A mini-Schengen area in the Western Balkans? Examining the "Open Balkans" initiative
At the end of July, the leaders of Serbia, North Macedonia, and Albania met in Skopje, where they agreed to bolster regional economic integration, vowing to abolish border controls between their countries by January 2023. They named their initiative “Open Balkans” or “Mini-Schengen” – after the European Union’s free travel zone. The announcement comes as leaders in the Western Balkans are growing disillusioned with what they see as a stalled EU accession process. The news has thus far been met with cautious encouragement from the West. Damir Marusic, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and the co-author of a recent op-ed in Foreign Policy on the Open Balkans initiative, joins The Greek Current to talk about this latest development in the Western Balkans and what it could mean for the region.
Read Damir Marusic and Benjamin Haddad’s op-ed in Foreign Policy here: The Balkans Don’t Believe the EU Anymore
You can read the articles we discuss on our podcast here:
A Mini-Schengen in the Balkans
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Greek-US relations, Afghanistan dominate Mitsotakis-Menendez meeting