The European Union's (EU) macro-regional strategies, as the cohesion policy tool, represent an integrated framework aimed at addressing the common challenges that arise in a given geographical area. This allows EU Member States, as well as third countries, to tackle problems
together and make greater use of their common potential. The thesis is based on the assumption that the participation of the countries of the Western Balkans (WB) within macro-regional strategies helps to facilitate their integration into the EU. The aim is to examine the coherence between EU macro-regional strategies and the EU enlargement process and to contribute to the understanding of the external dimension of the cohesion policy. In the theoretical part of the thesis, I define key concepts in the field of EU foreign policy action. In the empirical part, I first check the coherence of the EU macro-regional strategies and enlargement policy in terms of goals and means of these policies. Then with a comparative analysis I measure the coherence of these two policies in terms of progress of WB countries in accession chapters according to individual content areas of macro-regional strategies. The coherence of the goals and means of macro-regional strategies and enlargement policy, the possibility of using the knowledge gained through cooperation within macro-regional strategies in the accession process of WB countries and last but not least visible progress in the accession progress show that macro-regional strategies are strengthening EU accession process.
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