A Strategic–Relational Approach to European Union Enlargement: The Reversed Conditionality of Western Balkan Governing Elites

Introduction

Owing to the power asymmetry between the European Union (EU) and applicant countries (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004, 675), the study of EU enlargement has been chiefly preoccupied either with the EU’s conduct or with the structural dynamics of the process. The mainstream approach rests on the premise that the EU sets the rules of the game, and the leaders of (potential) candidate states are mainly left to decide whether or not to comply with EU conditions. With a few exceptions (e.g. Grimm 2019; Pavlović 2023), the literature does not expect local elites to contemplate pursuing alternative courses of action, let alone exert influence on the EU enlargement policy.

The article problematises this view of the EU enlargement policy as a predominantly unilinear process, the effects of which are almost exclusively observed in candidate countries. Based on Jessop’s (2001; 2008) and Hay’s (2002) “strategic–relational approach”, we conceptualise EU enlargement negotiations as a dynamic process of interactions between political actors operating within and through different structural contexts, such as the EU institutions, member states, or candidate countries. Focusing on the leaders of applicant countries, we argue that they are reflexive actors who acquire empirically strategic knowledge about the insignificant costs of ignoring EU requirements and realise the extent of their room for manoeuvre over time. As a result, they may endeavour to break the confines of the structurally determined compliance/non-compliance binary choice and explore additional policy options. In doing so, they would challenge the consistency and legitimacy of the EU’s enlargement policy.

In the following, we examine how applicant countries’ leaders have sought to escape the compliance/non-compliance dilemma shaped by the EU. Focusing on the Western Balkans, we argue that the governing elites in this region have repeatedly attempted to make the EU dilute its accession conditions by presenting their own preferred policy dilemmas during negotiations. We brand this practice as “reversed conditionality”, borrowing a term that emerged in EU migration studies to describe the bargains third countries struck with EU institutions (Tittel-Mosser 2018). In particular, Western Balkan leaders have tended to link their support in managing issues of major EU concern to securing concessions on their countries’ EU accession path. These concessions may be about the scope of specific EU-prescribed reforms or the pace of the accession process. Of course, the leaders of applicant countries cannot promise rewards or threaten the EU with sanctions. However, while the EU institutions have resisted calls to lower accession requirements, they have temporarily agreed to backtrack on several reform requests. Overall, reversed conditionality will most likely yield poor or no results. So, why do we need to conceptualise it? Because it takes place, and if we ignore it, we will not fully grasp either the bidirectional interaction between the EU institutions and local elites, or the latter’s reflexivity, strategic-mindedness, and agency.

A few methodological clarifications are in order. First, studying the agency of the applicant country leaders in the context of EU enlargement does not imply that we underestimate the agency of EU actors in accession negotiations. We merely black-boxed the EU’s conduct to highlight the structural dimension of enlargement policy and the agency of candidate country leaders. Second, in the interests of epistemological clarity, we focus on cases where the local elites decided to forego the compliance/non-compliance dilemma shaped by the EU. Arguably, it is difficult to ascertain whether instances of compliance were an expression of agential strategic interests or the outcome of structural pressure.

The article is divided into five parts. The first demonstrates the implicit structuralism of EU enlargement studies. The second reviews EU enlargement through the strategic–relational approach. It perceives enlargement negotiations as a two-sided process in which the actions of strategically minded applicant country leaders could have implications for EU policies per se. The next section explains how Western Balkan elites have occasionally employed “reversed conditionality”. Drawing on a “most different systems design” approach, the fourth section analyses two case studies: (i) the threat of Serbia fully aligning with Russia if the EU does not implicitly tolerate its democratic backsliding; and (ii) the threat of unification of Albania and Kosovo if the EU accession of the two countries is stalled. The two cases demonstrate different ways of employing reversed conditionality and the complexity of the factors accounting for the variances in the EU’s reaction to the expectations of the applicant country leaders in each case. Crucially, our examples reveal Western Balkan elites’ agency, reflexivity, and strategic learning, as well as the negligible effects of reversed conditionality on lowering EU accession requirements. The final section comprises some comparative conclusive remarks.

