership in any international organisation” (European External Action Service 2023a, art. 4, par. 2) and has managed to keep Kosovo on the EU path despite the lack of consensus among its member states on Kosovo’s status (Doli and Xhaferri 2025; Bargués et al. 2024), North Macedonia’s experience demonstrates the EU’s limited capacity to protect candidates from member state vetoes, even when policy criteria are met. Thus, at this stage, Kosovo’s main adoption costs are sovereignty-related: the requirement of a comprehensive agreement with Serbia, combined with the EU’s limited ability to shield candidates from member state vetoes, turns core accession benchmarks into high-stakes decisions about statehood and international recognition.

These brief country portrayals illustrate not only differences in EU accession progress, but also how domestic adoption costs are structured across the WB6. Regulatory alignment is often relatively advanced, while political, sovereignty and rent-seeking costs remain high, so that reforms tend to be fragile (even if real), partial, or at risk (Table 2). Montenegro has engaged in real reforms, albeit with fragile institutions, while Albania has also undertaken real reforms, but with significantly greater democratic deficiencies than Montenegro. For the rest of the WB6, adoption costs in several areas remain high, particularly the political, sovereignty and rent-seeking costs of deep implementation. Additionally, the credibility of rewards is weakened by inconsistent EU enforcement and the growing weight of bilateral vetoes, while determinacy is blurred by prioritising politics over standards. Overall, the WB6 demonstrate a clear interest in developing their economies and engaging in regional cooperation and EU-funded projects, but institutional reforms remain fragile (even if real), partial, or reversible and at risk.

This pattern is shaped by the interaction between EU conditionality and state and societal capture dynamics, in which formal compliance and democratic transformation are separated. Democratisation without robust checks allows political–business networks to consolidate rents; EU incentives thus travel through “money–power–glory” channels that can stabilise rather than discipline ruling elites (Richter and Wunsch 2020). In certain cases, business capture takes a party-centred form: ruling parties reorganise public administration to extract public resources and win elections, thereby staying in power (Pavlović 2022), while reversing accountability between voters and parties (Laštro and Bieber 2023). Simultaneously, “tailor-made laws” insert private (or party) interests into public rules (Vurmo 2020). This sometimes extends to societal capture, in which parties condition access to jobs, contracts, and other benefits—and exert control over citizens, companies, the media, and NGOs—to secure electoral support and legitimacy (Cvetičanin et al. 2023).

Recent indicators suggest that these capture and corruption patterns are entrenched rather than isolated. On the World Bank “control of corruption” index, the WB6 average deteriorated from –0.34 in 2014–2016 to –0.39 in 2020–2023, compared with an EU-27 average of 0.95, with particularly sharp declines in BiH, North Macedonia and Serbia (OECD 2025, p. 73). Additionally, 36% of citizens in the WB6 name corruption among the three most important problems facing their economy, the highest level recorded in a decade (RCC 2024, p. 15), while 38% of tenders across the WB6 attracted only one bid, rising to 51% in Serbia and 65% in BiH (Balkan Tender Watch 2024, p. 7). Viewed through EIM, this configuration translates into persistently high political and rent-seeking adoption costs, since deep implementation of the acquis would directly threaten the networks through which ruling elites reproduce power and resources.

Table 2. Western Balkans accession progress and alignment indicators (as of 2025).11

Country	Negotiations Status (As of 2025)	CFSP Alignment	Progress Category	Core Issues	GDP per Capita (% of EU-27)	EU Trade (%)	FDI % of GDP	Support for EU (%)
Montenegro	33/35 opened; ~7 provisionally closed	High	Real (fragile)	Judicial reforms not yielding results; ACA scandal; institutional fragility	54	44.3	6.4	39
Albania	33 chapters opened (post-decoupling)	Full	Real/mixed outcomes	Judicial efficiency; corruption prevention; media independence; parliamentary accountability; civic space	37	57.4	5.4	77
Serbia	22 Chapters; No new openings/closures since 2022	Low (sanctions gap)	Partial	CFSP misalignment; Kosovo normalisation; rule of law and governance	51	58.3	5.6	34
North Macedonia	Talks since 2022; 0 chapters opened	Full	Partial/reversible	Failure to adopt key laws; bilateral veto (Bulgaria)	42	61.4	7.1	51
BiH	Slow track; fragmented implementation	Mixed	Reversible/at risk	camp divergence (unitary vs. confederal vs. status quo)	35	64	3.4	50
Kosovo	On SAA track; EU split on status	High	Partial/at risk	Low acquis compliance; Serbia dispute (Chapter 35 benchmark); limited trust-building	30	43.2	6	74

Table 2. Western Balkans accession progress and alignment indicators (as of 2025).11

