Word: balkanizing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Although conditions have improved drastically since the Kosovo War in 1998-9, it is clear that the stabilizing force of EU membership is the only way to normalize relations between the two countries. The EU must immediately take a strong stand in favor of admitting the Balkan nations, including eventually Serbia and Kosovo, if the scars from centuries of ethnic and political conflict in the region are ever to be healed...
...Integrating Serbia and Kosovo into the EU can only remain a far-off prospect until Brussels finishes the accession processes of the more stable Balkan nations that are ready, or close to being ready, for membership. However, the bids of several countries in the region are becoming unnecessarily protracted, leading one to wonder whether the EU’s drive to incorporate the former Yugoslav states will ever be completed...
...Croatia, which should be a shoo-in for membership, is stalled in the accession process because of a border dispute with its neighbor, Slovenia. Montenegro, another flourishing Balkan state, is currently trying to apply for EU membership, but the current global economic state has made the EU leadership cautious about further expansion. Macedonia’s bid, although weaker than Croatia’s or Montenegro’s, cannot move forward because Greece argues that Macedonia’s name suggests an aspiration to the Greek province of the same name...
Before leaving for his first trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Holbrooke began recruiting a team of experts drawn from the State Department, think tanks and colleagues from his Balkan days. But what do you do in a place that presents no good options? Here are three choices that are before the new Administration...
...Commission, the E.U.'s executive branch, accompanied its damning report on life in the Balkan nation today with the announcement that it is freezing E.U. aid worth nearly $790 million, stripping two Bulgarian agencies of the right to manage E.U. funds, and will order Sofia to write a new penal code to deliver more effective justice. "The fight against high-level corruption and organized crime is not producing results," the Commission said in its report. "Corruption and fraud is affecting the delivery of E.U. financial assistance ... A clear strategy to cleanse the system is needed." A separate report...