THE PEACE-BUILDING EFFORTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION IN THE WESTERN BALKANS: THE CASES OF MACEDONIA AND KOSOVO


AĞIR B. S., ARMAN M. N., Akcay E. Y.

Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi, vol.21, no.2, pp.517-531, 2019 (Peer-Reviewed Journal) identifier

Abstract

This paper is written in the belief that the European Union uses different instrumentsin order to maintain a permanent peace environment in the post-conflict regions. To answerthe question of what those instruments are, we begin by taking a closer look at Macedoniaand Kosovo cases which clarify the peace-building conception of the Union. In accordancewith the aims of this study, the concept of human security will be regarded to mean acircumstance that the European Union has officially recognized as a basic policy to evaluatethe peace-building instruments. The major instrument that the European Union uses at thenation and state building processes of post-conflict regions is the Stabilization andAssociation Process. Under that process, the European Union signed several agreementswith the Western Balkans countries known as Stabilization and Association Agreements. Wefound a significant correlation between Stabilization and Association Agreements and thereconstruction of the Western Balkan countries’ economic and political conditions, whichhave gained their independency after the disunification of Yugoslavia but experiencedserious state-building problems. These consequences of the Stabilization and AssociationAgreements with Macedonia and Kosovo complement each other and help to illuminate thephenomenon of the success of Stabilization and Association Process of the European Union.