The Implicit Structuralism of EU Enlargement Studies

We can analytically divide the scholarly literature on EU enlargement into three generations without oversimplifying the complexity of the situation. The first concerned the study of the EU accession of Central and East European (CEE) countries. It revolved around explaining the drivers of candidate country compliance with EU requirements. The second generation focused on what caused the stagnation in the EU accession path of Turkey and the Western Balkans. The third generation has emerged since 2022 and has dealt with the implications of the EU’s current geopolitical enlargement policy (e.g. Anghel and Džankić 2023; Anghel and Jones 2024). Our suggested division is analytical rather than temporal, reflecting the research questions that have dominated the debate in each round of EU enlargement. Given that the third generation has not addressed our research question, we concentrate on the first two generations of the literature.

A Strategic–Relational Approach

Drawing on Jessop’s (2001, 2008) and Hay’s (2002) work, we propose embedding the rational and sociological institutional theories within a broader strategic–relational approach. According to the logic of this approach, although the EU’s enlargement policy and applicant countries are analytically distinct, they are involved in a mutually constitutive dialectical relationship (Hay 2002, 127). If the EU institutions withdrew the membership offer, interested third countries would no longer be situated within the context of the EU’s enlargement policy. Conversely, the EU’s enlargement policy would be meaningless if the local elites were to pull their countries out of accession negotiations. Hence, the EU’s enlargement policy and candidate countries co-constitute the process of accession negotiations.

Ontologically, however, neither the EU nor the applicant countries (or indeed member states) are considered agents or “real subjects”. Jessop (2008, 220–1) perceived the EU as a complex system for the organisation, coordination, and steering of governance (which Jessop termed “metagovernance”) across a plurality of “levels, scales, areas, and sites”. From this perspective, the EU (meta)governance context features the involvement of a plethora of actors (agents), stretching “well beyond different tiers of government and well beyond the confines of the European Union as an administrative, political, or economic space” (Jessop 2008, 221). In the context of EU enlargement (meta)governance, the most important actors are the EU institutions’ top officials and member state decision-makers.

Moreover, in Jessop’s (2008, 37) thinking, “it is not the state that acts: it is always specific sets of politicians and state officials”, whose powers and capacities are shaped by the state’s political system. Hay (2014, 477), similarly argued that states do not possess any agency: they provide a series of contexts within which individual and collective actors acquire the authority and capacity to exercise agency. In the Western Balkan hybrid regimes, the most important domestic actors are the political leaders who control most state power.

Together, the EU and candidate countries are entangled in a structure–structure relationship, shaped by the context of the EU’s enlargement policy. Accession negotiations are a dynamic process of interactions between political actors operating within and through different contexts, which include the EU and its different institutional settings across policy domains, its member states, and the candidate countries. Consequently, the strategic-relational approach complements the mainstream structural approaches to EU enlargement by showcasing the agency of Western Balkan domestic actors.

Following Jessop’s reasoning, the context of the EU’s enlargement policy is “strategically selective”: it tends to privilege certain actors, identities, strategies, or policies (Jessop 2001, 1224). The structural preference (or lack thereof) for specific actors and/or identities is manifested in the challenges and opportunities each local elite experiences in advancing on its country’s accession path. For instance, consecutive leaders of North Macedonia have been called to adjust core aspects of their country’s identity to address the concerns of their interlocutors in Greece and Bulgaria. In addition, the structural preference for specific strategies and policies is exhibited in the EU’s strategic pressure on the leaders of candidate countries to fully comply with accession requirements instead of pursuing alternative courses of action.

