EU's Strategy For West Balkans After Kosovo Crisis

On March 25^th 2007, the heads of European Union member-states got together in Berlin, Germany, to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the signature of "Treaty of Rome". During the 50 years' developmental course, EU has taken on a role as the leading power in the process of European integration. In western Europe, where the nationalism and militarism were once prevalent, EU has helped those countries achieve the reliable peace and stability; recover the society and economy marvelously which were totally destroyed by the war; and is still leading the tide of the world civilization on the levels of political institution, social development, consciousness of culture and self-examination of civilization.Meanwhile, based on the divine dream of the unification of Europe and depending on its own strength and attraction, EU attempts to spread peace, prosperity and institutional value into every European country which voluntarily wishes to join in the process of European integration. The logical subsequence of this process is that, EU has already become an essential power that can influence the pattern of the world system.The mighty strength and institutional logic of integration endow EU with the motivation of expansion. EU is consistently deepening itself and expanding itself, not only in the scope of function, the degree of integration, but also in the quantity of the member-states. In the last ten years of the 21^st century, along with the concussion of the European political pattern, EU gained the opportunity unexpectedly, to unify the whole Europe. After the countries in central eastern Europe accessed EU, EU cautiously advances its strategy oriented to the western Balkan region, by which EU aims to maintain the peace in this region, support the economic recovery and reconstruction of society in each country, accelerate the reforms of transition within the political and economic system, promote the dialogue, reconciliation and cooperation among the countries and nations within this region, and finally absorb the whole southeastern Europe into the political and geographical domain of EU. Paralleled with that is the reform of the gradual internal institutions in EU: in October 2004, the "EU Constitutional treaty" was subscribed in Rome. It seems that, all are running in a benign orbit.Nevertheless, the history of EU has never been shaped as a linear development. In May and June of 2005, EU got into the crisis because of the rejection of "Constitutional Treaty" successively in France and Netherlands by means of referendum, as a result, the institutional reforms are stagnated. Along with the ultimate implementation of eastern enlargement, the intensifying conflict between the deepening of institutions and the enlargement of member-states makes EU appear the syndrome of exhaustion and rigidity. In the face of unprecedented plight, EU and people of its member-states have already been rethinking the process of integration itself. In such circumstance, as one part of the process of enlargement, the future of the strategy for western Balkan has been focused upon much attention.Just based on this study significance, the present paper will discuss the EU's strategy for western Balkan after Kosovo crisis. The author will scientifically demonstrate the reason for the emergence of the strategy, detailed illustrate the content, mechanism and evolvement of the strategy, review the impact of implementation of the strategy on EU and western Balkan, and then anticipate and analyze the future of the strategy. At last, the author will draw some theoretical meditation through the previous argumentation of the strategy, namely the macro-examination of the EU's enlargement strategy. In the author's opinion, since establishing the strategy, EU has steadily boosted the implementation of the strategy for western Balkan, at least all the mechanisms and strategic instruments are always effectively functioning. What's more, EU has opened a new epoch for western Balkans. So in spite of the developmental bottleneck, EU will firmly promote the process of enlargement for the whole strategic situation, but the premise is the conditionality of the region and each related country. Besides, EU must give up the inclination to the framework of nation-state and correspondingly find a suitable orientation for itself.