The first public event from our Strategic Talks series titled „Corruption and the Western Balkans: Problematic Help of the EU“ took place on December 14, 2017 in the office of the Representation of the European Commission in Bratislava, Slovakia.
Our Research fellow Dr. Vladimir Đorđević introduced his article „Loose and shallow Europeanization of the Western Balkans: Corruption in Montenegro and Serbia“ which is going to be published in the Panorama of the global security environment 2017. He was joined by our Senior fellow Elemir Necej, an expert on the Balkan region. They outlined the main problems countries in the Western Balkans are dealing with, especially in the context of their accession process to the EU. They emphasise that one of the graves problems is corruption.
During the discussion it was concluded, that besides the insufficient will of the countries of the region to fight corruption, there are also shortcomings in the approach of the EU that are contributing to the defunct Europeization of the Western Balkans. The presenters as well as the audience agreed that the Western Balkans, despite being a very important region, are still overlooked by the Slovak republic, especially in the economic aspect.