Country	Negotiations Status (As of 2025)	CFSP Alignment	Progress Category	Core Issues	GDP per Capita (% of EU-27)	EU Trade (%)	FDI % of GDP	Support for EU (%)
Montenegro	33/35 opened; ~7 provisionally closed	High	Real (fragile)	Judicial reforms not yielding results; ACA scandal; institutional fragility	54	44.3	6.4	39
Albania	33 chapters opened (post-decoupling)	Full	Real/mixed outcomes	Judicial efficiency; corruption prevention; media independence; parliamentary accountability; civic space	37	57.4	5.4	77
Serbia	22 Chapters; No new openings/closures since 2022	Low (sanctions gap)	Partial	CFSP misalignment; Kosovo normalisation; rule of law and governance	51	58.3	5.6	34
North Macedonia	Talks since 2022; 0 chapters opened	Full	Partial/reversible	Failure to adopt key laws; bilateral veto (Bulgaria)	42	61.4	7.1	51
BiH	Slow track; fragmented implementation	Mixed	Reversible/at risk	camp divergence (unitary vs. confederal vs. status quo)	35	64	3.4	50
Kosovo	On SAA track; EU split on status	High	Partial/at risk	Low acquis compliance; Serbia dispute (Chapter 35 benchmark); limited trust-building	30	43.2	6	74

5. Stability and Risks

The WB’s current situation, being on the EU track without membership in the foreseeable future, serves both Brussels and local elites. The EU perceives the region as “a geostrategic investment” (European Commission 2020a, p. 1), thus prioritising stability over democracy—stabilitocracy (Bieber 2018). The idea behind such an approach is to use economic and infrastructure investments to retain its political influence and advance its central geopolitical objective—countering rival powers in the Balkans. However, Gafuri and Müftüler-Baç (2020, p. 286) suggest that not only does emphasising stability come at the expense of democracy, but it also enables “autocratic leaders to strengthen their concentration of power by relying on this external source of legitimation of their rule”. Furthermore, local elites benefit from economic relations with the EU while employing anti-EU rhetoric to appeal to the widest spectrum of their voters and to shift blame for unpopular measures or even governmental failures. Simultaneously, they manage to present themselves to Brussels as the only force that can keep their countries on the EU track and provide sustainable peace, while portraying themselves to their domestic constituency as the engine of economic development.

In terms of the EIM, the result is increased short-run credibility as the EU remains engaged, yet a change in standards weakens determinacy and threatens the “no alternative” condition by giving elites room to hedge, all while significantly increasing transformation costs where state/institutional capture is entrenched. Against this backdrop, the 2025 enlargement package, based on the Growth Plan for the WB6 and the Reform and Growth Facility, seeks to address this stabilitocratic equilibrium with a more formalised, results-based financial arm (European Commission 2025a). It links pre-financing and disbursements to the implementation of national Reform Agendas in order to narrow the gap between formal reform steps and the disbursement of EU financial incentives, but it does so without clarifying the timing or certainty of accession. At this stage, it is too early to assess whether these instruments will meaningfully alter this equilibrium or simply operate within the same stability-first logic.

In its present form, this stability-first equilibrium entails two risks. First, Brussels’ inertia towards institutional and societal capture might lead to citizens resisting the EU path. Although WB6 societies face a looming risk of falling into societal capture, they have proven resilient and capable of mobilising for a variety of causes.12 However, such protests do not, on their own, topple regimes; multi-faceted internal pressure and even the involvement of international actors are required (Pollozhani and Bieber 2025). Yet, EU tolerance for illiberal incumbents and a lack of active support for citizens during these cycles negatively impact support for the EU in the WB6 (Lemstra 2020). A broad anti-EU turn remains unlikely so long as the EU is “the only game in town”—even in the case of Serbia, where support for EU and BRICS+ (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) memberships is roughly equal (Semenov, forthcoming). But the reputational gap between Brussels and citizens widens each time stability is seen to trump rules.

The second risk is that rival powers might distort EU leverage. While Russia and Turkey do not offer an alternative to EU membership, they manage to exploit identity ties and elite-to-elite relationships. Russia, building on common identity with Slavic-Orthodox communities, portrays itself as a guardian of traditional values and an alternative to the NATO security umbrella (Panagiotou 2020; Šćepanović 2022; Bechev 2023). Although these affinities are embodied in historical and religious narratives, they are not merely symbolic, as they, at least in the case of Serbia, have real political influence on shaping bilateral cooperation (Jovanović 2023; Brkić 2024). On the other hand, Turkey is a NATO member and was a valuable mediation partner during the war in BiH. However, Turkey has shifted from an EU-partnering agenda to leader-to-leader pragmatism in the WB6, especially post-2016 (Koppa 2020), as EU–Turkey relations have grown more transactional (Alpan 2024). Overall, neither Russia nor Turkey has the capacity to pull the region out of the EU’s sphere of dominance; nevertheless, their comparative advantage in the cultural arena allows Russia and Turkey to exploit geopolitical vacuums and complicate the EU’s agenda of transformation.

