Untitled Document

European Integration Partnerships	Individual Country Reports
Albania	Albania
Bosnia and Herzegovina	Bosnia & Herzegovina
Croatia	Croatia (Opinion)
Macedonia	Macedonia
Serbia and Montenegro	Serbia and Montenegro

Since the Zagreb Summit, the EU’s approach to the Western Balkans has been characterized by effort in strengthening the peace, stability and prosperity of the region through the implementation of ad hoc politics and policies. The framework of such an approach is represented by the Stabilization and Association Process (SAP) which supports among others the reform of domestic policies and on the long run offers the prospect of full integration into EU structures.

In case the country proves to have adopted significant reforms in the political, economic and administrative field an ad hoc Stability and Association Agreement is then signed with the EU. This is the case for Croatia (PDF 1.25 MB) and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (PDF 263 KB) . Within the framework of the SAP, since 1999, the Stability Pact was launched in order to reach the objectives of the SAP while promoting further regional cooperation. Since 2000, the European Agency for Reconstruction was established in order to manage on the field the main EU assistance programmes in the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro , the UN-administered Kosovo and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The Thessaloniki Summit held on 19-20 June and 21 June 2003 served to evaluate the process accomplished after three years since the Zagreb ’s Summit opening of the SAP and marked an important step within the framework of the EU-Western Balkans relations. Within the Summit , the EU draws from the lessons learnt by the enlargement to the 10 Central and Eastern European countries and is keen to reuse some of the policies applied to the CEE enlargement for the Western Balkans. The European Integration Partnership is an example. The Communication (PDF 163 KB) adopted by the European Commission 21 May 2003 contains the main features of such an approach.

The SAP objectives are translated into the CARDS (Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation - PDF 673 KB ) programme which underpins the whole Process.