Publications

The challenges confronting youth in Southeast Europe have been receiving increased international attention in the past few years. Addressing the evident lack of channels giving young people a say in policy-making, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) commissioned representative surveys canvassing more than 10,000 respondents aged 14 – 29 in ten countries of Southeast Europe in early 2018.

Our first Political Trends & Dynamics issue of 2019 focuses and serves also as the first part of a two-part series examining the linkages between corruption, democratic back-sliding, civil society mobilization and political participation in southeastern Europe. Our interest in these topics — much as with the linkages we are drawing between the respective pillars of these debates — comes from a growing recognition that existing democratic practices and institutions in much of Europe are in the midst of an existential transformation and, very likely, crisis.

After the accession of Croatia into the EU in 2013, six Western Balkans countries were left at Europe’s front door – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegowina, Kosovo, Mazedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. The social democratic argument has to stay focused on championing the combined policies of deepening and widening the EU in order to keep the Western Balkans on the accession path. Social democratic ideas such as solidarity, equality and tolerance must become the cornerstones of a future, reformed European enlargement policy.

Countries in South East and Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia have enormous potential for renewable energy and energy saving. Energy transition could help in the solution of pressing energy security and health issues, boost economic growth and contribute to democratization and peace building in the region. In the coming years, many countries will have to replace their aging and inefficient fossil fuel and nuclear energy infrastructure, which opens up a great opportunity for advancing the transformation of the energy sector towards clean energy.

Though rarely a topic of public debate, addressing the challenges of climate change is a particular issue for Southeastern Europe, owing to the region’s combination of post-communist and post-conflict governance concerns. Policy regimes which do not address the region’s specific needs — in particular those rooted in ongoing concerns about unemployment, poverty, inequality, and social justice more broadly threaten to exacerbate the region’s already pronounced social malaise.

The Western Balkans remain the site of numerous, protracted bilateral disputes. Most of these concern competing claims to territory, identity, the status of minorities and, in some cases, name disputes (Macedonia is the most famous example of the latter but similar issues exist in parts of Bosnia). From Sarajevo to Skopje, and Kosovo to Cyprus, a significant number of polities in the region remain riven by fundamental questions concerning their political and territorial integrity.

The development gap towards Central Eastern Europe as well as towards the EU average remains huge. In order to bridge this gap, the Western Balkans need to make better and more differentiated use of foreign direct investments, the EU has to devise its funds for the region in a more targeted and sustainable way, the governments of the region have to develop industrial policies for their respective countries as well as for the region as a whole, and, finally, the instruments of monetary and fiscal policy have to be revised.

This volume is based on the work and discussions of a working group that has gathered with the assistance of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Its aim was to describe the economic challenges and solutions towards more sustainable, qualitative and inclusive growth for Southeast Europe.