Besides the two traditional rivals, the EU faces a new power in the region—China. Since its approach focuses on loans and infrastructure projects, China frames its efforts as complementary to the region’s future in the EU (Jaćimović et al. 2023). However, three concerns arise. First, China’s projects do not meet the EU’s standards regarding environmental regulations and intellectual property rights, but, most notably, its investments lack procurement transparency, which might further contribute to corruption and weakening institutions (Makocki and Nechev 2017). Second, while the risk of so-called “debt-trap diplomacy” is largely overstated and there is no grand Chinese scheme to “enslave” developing countries, as governments’ failure to meet payment conditions is, inter alia, the result of the borrower’s incompetent spending and pressure on Chinese participants to acquire as many deals as possible (Ferchen and Perera 2019; Schimmelfennig et al. 2021), Montenegro’s indebtedness to China is a cautionary tale for the WB6.13 Third, although China’s political aspirations in the region remain under a veil of mystery, mainly due to its commitment to a balanced political approach and decision not to meddle in its borrowers’ internal affairs, Beijing is not afraid to align its interests with Moscow (Vangeli 2023). As the WB6 advance on the path towards joining the EU, collisions between norms and EU rules will come to a head, and Chinese financing, while supplemental, can raise regulatory costs and incentivise selective compliance.

Taken together, these developments suggest that while China lacks the cultural and historical ties that Russia and Turkey have with the region, it is already an impactful economic player in the WB6. Indeed, China’s economic involvement is currently supplementary to the EU’s efforts; however, as the WB6 progress on the EU path, it inevitably will clash with the EU’s normative power.14 It is yet to be seen how China will adjust to such friction.

In sum, none of the three powers holds enough leverage to shift the region away from the EU’s influence on its own. They also do not form a single block and offer no coherent alternative to the EU (Bieber and Tzifakis 2019). Therefore, the current dynamic in the WB6 will most likely persist: the EU maintains control over the region by allowing local illiberal elites to stay in power as long as they provide stability, while the rival powers pursue their particular interests. However, there is a certain scenario which might disturb such a dynamic. If the EU continues to tolerate illiberal practices and authoritarian drift while postponing tangible accession steps and if citizens’ growing disillusionment with local elites is met with the EU’s silence, widening the gap between Brussels and ordinary citizens in the WB6—while rival powers, individually or in coordination, continue to utilise their advantages—the EU’s normative leverage will be compromised. Under such a (still unlikely) scenario, credibility and determinacy would further decline as transformation costs rise, risking a shift from an imperfect but stable EU-centric order to a more fragmented contest based exclusively on transactionalism.

6. Conclusions

More than two decades after the Thessaloniki promise, the EU’s attempts to transform WB6 countries have produced limited structural change. The point of departure was the following question: why has the EU not replicated the CEE-style transformation in the Western Balkans, despite two decades of engagement? The answer, using the EIM’s core conditions as a theoretical framework, is that it is because credibility and determinacy of rewards relative to adoption costs in the WB6 operate in an environment that dulls the impact of conditionality. Four other conditions that have a negative impact on conditionality: a geopolitical climate (increases the value of façade reforms); a stability-over-democracy approach (normalises tolerance for illiberal practices as long as it preserves the order); bilateral vetoes (shift technical conditionality into political bargaining); and the EU’s internal permacrisis (reduces attention to the region).

The logic behind the outcomes remains simple. If rewards are credible and determinate, governments can justify bearing higher political costs of reform (as was the case in CEE); when either parameter changes, as is the case in the WB6, elites are incentivised to maintain the status quo. Additionally, there is a two-way increase in adoption costs: by entrenched patronage inside the WB6, and by the EU’s crisis management, which reinforces a stability-first approach. Under these circumstances, even Montenegro and Albania, which have made real progress, still have fragile institutions where enforcement of reforms remains uneven and vulnerable to political shocks. Partial progress (North Macedonia and Serbia) prevails in societies where the governments internalise the accession script and collect interim gains while strategically slowing reforms that threaten patronage. Reversible or at-risk paths persist in societies, which face not only weak institutional capacity but also fragmented competences and additional constraints such as veto structure in BiH and Kosovo’s contested statehood.

This stability-first approach fuels reform without transformation. While it serves both Brussels and local elites, it contains a long-term risk: the erosion of the EU’s normative leverage, as tolerance of institutional and societal capture weakens support for the EU among citizens, while Russia and Turkey exploit identity ties and elite-to-elite channels, and Chinese loans create economic frictions that incentivise selective compliance.