The EU’s enlargement policy is thus a sophisticated external governance system that strives to constrain and guide the actions of Western Balkan countries. It relies on an array of instruments, including the Stabilisation and Association Agreements, substantial financial and technical assistance, regular progress reports, conditionality, political dialogue, and interim rewards (e.g. visa liberalisation). Crucially, Western Balkan countries depend on the EU for 67% of their trade and 58% of their FDI stock.^[1] Considering the thickness of the web of EU enlargement policy instruments and the asymmetry in leverage between EU actors and local elites, the structural pressure on Western Balkan political regimes to conform to EU policy prescriptions has not been negligible. Overall, when candidate country governments comply, the structure preserves its stability (and coherence) in line with the expectations of the first generation of the EU enlargement scholarship (Jessop 2001, 1225).

Hay (2002, 129) explained that the structure cannot preclude agents from following different courses of action. Candidate country leaders are strategic actors who could disregard structural preferences and adopt policies according to “their feel of the game” (Jessop 2001, 1224). Indeed, over the last decade, Western Balkan governments have systematically avoided fully complying with EU requirements, as the second generation of the EU enlargement literature has demonstrated. However, the strategic–relational model invites us to go a step further. Being reflexive actors, agents observe the consequences of their actions and engage in “strategic learning”, i.e. develop enhanced awareness of the structural constraints and opportunities (Hay 2002, 133). In this respect, Western Balkan elites have empirically observed a gap between the EU’s stated objectives and EU actors’ actual preferences and have gained experience of the insignificant repercussions of non-compliance with accession conditions. Indeed, most EU actors have been content with the semblance of stability in the Western Balkans, turning their attention to other, more pressing issues, such as the eurozone crisis, Arab Spring, migration crisis, and Brexit. Moreover, the credibility of EU political conditionality has weakened in the eyes of Western Balkan leaders, who have observed the democratic backsliding in EU member states and the indifference of US president Donald Trump to the state of liberal democracy around the world. Consequently, local elites have felt emboldened to break the confines of the compliance/non-compliance binary choice and explore additional policy options.

European Union institutions have frequently retracted their original requests, having observed partial, nominal, or no compliance from the applicant country leaders. In the Western Balkans, the EU institutions have even legitimised the stagnation of reforms, allowing countries that had not registered any progress in fulfilling EU requirements to advance on their accession path. For instance, the collective leadership of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been repeatedly given approval to proceed on the country’s EU accession path despite its consistent failure to comply with EU requirements (Juncos 2018, 111–12). Likewise, between 2015 and 2022, Serbia’s and Montenegro’s governing regimes were rewarded with the opening of negotiations on 22 and 17 chapters of the accession process, respectively, even though the European Commission’s annual progress reports noted that reforms had reached a standstill.^[2] In the end, the EU institutions did not dilute accession requirements. Membership of the EU remains firmly conditional on full compliance with all accession criteria. Instead, the EU institutions have consented to the sanction-free, interminable prolongation of the process, which is, admittedly, a convenient development for member states who are “less enthusiastic” about EU enlargement.

The systematic agential rejection of the structural preferences is not inconsequential. It has “direct effects” on the structure (Hay 2002, 133). When applicant country governments do not comply with EU policies and the EU institutions tolerate this, the structural context is inevitably transformed. Indeed, the EU institutions have repeatedly revised the enlargement policy – in 2011, 2018, and 2020 – to restore its effectiveness. These revisions resulted from policy learning by actors participating in the EU (meta)governance, based on past experience. While the revisions did not correspond to demands by candidate country leaders, policy changes were prompted mainly by the applicants’ unsatisfactory track record regarding compliance with EU requirements. Thus, the policies of the governments of interested third countries impact EU policymaking.

To sum up, the strategic–relational approach allows us to grasp EU enlargement negotiations as a dynamic interactive process that evolves over time despite the flagrant imbalance of leverage between the two sides (see Figure 1). Moreover, it reveals the underestimated agency of candidate country leaders in the EU enlargement process.

Figure 1:

A strategic–relational approach to EU enlargement: The agency of Western Balkan governing elites

The Agency of the Applicant Country Elites and Reversed Conditionality

As Lavenex and Öberg (2023, 1435–8) pointed out, EU studies have paid scant attention to the influence of third countries on EU policies. Studies on the EU have also suffered from Eurocentrism. They have tended to adopt a Eurocentric approach to history, ignored the perspectives of “others” regarding the EU and the world, and expected third countries to act according to EU norms and values (Keukeleire and Lecocq 2018). There is therefore nothing unusual about the EU enlargement literature’s focus on the EU’s conduct, the by-product of which is the literature’s implicit structural bias.

