The influence of external actors in the Western Balkans A map of geopolitical players www.kas.de Impressum Contact: Florian C. Feyerabend Desk Officer for Southeast Europe/Western Balkans European and International Cooperation Europe/North America team Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. Phone: +49 30 26996-3539 E-mail:
[email protected] Published by: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e. V. 2018, Sankt Augustin/Berlin Maps: kartoxjm, fotolia Design: yellow too, Pasiek Horntrich GbR Typesetting: Janine Höhle, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V. Diese Publikation ist/DThe text of this publication is published under a Creative Commons license: “Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 international” (CC BY-SA 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-sa/4.0/legalcode. ISBN 978-3-95721-471-3 Contents Introduction: The role of external actors in the Western Balkans 4 Albania 9 Bosnia and Herzegovina 14 Kosovo 17 Croatia 21 Macedonia 25 Romania 29 Serbia and Montenegro 32 The geopolitical context 39 3 Introduction: The role of external actors in the Western Balkans by Dr Lars Hänsel and Florian C. Feyerabend Dear readers, A spectre haunts the Western Balkans – the spec- consists of reports from our representatives in the tre of geopolitics. Once again, the region is at risk various countries involved. Along with the non-EU of becoming a geostrategic chessboard for exter- countries in the Western Balkans, this study also nal actors. Warnings are increasingly being voiced considers the situation in Croatia and Romania. in Brussels and other Western capitals, as well as in the region itself. Russia, China, Turkey and the One thing is clear: the integration of the Western Gulf States are ramping up their political, eco- Balkans into Euro-Atlantic and European struc- nomic and cultural influence in this enclave within tures is already well advanced, with close ties and the European Union – with a variety of resources, interdependencies.