The Western Balkan countries, including Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, participate in the framework of
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the ...United Nations. In total,
there are 193 countries committed to fulfilling the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development, which was implemented in 2015. One of the seventeen
Sustainable Development Goals is to promote sustained, inclusive, and
sustainable economic growth and decent work for all. This goal is expressed
in the following indicators: employment and unemployment rates, people
killed in accidents at work, real GDP per capita, resource productivity, and
domestic material consumption. The aim of this paper is to analyze SDG 8 in
the Western Balkan economies. Since the Western Balkan countries are EU
candidates or potential candidates, comparing their performance with the EU
average is vital. The results show that although Western Balkan countries
have improved their performance, they still fall behind the EU average. They
should focus more on increasing their economic growth rates and providing
more sustainable workplaces. Therefore, future actions to be enhanced by the
economic policy in the Western Balkans should include the implementation of
legal facilitations for start-ups and other firms in order to boost the
stimulus for entrepreneurship, develop sustainable migration policy, and
promote stable forms of employment.
The main objective of the paper is analysis and proposal of a concept for establishing an efficient system for disaster management in the Western Balkan countries. After the breakup of Yugoslavia ...(1992), there has been no effective system for managing emergency situations, while cross-border cooperation in this respect does not exist at all. The paper provides an overview of the situation in the field of emergency and crisis management in five countries of the region and a concept of promotion and cross-border cooperation in this field. The results of the research show that no country in the region has adequate emergency and disaster management system and that, regardless of the negative experiences, an efficient multilateral cooperation system has not been established so far in this field (there is neither regulatory framework nor proposals for the model of organization and for the procedures or technical mechanisms that would make the above possible). Therefore, the concept of establishing the
(RCDM-WB) is proposed as a first step in handling disaster situations that arise from natural phenomena or technical and technological accidents. This is the first scientifically developed proposal of this kind for the above-mentioned region.
The energy transition and moving forward towards renewable energy sources have become one of the top priorities of national agendas in the XXI century. Related to the energy scarcity challenge, ...combat against climate change and environmental protection, renewables are one of the most exploited themes when it comes to contemporary energy policies. This article should offer insight into the relationship between renewables and geopolitics, i.e., possible geopolitical consequences in the context of the new energy race to gain the status of a leader in the domain of energy transition. Besides, the place of the Western Balkans in this context is also highlighted due to its high renewable energy potential. In doing so, this article employs a literature review and the major issues analysed are: 1) possible geopolitical consequences of the energy transition towards renewables; 2) renewables and their geopolitical importance; and 3) the place and potential of the Western Balkans countries in geopolitical reconfiguration based on the transition towards renewables.
The Western Balkans in EU’s Strategy Shcherbak, Igor
Naučno-analitičeskij vestnik Instituta Evropy RAN,
6/2021, Volume:
21, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
The article is devoted to the problems connected with the EU enlargement to the Western Balkans. The author pays special attention to the factors explaining recent increased attention of the EU to ...finding solution to the enlargement .The article contains analyses of «the frozen conflicts» in the region which continue to influence the regional stability and make the task of accelerating the EU’s enlargement to the Western Balkans as a priority one in the context of the EU’s strategic autonomy. New EU’s initiatives aimed at arranging strategic debates on EU enlargement to the Western Balkans have been described. The article contains analyses of the so-called frozen conflicts in the Western Balkans which continue to exert influence on regional stability and on the process of association of the Western Balkans with the EU. The important role of the EUthe Western Balkans' summits in elaboration of common approaches of the EU’s member-states to the problem of enlargement has been noted. The article defines a possible perspective of the EU’s enlargement towards the Western Balkans. The author considers that the EU’s enlargement towards the Western Balkans is becoming an important task for the EU in the context of realization of its strategic autonomy and projection of its influence on the given region.