A few scholarly works have recently endeavoured to open the black box of the agency of candidate country authorities in EU accession negotiations. Grimm (2019, 854) argued that actors in both the EU and interested third countries are “competent to take actions individually” and enter into negotiations over the scope and pace of democratic reforms. Applicant country authorities may accept, reject, or try to modify EU requirements by employing one of the following six instruments: diplomacy, takeover, slowdown, modification, resistance, and emancipation (Grimm 2019, 855–6). Similarly, Castaldo (2022) argued that the Serbian political regime has sought to contain external democratising pressure by engaging in “diversionary” behaviour. Lastly, Pavlović (2023, 337–40) perceived the enlargement process as a bargaining game between the EU and Western Balkan actors, where both sides have promoted their core preferences, seeking trade-offs on issues of secondary interest.

Our article contributes to the literature that explores the overlooked agency of candidate country actors in the EU enlargement process. Thanks to strategic learning, Western Balkan leaders have realised that they can choose from a range of responses to EU conditions. Occasionally, local elites have aspired to influence the terms of accession. They have attempted to convince their interlocutors in the EU institutions and member states to either lower their expectations concerning the depth, scope, or stringency of accession reforms or to water down the implications of non-compliance. Western Balkan leaders have not appealed to shared norms or cited implementation difficulties to alter the EU’s accession conditions. Instead, they engaged in bargaining, trying to impact the cost-benefit calculations of their EU interlocutors.

Indeed, Western Balkan leaders have emulated the EU institutions by employing the instrument of conditionality. They have responded to the EU’s accession conditions by counter-proposing alternative policy dilemmas. These proposals have typically not included new/different policy options. Local elites have not used conditionality to negotiate the essence of specific policies prescribed by the EU. Instead, they have sought to shift the discussion from their weak compliance with democratic conditionality to issues where they have some leverage over the EU. More precisely, Western Balkan leaders have linked their cooperation on managing the main threats to regional stability as perceived by EU actors to receiving concessions regarding their countries’ European integration path. In other words, they have invoked issues that appeared to matter most, from a security perspective, to actors participating in EU (meta)governance to advance their country’s EU accession, while not complying with accession conditions.

Since this bargaining practice launches a process in the opposite direction that is then used by candidate country elites in an attempt to dilute EU accession requirements, we refer to it as “reversed conditionality”. The term is used in EU migration studies to describe the practice of third countries making their cooperation conditional on receiving concessions (Tittel-Mosser 2018). In EU enlargement, reversed conditionality is perceived as a reactive practice, representing a possible response to EU accession conditionality.

Reversed conditionality in the accession context has not relied on promises of rewards or threats of sanctions. It is, however, still a negative conditionality premised on an implicit threat that regional security would deteriorate if the preferences of Western Balkan leaders were not considered. Moreover, it is an ex post conditionality whereby local elites have linked their continued cooperation on security-related matters to advancing their country’s EU accession.^[3] Reversed conditionality is also flexible. Finding themselves in a weak negotiating position, the Western Balkan leaders test ideas, occasionally backtrack, and seek, through strategic learning, to continuously establish their margins of bargaining.

In terms of credibility, the domestic approval of reversed conditionality is crucial. A society that overwhelmingly supported its country’s EU accession would be less eager to stand behind its regime’s bargaining games over compliance with EU terms. On the contrary, people who are less enthusiastic about EU integration are expected to grant their authorities more leeway to take risks in accession negotiations. Another critical parameter is the systemic context: when the international system is competitive and the great powers are divided over an issue, applicant country leaders have more room for manoeuvre.

