Palmer Has Chance to Revive US Leadership in Balkans

For the EU, this means developing a new plan for the Western Balkans that is less about Enlargement and more about projects and programs that address immediate core problems involving regional structures, laws and institutions that have led to state capture, dysfunction, and instability. 

This calls for a new "perspective" that emphasizes more robust locally oriented solutions, not necessarily ones whose ultimate objective is to make life easier for the EU down the road.   

Similarly, US policy towards the region needs to be founded on more than just encouraging the integration of Balkan states into Euro-Atlantic institutions or responding to the security interests of Washington.

To this end, the US should revitalize its past commitment to assisting states in the region to build and sustain sound institutions that respond first to the needs of their citizens, alongside America's own security interests.

Promoting the rule of law, democratic institutions, and economic growth need not be relentlessly linked  to "Euro-Atlantic institutions" to have their own value as regional policy objectives. 

The new Special Representative should also seek, again working with the EU, to reset the working relationship with Russia, China, and Turkey in the region.

The European Union flag. Photo: EPA-EFE/PATRICK SEEGER

The Balkans need not be a toxic playing field for interstate competition between global and regional powers. This does not mean ignoring the malign attempts by Moscow and others to impede EU-NATO integration or  undermine democracy and a free and independent media.

Rather, it translates into rediscovering common ground for cooperation on shared interests. Nothing could be more appropriate from a long-term...