Address of Hon. Tomislav Sokol MEP to the European Leadership Conference on the Western Balkans at the European Parliament in Brussels on 19 November 2025.
N.B. This transcription has been prepared with as much accuracy as possible, but please note that it may contain minor discrepancies.
Thank you very much for giving me the floor to speak about a very important topic and I like to be direct, so I may say some things which will not suit everybody, but this is just the way politicians should communicate.
So, I think generally the politics of opinion towards the Western Balkans or Southeast Europe has been a fiasco. So, after 35 years since the fall of communism and the disintegration of Yugoslavia, 30 years after the end of the war in Croatia and Bosnia Herzegovina, 25 years after the end of the war in Kosovo, and 4 years after the end of the war in North Macedonia, we still haven't resolved anything. So, unfortunately Southeast Europe, so former Yugoslavia minus Croatia and Slovenia plus Albania, is still in the kind of limbo still, still in a situation where, as you pointed out, different actors are trying to exert their influence; it's China, it's the Arab world, Turkey, it's Russia, still Russia, especially through Serbia and the Republic of Srpska, and of course, unfortunately in the end the whole, let's say, problem that we saw in the first decade of 1st century has more and more or less degraded to the situation which is even worse than it was 25 years ago. So, definitely everything that has been done has not really yielded any concrete results.
First, I think we have to speak about individual countries because those individual countries have very different situations. I don’t speak about every individual country, but I think some of them need to be mentioned. So first, I think the biggest problem currently is Serbia. So, Serbia is the biggest country in this part of Europe, but Serbia also has significant presences as people in Montenegro, in Kosovo, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well. But unfortunately, especially since Vučić came to power, Serbia has backtracked on everything that was done before in terms of respect for the rule of law, in terms of free media, etc. Serbia currently is an authoritarian country run by one single person who controls everything and, unfortunately, because of the students in the opposition rising up against such an authoritarian rule, they are forced to civil war. But unfortunately, Serbia is also exerting its negative influence in Montenegro, which they are trying to destabilize, and also, to some extent, Bosnia Herzegovina as well.
There are still trying to, apart from the fact that Serbia is not a democratic country, they are also still trying to sit on two chairs at the same time. Let's say they're trying to maintain a good relationship with Russia still. They haven’t imposed sanctions on Russia. So definitely, in such an atmosphere, it's very hard to speak about some kind of European perspective. Not to mention the fact that that media, which is practically completely controlled by the government, if you look at how they portray the European Union, sometimes you would think that you were in Russia or Saint Petersburg and not in Belgrade for instance. So definitely Serbia is the main problem and source of instability, not a democratic country and also a country that is trying to play different sides. So essentially, what they want to do what their position is towards the EU, is let's get money from the E.U., let’s get benefits, but no obligation stemming from membership, like the rule of law and like fighting corruption, etc. These are not things that he wants. He just wants to get benefits from you, but no obligations.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is probably the most complicated country because of the war and the fact that we have 3 large nations and the fact that there are 2 large religious communities quite divided there is a separate issue. So, there you have Bosnian Muslims, Bosniaks, who are looking more strongly towards the Islamic world, Turkey, etc., than towards the West. You have the Republic of Srpska which is also mostly looking towards Russia and Serbia as well, and who want to separate themselves from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Bosnian Muslims, Bosniaks, want to have a unitary country where they would rule, because of their majority of more than 50% of the population, and you have Croats, who are also citizens of the European Union, who are definitely the ones who want E.U. integration, because then Croats from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croats from Croatia. Croats want be together in the E.U. So obviously that's their strategic interest. So, everything that the E.U. and the West have tried to do in terms of nation building and trying to overcome these differences has failed. So, this idea that the three nations can be merged together into some kind of melting point definitely didn't play out. So, definitely, it hasn't shown a lot of success.
And finally, we have two countries which are close to entering, which have a serious chance of entering the EU. These are Montenegro and Albania, and these countries are close, but there are still a lot of problems, especially the Serbian influence in Montenegro is definitely still very, very problematic, because it is outsourced instability there.
So, to sum up, the situation is not good, the situation is worse, I would say, than it was 15 years ago. The people who are pro-European, the European forces in these countries, are losing momentum and motivation because they see that there is no real advancement there. And, definitely, the whole perspective is not particularly good, maybe for Albania and Montenegro yes, but for the other countries there are very big problems, and their European perspective I would say is unfortunately decades away.
The good thing is that we have this window of opportunity now because the E.U. accession has been really a marginal issue and not really a priority for the last 10 to 15 years here in Brussels, but that has changed because of the war in Ukraine. And the main reason is that nobody in the European Union wants to leave a black hole where Russia, Turkey, and China would exert their influence. So now, because of the war in Ukraine, this is the first time in decades that they're speaking seriously about accession towards Southeast Europe, and we have this kind of momentum and now we should try to do whatever we can to make some progress. And I think Montenegro and Albania are the countries that definitely have a have a perspective. For North Macedonia, you know of the problems with their neighbors, unfortunately. They've done a lot, they’ve made enormous sacrifices, enormous things, also changing the name of the country, but unfortunately, I think that they’re not very close to some kind of final accession to the EU.
So, to sum up, I think that we’ve made lots of mistakes. I think we have been really present and diligent as European Union in Southeast Europe. Now we have this momentum, now we have this renewed interest in the E.U. and we should use this momentum as soon as possible to make some progress and to stabilize this area to reduce foreign influence. I think investments are very important. So, we cannot just come and say you have to change this and that without providing some kind of benefits to these countries. So, this is very important. And then to try to help those pro-European forces in these countries to really offer them some kind of European perspective. I think there is a chance, but we have to do much more than we’ve done so far. Thank you very much.