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Abstract
Germany has demonstrated an active commitment towards the accession perspective of the Western Balkans, which found its most vocal expression in the initiation of a Western Balkans summit in August 2014 and the ensuing “Berlin process”. However, German support reflexively goes hand in hand with a reference to rigid accession conditionality. This not only fosters stabilization and transformation in the Western Balkan states, but also – at the domestic level – counters widespread enlargement scepticism among decision makers and the German public. The far-reaching participation rights of the Federal Parliament, acquired by the 2009 amendments to the Act on EU Cooperation, involves the Bundestag inter alia in the opening of accession negotiations, thus also increasing domestic constraints for Germany’s position in the Council. Federal elections due in late 2017 and a political environment shaped by a discussion about migration, including from and through the Western Balkans, make enlargement policy a particularly hard-to-sell issue.
Notes
1. The present article constitutes the updated and revised version of a research paper written in the framework of the project ‘EU member states and enlargement’ under the guidance of the European Policy Centre. See Adebahr, C., and T. Töglhofer 2015. Germany. In EU member states and enlargement towards the Balkans, ed Rosa Balfour and Corina Stratulat, EPC issue paper 79, 29–41.
2. Numbers include persons with former or current citizenship of one of the Western Balkan countries (including Croatia), with the latter group comprising more than 800,000 persons (Federal Statistical Office Citation2015).
3. In 2015, Germany made up for 12.4% of imports and 12.5 of exports to/from Serbia, 12.6% of imports and 44.3% of exports to/from Macedonia as well as 12.1% of imports and 15.7 of exports to/from Bosnia and Herzegovina (Germany Trade and Invest Citation2016).
4. According to the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Citation2015), Germany provided 328 million Euros of bi- and multilateral Official Development Aid to the six (potential) EU candidate countries of the Balkans in 2014, with the share of multilateral aid – 191 million Euros – being slightly larger than the share of bilateral aid – around 137 million Euros.
5. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 18 September 2014.
6. The observations laid out in this article are based on research interviews conducted from March to September 2014 and from August 2016 to February 2017 with 22 decision makers and opinion leaders in the field of enlargement policy, representing a broad spectrum of different institutional and party affiliations as well as the non-governmental sector. Interviews included representatives of the European Commission, the Federal Chancellery, the Federal Foreign Office, the Federal Ministry for Economy Affairs and Energy, the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Ministry of Defence, members of the Federal Parliament and their staff, the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, as well as experts of German political foundations and civil society organizations. All interviews were conducted in confidentiality, so no individuals are assigned to particular statements.
7. See for example, Lilyanova V. 2016. The Western Balkans’ Berlin process: A new impulse for regional cooperation. European Parliamentary Research Service Briefing. Brussels.
8. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 5 August 2016. Interviews by the authors with staff members of the German Bundestag, 2 August 2016, 12 August 2016.
9. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 5 August 2016. Interviews by the authors with staff members of the German Bundestag, 2 August 2016, 12 August 2016.
10. See for example, Federal Chancellery (2014). Klare EU-Perspektive für Balkanstaaten. Video podcast Die Kanzlerin direkt, June 7. Frank-Walter Steinmeier 2014. Speech at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), June 30.
11. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 22 July 2014.
12. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 1 July 2014.
13. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 18 September 2014. Interviews by the authors with a representative of the German Bundestag, 21 August 2014. Interview by the authors with staff members of the German Bundestag, 29 August 2014, 12 August 2016.
14. Interview by the authors with a representative of the German Bundestag, 21 August 2014.
15. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 5 August 2016. Interview by the authors with a staff member of the German Bundestag, 2 August 2016.
16. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 5 August 2016. Interviews by the authors with staff members of the German Bundestag, 2 August 2016, 12 August 2016.
17. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 1 July 2014.
18. Interviews by the authors with German government officials, 28 April 2014, 1 July 2014, 22 July 2014.
19. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 18 September 2014.
20. Interviews by the authors with German government officials, 28 April 2014, 1 July 2014, 18 September 2014. Interviews by the authors with representatives of the German Bundestag, 21 August 2014, September 10. Interview by the authors with a staff member of the German Bundestag, 29 August 2014. Interviews by the authors with CSO representatives, 25 May 2014, 18 August 2014.
21. Interview by the authors with a staff member of the German Bundestag, 29 August 2014.
22. Chancellor Merkel was a guest at the Brdo-Brijuni summit in Dubrovnik in July 2014, prior to hosting the Berlin conference on the Western Balkans in August 2014. She was also present at the follow-up summits in Vienna and Paris in 2015 and 2016 respectively and paid a visit to Albania, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in July 2015.
23. Interviews by the authors with German government officials, 1 July 2014, 22 July 2014.
24. See for example, Schulz, M. 2012. The EU must connect with the people if it is to survive. Fresh Thinking, no. 3: 32. Camisão, I. 2015. Irrelevant player? The Commission’s role during the Eurozone crisis. Journal of Contemporary European Research 11, no. 3: 268–286.
25. In its judgment of 30 June 2009, the Federal Constitutional Court came to the conclusion that ‘the Bundestag and the Bundesrat have not been accorded sufficient rights of participation in European lawmaking procedures and treaty amendment procedures.’ It consequently reached the decision that ‘[t]he Federal Republic of Germany’s instrument of ratification of the Treaty of Lisbon may not be deposited as long as the constitutionally required legal elaboration of the parliamentary rights of participation has not entered into force’ (Federal Constitutional Court Press Office Citation2009).
26. Act on Cooperation between the Federal Government and the German Bundestag in Matters concerning the European Union, Section 8. The right to give an opinion also comprises different stages of a country’s EU association. By recurring to this regulation, the Bundestag has for instance delivered an opinion on the granting of candidate status to Albania.
27. Similarly, the Bundestag has to give its consent to all other treaty amendments, including the introduction of the Euro in a member state. (Ibid., Section 9-9a).
28. Ibid., Section 9, §4.
29. Interview by the authors with a staff member of the German Bundestag, 2 August 2016.
30. Interview by the authors with a staff member of the German Bundestag, 29 August 2014.
31. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 12 March 2014.
32. See for example, Dernbach, A. 2015. Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge. Balkan-Flüchtlinge müssen mit Einreiseverboten rechnen. Tagesspiegel, August 8. http://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/bundesamt-fuer-migration-und-fluechtlinge-balkan-fluechtlinge-muessen-mit-einreiseverboten-rechnen/12163020.html.
33. Interview by the authors with a representative of the German Bundestag, 2 August 2016. Interview by the authors with a German government official, 5 August 2016.