Regional Initiatives - A Step Toward Europe or a Substitute for Membership

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The Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) brought Serbia the most visible results, whereas the ambitions of the Open Balkans and Berlin Process initiatives remained partially unrealized, and businesses are still seeking the region's deeper integration, Assistant Director of the Sector for Strategic Analysis, Services and Internationalization at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce Bojan Stanic said on June 12.

Stanic told public service broadcaster RTS that the Open Balkans and Berlin Process initiatives had been announced as a significant step toward connecting the region, but that the results ended up being symbolic.

He went on to say that there is a need for regional integration, especially in business, because the Western Balkan economies are small and heavily reliant on both imports and exports, while a joint approach would facilitate access to markets and a stronger negotiating position in an increasingly complex international environment.

Stanic believes that political circumstances and a lack of consistent implementation of agreements are the main reasons why regional initiatives have not yielded greater results. He recalled that the idea of the Open Balkans initiative had been to gradually establish a single regional market and enable preferential access to the European common market.

"The idea was, if we have already been waiting a long time to join the European Union, to integrate the Western Balkans and give it preferential access to the European single market. That, however, did not happen," stressed Stanic.

He underscored that the region's economy has in the meantime suffered new obstacles - from steel quotas and restrictions in road transportation, to mechanisms like CBAM and other trade barriers the EU is gradually introducing.