By Alush Gashi
In 2003, at the Thessaloniki Summit, the European Union publicly affirmed for the first time that the Western Balkans’ future lies in Europe, promising eventual membership for Albania, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, and Serbia. This commitment aimed to consolidate peace, promote democratic reforms, and integrate a region long plagued by conflict into the European mainstream. At that historic meeting, President Ibrahim Rugova was joined by UNMIK. Now, in 2026, instead of membership, these countries remain in what many call the EU’s “Waiting Room.”
Following Thessaloniki, Western Balkan states embarked on ambitious reform agendas. Negotiations for Stabilization and Association Agreements (SAAs) accelerated, establishing frameworks for trade liberalization, economic cooperation, and alignment with EU norms. Meanwhile, the EU was focused on the enlargement that admitted ten Central and Eastern European countries, including Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. While this expansion secured the EU’s eastern frontier, it also produced enlargement fatigue, slowing the practical follow-up to Thessaloniki’s promises. Still, the period laid important foundations: regional dialogue initiatives, early cooperation on infrastructure and energy, and a credible signal that EU membership was attainable.
By the 2010s, EU enlargement stalled. Internal crises, the Lisbon Treaty, the European sovereign debt crisis, and rising populism shifted focus away from the Balkans. To sustain reform momentum, the Berlin Process was launched in 2014, promoting cross-border cooperation, investment, and infrastructure development, even as full accession remained distant.
Kosovo faced particular challenges: non-recognition by five EU member states (Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Slovakia, Romania), and an unresolved normalization process with Serbia, which limited its path toward formal EU membership, despite technical reforms. By the late 2010s and early 2020s, geopolitical competition, particularly from Russia and China, further framed enlargement as a strategic and security issue, linking integration to foreign policy alignment and regional stability. Milestones such as visa liberalization for Kosovo in 2024 and incremental progress in SAAs showed that the EU could reward reforms without granting full membership.
By 2026, the Western Balkans will have achieved substantial reforms, yet structural and political obstacles remain. Kosovo’s path is blocked by non-recognition by five EU member states, bilateral disputes between North Macedonia and Bulgaria persist, and EU decision-making still requires unanimity, giving individual members disproportionate veto power.
From Thessaloniki 2003 to 2026, the Western Balkans’ experience underscores a central lesson: the European perspective is only as credible as the EU’s political commitment. Prolonged uncertainty has created a “waiting room effect,” eroding public trust in the EU and highlighting the growing gap between European promises and political realities.