There are several examples of Western Balkan leaders employing reversed conditionality. For instance, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić has made his support for international initiatives seeking to prevent crises in Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina and his restraint from siding fully with Russia and/or China conditional on the EU keeping the country’s accession on track. Albanian and Kosovan leaders have threatened to advance the unification of their countries if EU integration were to stall. During his presidency, Milo Đukanović warned the EU that Montenegro could fall under Russian influence if its integration into European structures were not completed soon.^[4] Moreover, Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb leader, has responded to EU reform requests by threatening to organise a referendum on the secession of Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[5] Finally, Nikola Gruevski, former prime minister of what is now North Macedonia, attempted, in 2015, to offset EU pressure to find a democratic solution to the crisis caused by the wiretapping scandal that implicated him and several members of his government and sparked widespread popular protest by increasing Russia’s involvement in the affair.^[6] Overall, reversed conditionality has primarily been linked to the two main security concerns of EU institutions and member states: the threat of the outbreak of crises and the risk of the region falling under the influence of competing geopolitical actors. In the latter case, reversed conditionality may be part of a broader hedging strategy towards several great powers.

Case Studies

Accession negotiations involve several sets of actors from each side, ranging from the political leadership to the level of bureaucracy. In our case studies, we focus on governing political elites and investigate how Western Balkan leaders have used reversed conditionality through discourse and actions. We examine two cases: (i) Serbia’s ties to Russia, and (ii) the question of the unification of Albania and Kosovo. In these cases, we address several questions using a process tracing approach. First, we research how conditionality was communicated and assess its determinacy and magnitude. In addition, we investigate the domestic legitimacy of reversed conditionality and explore whether the broader systemic context of great power rivalry facilitated this type of bargaining. We also explore whether reversed conditionality was flexibly adjusted to the reaction of EU institutions and to changing structural circumstances. Lastly, we examine whether the EU institutions have demonstrated a willingness to satisfy the expectations of any particular local elite.

Our case study selection was guided by a “most different systems design” approach. Each case represents a different threat to regional stability, as perceived by the EU. Furthermore, our cases cover a variety of political settings, marked by differing levels of domestic approval of the bargaining tactics employed by the local elites. The selected cases also differ in terms of the external support provided by other great powers. Finally, adoption costs for the EU also varied across our cases.

Our research design choice serves the following two purposes. First, it allows us to demonstrate different ways of employing reversed conditionality and the complexity of the factors accounting for the different EU reactions in each case. Second, it shows Western Balkan leaders’ agency, reflexivity, and strategic learning, as well as the negligible effects of reversed conditionality on lowering EU accession requirements.

Serbia’s Ties to Russia

Aleksandar Vučić and his Serbian Progressive Party (Srpska napredna stranka, SNS) – the ruling party in Serbia since 2012 – have been eager to increase the external legitimacy of their rule. Specifically, the SNS expected Brussels to express relative indifference to democratic backsliding in Serbia by keeping the country’s EU accession on track. In return, Vučić has offered his support in avoiding regional crises and has refrained from siding fully with the Russian and/or Chinese regimes.^[7] In this article, we focus on the Serbian authorities’ use of ties with the Russian regime to extract concessions and rewards on the EU accession path.

Vučić’s reversed conditionality has been relatively subtle. Serbia’s president has not openly threatened that his country would forego its prospects of EU membership to get closer to Russia. The low determinacy of Serbian conditionality is not only a sign of prudence. It is also part of a broader hedging strategy towards all great powers (Tzifakis and Vasdoka 2025). That said, the magnitude of Vučić’s conditionality is very high. It is linked to the West’s perception of the region as a significant security concern: If Vučić were to side fully with Vladimir Putin, the latter might be in a position to open a second front in Europe and destabilise the Western Balkans. As a result, Serbia’s conditionality has been taken seriously. While several European officials have warned that the EU could lose Serbia to Russia (Petrovic and Tzifakis 2021, 159–61), others have criticised the EU institutions and member states for appeasing Vučić out of fear that Belgrade could offer Moscow its full support.^[8]

