PAKT STABILNOSTI ZA JUGOISTOČNU EVROPU - OČEKIVANJA I REZULTATI
STABILITY PACT FOR SOUTHEAST EUROPE - EXPECTATIONS AND RESULTS

Author(s): Nebojša Vučinić
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Governance, Security and defense, EU-Approach / EU-Accession / EU-Development, Geopolitics
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: stabilization; pacification; integration; democratization; human and minority rights; rule of law; market economy; cooperation; good neighborly relations
Summary/Abstract: The Stability Pact for Southeast Europe is a specific, non-institutional political mechanism established with the aim of long-term stabilization, pacification, democratization and integration of this area into the European Union. The doubly negative transition of this region after the collapse of socialism, embodied in the bloody disintegration of the SFRY and the escalation of extreme national-chauvinism, caused special attention from the EU and the USA towards individual countries and the region as a whole. This is especially because the political processes and tendencies in this part of Europe have called into question international peace and security, the rule of law and human rights, and those fundamental civilizational achievements and principles on which the Euro-Atlantic integration and security processes rest after the Second World War. Through a flexible institutional-organizational structure and significant financial assistance from the EU, the USA and the most important international financial institutions, in an undefined but relatively short period of time, appropriate institutional-structural, political, legal, economic and cultural prerequisites should be created for the inclusion of the countries of this region in the processes of Euro-Atlantic integration. In this context, the center of activity is focused on various projects and initiatives in the field of affirming human and minority rights, democracy and the rule of law, building a market economy, freedom of entrepreneurship and trade, as well as internal and external security of individual countries and regions as a whole. In this sense, special attention is devoted to suppressing organized crime and improving cooperation between the countries of the region and their police and judicial authorities. The basic guiding idea of ​​the Stability Pact - an analogy with the experience of reconstruction and integration of Western Europe after the Second World War - is absolutely acceptable and justified, but this does not mean a mechanical comparison and translation of Western European experiences to the conditions and circumstances of Southeastern Europe, which are significantly different from those in Western Europe at the end of the forties. Although it was conceived very ambitiously, the whole process is unfortunately still characterized by the lack of a strategically designed and integrated approach, which results in the so-called short-lived actions, that is, the lack of positive structural and institutional changes within the countries of the region, which are a prerequisite for stabilization and integration. This applies to all the main spheres of activity of the Stability Pact, namely democracy, human and minority rights, market economy, internal stability, suppression of corruption and organized crime.

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