The Western Balkans and the EU budget : the effects of enlargement

Rant, Vasja (author), Mrak, Mojmir (author), Marinč, Matej (author)

The Western Balkan region needs credible European development prospects to break the cycle of enlargement and accession fatigue and to speed up regional adjustment to the EU. Post-accession EU budget flows can provide the necessary funding for such prospects. This article assesses the expected changes in the size and composition of EU budget flows to the Western Balkan countries after their EU accession. Our results show a sudden and substantial increase in gross and net flows, which gradually intensifies over several years before levelling off. EU budget flows are economically important relative to the size of the Western Balkan economies, and their composition is strongly biased towards development policies. We also find that Western Balkan enlargement comes at a minimal budgetary cost for the remaining EU member states. Our findings can help reduce scepticism behind the Western Balkan countries’ accession fatigue and the EU’s enlargement fatigue.

• Language: English
• Keywords: Western Balkans, European Union, EU, enlargement, budgets, EU budget, accession
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: EF - School of Economics and Business
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2020
• Number of pages: Str. 431-453
• Numbering: Vol. 20, no. 3
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-147418
• UDC: 061.1EU
• ISSN on article: 1468-3857
• DOI: 10.1080/14683857.2020.1793061
• COBISS.SI-ID: 22860803
• Publication date in RUL: 05.07.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of Southeast European & Black Sea studies
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• ISSN: 1468-3857
• COBISS.SI-ID: 1573397

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• Description: The most restrictive Creative Commons license. This only allows people to download and share the work for no commercial gain and for no other purposes.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: Zahodni Balkan, EU, širitev, proračuni

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P5-0161
• Name: Izzivi vlagateljev, podjetij, finančnih institucij in države v negotovem evropskem gospodarskem okolju