The Serbian authorities communicated their reversed conditionality through both discourse and actions. The latter included regular contact with Russian officials, frequently leading to new bilateral agreements. In taking this approach, the Serbian government sought to enhance cooperation with the Russian regime in parallel with the country’s EU accession path. Remarkably, Russia’s invasions of Ukraine in 2014 and 2022 did not trigger a review of this policy. Vučić resisted pressure to align Serbia’s foreign policy with EU decisions and impose sanctions on Russia. In the meantime, the Belgrade authorities created new ties and made fresh deals with their counterparts in Moscow. For instance, when it came to the military sector, from 2015 to 2019 and in 2021, Serbian officers participated in the “Slavic Brotherhood”, the annual joint military drills involving Russian and Belarusian armed forces. Regarding diplomatic relations, the Serbian and Russian ministers of foreign affairs signed biennial “Consultation Plans” from 2019 to 2024.^[9] In terms of economic relations, the Belgrade and Moscow authorities concluded agreements on trade, energy, and the modernisation of the Serbian railway (Reid 2021).

The impact of Serbian–Russian deals has been overrated, however. For instance, the Serbian army has participated in more military exercises with NATO armed forces than with the Russian army.^[10] Regarding Ukraine, Serbia endorsed five out of six UN General Assembly resolutions adopted from 2022 to 2023.^[11] These concerned the condemnation of Russia’s military aggression and illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories, and the expulsion of Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. Reportedly, Serbia has also exported large quantities of ammunition to Ukraine through contracts with third countries.^[12] Moreover, Russia’s economic footprint has been moderate in every sector except for energy (Reid 2021). Still, Russian–Serbian high-level meetings and agreements have invariably irritated the EU institutions and have been perceived as signals that the Vučić regime’s preferences should not be taken for granted.

Vučić’s reversed conditionality was also articulated at the discourse level. The tone Serbia’s president has used when talking about the country’s EU integration has been in stark contrast to how he has referred to its ties with Russia. Vučić has explained his support for Serbia’s EU membership in economic terms, avoiding any reference to EU values (Guzina 2023, 1603). He has occasionally even underscored his country’s lack of enthusiasm regarding the prospect of EU accession.^[13] In 2021, he stated: “We [the Serbs] don’t care anymore.”^[14] At the same time, he has frequently accused the EU of double standards and hypocrisy on different issues, from the Kosovo question to the Ukrainian issue.^[15] As a result, Vučić’s discourses have demonstrated lukewarm support for Serbia’s EU integration. In contrast, his references to Russia have included expressions of gratitude (for Moscow’s stance on the Kosovo question) and cordiality, depicting the Russian people as “brothers” and “traditional friends”.^[16]

This balancing act has also influenced the government’s composition. The cabinet formed in May 2024 by Miloš Vučević included two US-sanctioned individuals accused of being involved in Russia’s malign activities in the Balkans: Aleksandar Vulin and Nenad Popović. Vulin claimed that “there is no place for Serbia in that club [the EU]”, suggesting instead membership in BRICS, the intergovernmental organisation consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa and, since five more states – Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates, and Indonesia – joined in 2024/2025, informally referred to as BRICS Plus.^[17] Popović has long advocated that Serbia discontinue its EU accession path and increase its reliance on China and Russia.^[18]

Occasionally, Vučić’s reversed conditionality became more explicit. In 2019, the Serbian authorities ignored EU warnings and signed a free trade agreement with the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union. As Vučić explained: “As soon as we join the EU, that is, if we join at all, these agreements will become meaningless.”^[19] Another example is how Belgrade reacted to the EU’s concern about the irregularities in the Serbian parliamentary elections of December 2023.^[20] In a discussion with the Russian Ambassador to Serbia, Aleksandar Bocan-Harchenko, Vučić referred to the “irrefutable evidence” that “incitement and support” for protesters came from the West.^[21] Thus, when the EU institutions became more critical of Serbia’s flawed electoral procedures, the SNS regime moved towards Russia.

