The Balkans as a part of the mediterranean region : political-historical contextualisation of the recent shift in regional governmental relations

english

2010

volume 3, issue 1

Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

The article argues that despite its historical relevance, after 1989 the (Western) Balkans has since the end of the Cold War been politically instrumentally excluded from the Mediterranean regional policies not only by the hegemonic influence of the European Union (EU) but also by the (Western) Balkans states themselves. After identifying a very recent turnaround of this trend now including Balkan Mediterranean states in Mediterranean regional politics, the article offers reasoning for the emergence of this change by exposing mutual reinforcement of three processes; namely critique of the unsuccessful EU-lead Mediterranean regional framework, upcoming completion of the state-formation in the Balkans and the effects of continuous non-governmental regional initiatives in the Mediterranean. The finding that Balkan NGOs have been participating in the Mediterranean regional affairs eversince the end of the Cold War whereby the (Western) Balkan Mediterranean states have done so only since the 2008 inclusion within the Union for the Mediterranean shows an important possibility to compensate this imbalance, butonly if the "shift to the Mediterranean" is not an instrumental foreign policy strategy as was the 1990s "away from the Balkans"

20.12.2023