The Balkans and the European Union

Abstract

The Balkan question is both a historical and a political one. With the coming together of some European countries to form the European Union (EU); it became necessary for these countries to forge head both on the economic and the political fronts. This in essence has accentuated the gains made by these European countries but it has had its attendant ramifications. This notwithstanding, the idea of European integration on the principle of peace, common history, cultural and economic development cannot be fully realised since some sectors of Europe is neutral or isolated. The literature on the nature of such integrations especially the need for the integration of the Balkan regions should continue to be discussed and implemented. This paper however, looks at the literature from a social and political history point of view and projects the necessary turns that Europe has made and the need to come to a useful end in the discourse that leads us to observing or witnessing a united Europe whose socio-economic, political and military complex holds its own against the odds but also for the common good of humanity.

Will the European Union Europeanise the Balkans to Avoid the Balkanisation of Europe?

“…This is most evident in the revival of the idea of Central Europe as a cradle of European identity, raised in the traditions of Christianity and humanism. Notwithstanding how this selective memory obscures the legacies of Mitteleuropa as a cosmopolitan and multicultural pool of identifi cation, 17 the historical reclaiming of the Central European identity as "Western" at its heart, serves the ideological function of (re) producing mythologies of Europe by which Europe's "others" can also be excluded from mytho-historic and real communities of belonging in the new post-socialist states. Whereby the desire to bring the reality (of the EU) to a projection ("Europe") may be a legitimate one, it is questionable whether it can succeed in the effort.…”