Vučić’s balancing act has not been without risk, however. Through strategic learning, he has continuously sought to determine his room for manoeuvre to avoid sanctions from either side. For instance, in 2022, the Serbian authorities suspended participation in all international military exercises so that Serbia could abstain from the “Slavic Brotherhood” drill. Also, despite its proclaimed fundamental opposition to sanctions, Belgrade supported the EU’s sanctions against Belarus and Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s former president.^[22]

The credibility of Serbian conditionality has also been high. First, it has received external support from Moscow. The Russian authorities have responded positively to all Serbian collaboration initiatives, affirming the EU’s fear about the closeness of Belgrade–Moscow relations. Crucially, the Putin regime has not pressured Vučić to pick a side, allowing Belgrade to maintain its balancing act. Moreover, the internal legitimacy of Serbian conditionality is uncontested. Indeed, Vučić’s discourses echo the Serbian people’s views. According to a poll conducted from May to July 2025, only 39% of Serbs would vote to join the EU if a referendum were held, whereas 78% of respondents favoured Serbia developing a foreign policy oriented towards both the West and Russia.^[23] In addition, 41% of Serbs considered Russia the country’s most important ally, and 79% viewed Vladimir Putin favourably.^[24] Interestingly, only 6% of respondents believed that Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine, with 42% blaming the West.^[25] Most Serbs do not view EU accession as a process of identity convergence with Europe (Guzina 2023, 1590). In terms of identity, they feel closer to Russia.

Moreover, they have interpreted Russia’s war against Ukraine through the lens of their own experience with NATO airstrikes in 1999, in the context of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. As a result, they have vicariously identified with Russia in what they have perceived to be a confrontation between Russia and the West (Belloni 2024). That said, the role of regime-friendly media in accentuating the people’s anti-Western and pro-Russian attitudes should not be overlooked. In a media landscape marked by a lack of pluralism, reporting has systematically placed Russia in a positive and the EU (and the West) in a negative light (Burazer 2022). Furthermore, the SNS is not the most Russophile party in the country. The Serbian political system includes several small far-right populist parties (collectively attracting up to 15% of votes) that are critical of Vučić for not aligning fully with Russia (Spasojević 2023, 270).

Vučić’s conditionality presented the EU institutions with moderate adoption costs. Maintaining an increasingly authoritarian Serbia on an interminable EU accession path has not troubled Brussels. Eventually, Serbia must still fulfil all political criteria to qualify for membership. Consequently, Vučić’s reversed conditionality has been successful with respect to its limited aims. Although the country has experienced significant democratic backsliding from a semi-consolidated democracy to a hybrid regime since the SNS acceded to power (Figure 2), the EU institutions have not sanctioned the Serbian government. Brussels has instead rewarded Vučić with statements of support and the opening of negotiations on accession chapters (Radeljić and Özşahin 2023, 699–700). To illustrate, in 2021, while the European Commission noted in yet another annual report that Serbia had made “limited progress” in improving the rule of law,^[26] Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said publicly to Vučić: “I welcome that Serbia places a strong focus on fundamental reforms. I commend you for the steps you have taken. This is enormous. You have done a lot of hard work. This hard work pays off. It is amazing to see the progress.”^[27]

Figure 2:

“Nations in Transit”: Serbia’s democracy score. Source: “All Data Nations in Transit NIT 2005–2024.” Freedom House. 2024. https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2024-05/All_Data_Nations_in_Transit_NIT_2005-2024_For_website.xlsx (accessed 19 December 2025).

In some respects, Vučić’s reversed conditionality has benefitted the EU accession of the entire region. Following Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the EU institutions and member states have taken the threat of Russia extending its sphere of influence to Europe more seriously and have decided to advance EU enlargement with greater determination (Anghel and Džankić 2023). Yet, they have failed to translate words into deeds by elaborating a plan for the quick accession of the region. Paradoxically, while Vučić’s reversed conditionality underscores the geopolitical imperative of EU enlargement, it risks complicating Serbia’s own EU accession if the EU institutions decide to take a stricter stance on Belgrade’s hedging strategy.

