THE HELSINKI MOMENT. European Member-State Building in the Balkans (ESI - European Stability Initiative, 2005)
In its current proposal for the next seven year EU assistance budget (2007-2013) and the Instrument for Pre-Accession, prepared by the previous Commission, there is a strict separation in the kinds of assistance offered to candidates (Turkey and Croatia) and to potential candidates (the rest of the region). Albania, Bosnia or Kosovo will not - as plans currently stand - be offered support for rural development, cohesion or human resource policies.If EU governments proceed in this way there could be serious political and economic consequences. It would mean that all those living in rural areas in these countries, suffering from inadequate education and training systems, or from seriously deficient infrastructure, will see the development gap separating them from the rest of Europe (and from their immediate neighbours) grow wider. The desperation of the countryside and of declining industrial towns, whether in Sumadija or Presevo, Central Bosnia or Western Macedonia, would continue to grow. The politically least stable part of the continent would fall further behind. A new European ghetto - comprising most of the Balkans' Albanians and Serbs, brought together behind a wall of visa-restrictions to block a desperate population from seeking work elsewhere - would arise in the heart of an integrating continent. Lasting stability would remain elusive