The paper contributes to the deconstruction of the liberal peacebuilding concept, particularly its main components of failed state and statebuilding, through the analysis of two ...internationally-backed statehood projects in the Western Balkans: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. The authors analyse critical peacebuilding literature on these two cases to provide arguments for abandoning the failed state and state-building ideas as overly biassed and ideologically based. Instead, they suggest reintroducing the conceptualisation of state-making as a more suitable framework for understanding the post-war context and dynamics in the Western Balkans. Based on that premise, the authors conclude that the cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo should be approached from a broader historical and geographical perspective and call for the decentralisation of the “Westphalian state” and the reinstatement of the longue durée perspective in state-formation research, as well as the depathologisation of the subjects of that research.
The ability of the national economy to create and to valorize innovations on the market in order to produce economic goods represents its national innovation capacity, which is at the same time a key ...determinant of countries’ economic progress. Due to this fact, its relevance imposes the task of identifying, as accurately as possible, the key theoretical postulates on which this concept is based, as well as calculating the Innovation capacity index by which it is possible to predict progress in building innovation capacity of individual countries and mutual comparison with other countries according to innovation capabilities. After a brief explanation of the essence of learning, on which this concept is based, an attempt is made to calculate the Innovation capacity of the European Union and the Western Balkans, on the one hand, and to consider the interdependence of the obtained results and the achieved level of their economic development in 2020, on the other hand. The results of the research confirmed the strong connection between the Innovation capacity index and the achieved level of economic development of countries expressed in terms of gross domestic product per capita.
In this paper we critically analyse how the identity of the Western Balkans (WB) has been metaphorically conceptualised in the latest stages of the EU integration processes in a corpus of internet ...news articles recently posted in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Hercegovina. Unlike the accession processes of the former membership candidates from Europe, the WB’s integration has proven to be a very long one, hindered by many, perhaps insurmountable obstacles and subject to a great deal of uncertainty regarding its final outcome. Although this process is predominantly conceptualised through the already established metaphors employed to depict such processes of the former member candidates (journey, house, circles/rings, family, etc.), their evaluative content is different, given that the roles and the positions of the EU and the WB are starkly asymmetrical, i. e. that the WB is deeply marginalised. We identified some new metaphors that this specific political situation has engendered, also reflecting the said asymmetry – the WB is perceived as a colony, self-imprisoned state, Trojan horse, victim of blackmail, immature person, experimenting ground and waste-collector for immigrants. These metaphors construct an image of the WB as that of the very inferior Other.
The agricultural policy of Western Balkan countries in the process of accession to the European Union market is characterized by high volatility, which is expressed in terms of the applied ...instruments and measures as well as the product concerned. In the first phase of liberalization of prices and trade, most countries abolished or significantly reduced the customs import and export barriers to a wide range of products and also reduced or eliminated production subsidies. Only import tariffs are the only basic protection instrument for producers. Input prices have increased considerably for producers, which has led to a decrease in income in agriculture. In reality, this meant that domestic agricultural production was left to the ruthless competition of EU countries that have far better developed agricultural and food production. In the past few years, the implementation of the new agrarian policy, in countries from the first round of accession candidates, the European Union has introduced budget support measures for producers, mainly in the form of payments per hectare or throat. These budget payments were made according to the model of the EU CAP.
The degree of increased indebtedness in the Western Balkan countries is generated by increasing consumption in terms of increased economic growth and structural reforms. Although these countries have ...shown an increase in exports and foreign direct investment over the past few years, the current account deficit remains high, especially in the ratio between external debt and GDP, which is not only high but at the stage of growth. Also, as domestic financial markets are underdeveloped, these countries are to a large extent exposed to an increase in the price of foreign borrowing. The current borrowing policy continues with increasing investment in non-productive consumption, which requires renewed borrowing. The presentation of debt trends, analysis and comparison of external debt of these countries show relevant guidelines in the selection of an adequate economic policy that would enhance the competitiveness of this part of the Balkans. Also, a comparative analysis of the indebtedness ratio will especially assess the state of indebtedness in Serbia, the structure and the movement of external debt towards international financial institutions. The comparison in this paper is made using standard indices of indebtedness based on the data obtained from the national statistical institutes and international financial institutions.
PDF
