THE STABILITY PACT FOR SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE: EXPECTATIONS AND RESULTS
THE STABILITY PACT FOR SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE: EXPECTATIONS AND RESULTS

Author(s): Nebojša Vučinić
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Governance, 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; co-operation; neighbourly relations
Summary/Abstract: The Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe is a specific, extra-institutional political mechanism established with the aim of long-term stabilization, pacification, democratization and integration of this area into the European Union. The two-fold negative transition of this region after the fall of socialism, demonstrated in a bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia and an escalation of extreme national-chauvinism, conditioned the special attention that the EU and USA have given to particulary states and the region as a whole. This is especially so as the political processes and tendencies in this part of Europe threatened international peace and security, the rule of law and human rights, and those basic civil accomplishments and principles upon which Euro-Atlantic integration and security processes following the Second World War were based. A flexible institutional-organizational structure and the significant financial assistance of the EU and the USA and of the most important international financial institutions in an undefined yet relatively short period of time should create adequate institutional- structural, political, economic and cultural premises for the integration of the states in the region in the process of Euro-Atlantic integration. In this context, the focus of activity is on distinct projects and initiatives in the area of declaring human and minority rights, democracy and rule of law, creation of market economy, free enterprise and trade, as well as internal and external security of individual states and the region as a whole. Special attention is paid to combating organized crime and improving co-operation between the states in the region concerning their police and judiciary bodies. The basic guiding principle of the Stability Pact - founded on the experience of the reconstruction and integration of Western Europe after the Second World War - is absolutely acceptable and justified. But this justification does not include a mechanical comparison and a translation of Western European experiences to the conditions and circumstances of South-Eastern Europe, which are essentially different from the ones of Western Europe at the end of 1940s. Although defined very ambitiously, the whole process is unfortunately still characterized by the lack of a strategically conceived and integrated approach. This results in short-term actions, without enough positive structural and institutional changes within the states of the region, which however would have been preconditions for their stabilization and integration. This refers to all the key areas of the Stability Pact’s operations, namely, democracy, human and minority rights, a market economy, internal stability, and the suppression of corruption and organized crime.

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