The chief goal of the panel is to discuss Europeanization understood as process meant to set and export norms, rules and expected behaviours. Also, two main elements employed by the European Union will be explored in this respect: social learning and passive enforcement. According to scholars (Checkel 1999; Checkel 2007; Tocci 2007: 10-18), international institutions or regional organisations have the capacity to create senses of community and belonging and to socialize actors, id est neighbouring countries. Consequently, social learning, as part of EU’s approach on conflict resolution in its neighbourhood, leads to the transformation of perceived interests, because the countries voluntarily internalize the norms and comply with EU’s expectations. Moreover, efficient passive enforcement, as another tool of EU’s relations with candidate countries, is meant to trigger “a sense of belonging with Europe and/or desires cooperation/integration with it” (Tocci 2007: 17). Consequently, candidate countries do not perceive strings attached in their relations with the EU, but are rather expected to gradually incorporate the rule as part of a process through which they recurrently respect the rule.

The panel includes four papers centred on EU’s enlargement towards the Western Balkans and aims to problematize the ways in which European values and practices trigger conditionality, induce norm incorporation, and shape (candidate) state behaviour.

The paper’s main goal is to explore the dynamic and the transformations of civil society in Montenegro in congruence with democracy-related processes and prospects of EU integration. The theoretical underlining assumptions pertain to ideational factors which shape communities, societies, state-identity and state-interests. The constructivist theorizing will be employed in order to illustrate the ways in which civil society in Montenegro has evolved, from the post-socialist logic to a regional post-war environment, and then to the meanings and expectations attached to the EU candidate status. Based on interviews conducted in Podgorica, this research aims to emphasize the factors which contribute to Europeanisation processes in Montenegro and the ways in which the European Union’s normative power (Ian Manners, 2002) is perceived, received and incorporated into policy making. The interplay between civil society organizations and government decision making will be explored so as to reveal trust in and legitimacy of EU norms and values in Montenegro.

While the focus of the EU on the protracted integration files of the four candidate countries from the Western Balkans (WB) has been somewhat enhanced by the current security threats occurring in the broader region, the political criteria remain by far the thorniest hurdle down the path to eventual EU membership. Dissected into numerous priority areas, these criteria encompass the matter of freedom of expression, which is worth investigating from the juridical and the institutional standpoints, amid the specific characteristics exhibited by every candidate state in the WB in this regard, seen through the lens of government control, regulatory bodies, the protection of journalists and the stance and coverage of public broadcasters. We argue that in societies which are still undergoing reform germane to technological development and mass media culture, traditional means of information play an overarching role and yield decisive approaches to electoral behaviour, thus falling well within the area of paramount interest of the ruling parties. A comparative analysis of the latest country reports issued by the European Commission stands as the basis for this attempt at assessing the genuine role played by freedom of expression amid the ampler slow-paced monitoring of the integration files of the ever-challenging, yet incessantly fascinating, Western Balkans.

Although the Ukrainian crisis started in 2014, it has turned into a global one due to the attacks of the Russian army on the capital in February 2022. The objective of the paper is to analyse the conclusions of the European Council on EU enlargement process to Western Balkans in the context of the war in Ukraine. The research question is materialized in the following statement: how the narratives of the European Council regarding Western Balkans evolved in the new geopolitical context? We focus on some discourse features (with direct reference to content (themes), language (vocabulary, grammar, linguistic and rhetorical mechanisms), trying to observe if they remain the same or if they vary according to the external factors (whether the Russian attacks intensify, do they change?). As for the research methods we use a cross-sectional design - based on a qualitative and quantitative analysis from the first day of invasion 24 February 2022 up to 23 December 2022.

EU integration of the Western Balkans is an interesting case because it requires that we grapple with the relationship between the material factors and the issue of meanings - i.e., is the desire of the states to join the European project motivated primarily by a deep sense of “European identity” or do they rather opt for this because they pursue material national interests in managing globalisation, while matters concerning deep “identity” issues remain national? One of the most important events in the history of the EU was the enlargement to include Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. The collapse of the Soviet Union generated similar reactions in almost all countries in CEE (with the exception of Yugoslavia): all wanted, primarily, to join NATO (security guarantee) and, secondly, to join the EU (development guarantee). The “European identity” was frequently mentioned as primary motivation, while the language by which this transition process has typically been framed by CEE countries used words and expressions such as the return to or reconnection with Europe, accurately reflecting the beliefs that were behind the desire of the elites in the young democracies, but also of a significant proportion of their population. The key resource in this case was represented by the collective memory that, in the post-Second World War until the end of the Cold War period, echoed the idea that the nations of Central and Eastern Europe were victims of the Soviet communist regime. This article suggests that a connection can be found between material interests and meaning, placed in a normative context of changing domestic politics and bringing about economic, social, and political transformation. Through its “soft power,” its force of attraction, normative power, and through its institutions, Europe could offer the Western Balkans countries a “European identity” and replicate the success story of post-Cold War Europe in the wider region of the Western Balkans while managing globalisation at the same time.