Regional Cooperation Policies (Open Balkans, Berlin Process) - Competitive or Complementary
Keywords:
Open Balkans Initiative, Berlin Process, Regional Cooperation, PoliticsAbstract
The Berlin Process, launched by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2014, was among the most serious initiatives for the Europeanization of the Western Balkans (WB) and the integration of the region into the European Union (EU). The Open Balkans Initiative, launched in 2019 by Serbia, Albania and North Macedonia, continued to be a parallel initiative to achieve the same goals as the Berlin Process: free movement of people, services, capital and goods.These two initiatives seem to be competing with each other, whether this represents competitiveness or complementarity. Based on the policies that are being adopted and created, a vague picture and a blurred perception of these two processes are obtained.Based on this, this analytical paper investigates and analyzes how the regional cooperation policies of the Open Balkan Initiative (OB) and the Berlin Process (BP) are presented and perceived - competitive or complementary, this paper presents an analytical review based on the creation and conduct of policies for these two processes from a legal and economic point of view, analyzed from the data of the European Union (EU), from the institutions of the Balkan countries themselves and from the reports of independent analytical centers in the region. The analyses show that the regional cooperation policies of the Open Balkan Initiative (OB) and the Berlin Process (BP) on the one hand are presented and perceived as competitive but are in essence complementary and are in the same dynamic flow.
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