Integrating the Western Balkans into the EU: Overcoming Mutual Misperceptions [Hardcover]

Among the main stumbling blocks of European Union-Western Balkan integration are the differences in perceptions on both sides. Today, the gap between what the Western Balkan politicians and citizens think about the European Union and what the politicians and citizens in the EU member states think about the Western Balkans is probably wider than ever. This volume offers fresh insights about these misperceptions and how to possibly bridge the gap. It examines perceptions about the regions European perspectives both on the side of the six Western Balkan countries - Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia  and the key European Union member states (Italy, Germany, Croatia), international donors, USA. An analysis of the diverse views regarding the prospects of EU  Western Balkan integration is today highly relevant, in view of the current uncertainties regarding European Unions enlargement policy, particularly after the attack of Russia on Ukraine and candidate status granted to Ukraine and Moldova.
Chapter 1: The perceptions of European Union  Western Balkan integration prospects. Introduction and overview.- Part I: Perceptions From the West.- Chapter 2: The drivers of EU financial assistance to the Western Balkans: economic, altruistic or democracy promotion motives?.- Chapter 3: Moving the Western Balkans towards the European Union: The daunting case of Bosnia and Herzegovina.- Chapter 4: Yugoslav partition and post-war EU integration: the role of Italy, 1990-2022.- Chapter 5: The Western Balkans, a German view.- Chapter 6: Imagining Europe in a new and small state: the case of Croatia.- Chapter 7: The United States in the Western Balkans: reluctant, late and distant involvement vs. quick radical fix.- Part II: Regional Perceptions.- Chapter 8: The image of the European Union in the Western Balkans.- Chapter 9: Perceptions anlSk