All in all, the external legitimacy the EU has granted the Vučić regime should not be mistaken for lowering accession requirements. The EU institutions’ compliance with Vučić’s conditionality has a marginal impact on the country’s EU accession. Nevertheless, it has harmed the EU’s image as a normative power in the eyes of Serbia’s democratic pro-European forces. Moreover, it has damaged the credibility of its enlargement policy.

Concluding Remarks

The agency of applicant country leaders in EU accession negotiations has been largely overlooked in research. We suggest, drawing on Jessop’s and Hay’s work, reconceptualising enlargement negotiations as an interactive process between EU and Western Balkan actors, operating within and through different contexts, which include the EU institutions, its member states, and the candidate countries. While the context of the EU’s enlargement policy privileges the compliance of local elites with accession conditionality, the latter have learned empirically that ignoring the EU’s requirements has limited repercussions. As a result, they have endeavoured to deviate from the structurally preferred policy options.

Our case studies demonstrate the agency, reflexivity, and strategic learning of Western Balkan leaders. Rama, Thaçi, and Vučić felt emboldened to try to present their preferred policy dilemmas to the EU, articulating schemes of reversed conditionality. Being aware of their inability to promise rewards or threaten EU institutions with sanctions, the three leaders linked their reversed conditionality to EU security concerns. Both the prospects of the unification of Albania and Kosovo and Serbia’s full alliance with Russia have been perceived as major threats to regional security. By evoking these issues, the three Western Balkan leaders sought to gain concessions on their countries’ EU accession paths.

The leaders of Albania and Serbia also exhibited flexibility and adaptability to changing circumstances. Rama de-escalated his discourses when they appeared to be counterproductive. For his part, Vučić continuously adapted Serbia’s balancing act to the changing conditions of Russia’s war against Ukraine to avoid the risk of sanctions by EU or Russian authorities. Given Thaçi’s resignation in 2020, we cannot ascertain whether a similar strategic learning process also occurred in his case.

Our empirical cases also showed the different ways in which reversed conditionality was used and the complexity of the factors accounting for the different EU reactions to the expectations of each applicant country leader. A comparative examination of the findings in each case is revealing. Reversed conditionality has been clearly communicated through discourses and/or actions. The latter entailed more subtle ways of conveying messages, short of openly issuing threats and alluding to the fears and concerns of the other side. That said, the determinacy of reversed conditionality does not appear to be the most important parameter. The explicit threats of unification of Albania and Kosovo initially irritated the EU and were later ignored. On the other hand, the rather vaguely articulated threats of Serbia fully siding with Russia were taken seriously.

The case studies also indicate that the aim of reversed conditionality ranged from affecting the scope of specific reforms prescribed by the EU to influencing the pace of the accession process. From a temporal perspective, reversed conditionality may have short-term, medium-term, or long-term objectives. While, in 2018, Rama linked his threat of unification to Albania achieving EU accession by 2025 (a medium-term objective), the Vučić regime linked its conditionality to the implicit tolerance of undemocratic practices in Serbia (a short-term objective). In Kosovo’s case, Thaçi alternated between linking the threat of the unification of Albania and Kosovo to short-term (i.e. visa liberalisation) and long-term objectives (EU accession).

Moreover, the two empirical studies demonstrate that the domestic appeal and international resonance of reversed conditionality are crucial for its credibility. Despite the explicitness and magnitude of the unification threat, EU institutions increasingly downplayed it. The idea of unification of Albania and Kosovo had no international sponsors, and the actions of the countries’ leaders were uncoordinated. In addition, this reversed conditionality was not endorsed domestically in either of the countries concerned. On the other hand, in Serbia’s case, the threat of aligning more closely with Russia was very credible. It corresponded to the pro-Russia attitudes of the Serbian people and the positions of the country’s different political parties. Notably, the Russian regime has also actively encouraged the Serbian authorities’ distancing from the West.

With respect to adoption costs, the EU institutions appeared eager to accept a delay in a candidate country’s fulfilment of accession requirements. However, in both cases, reversed conditionality did not bring about a lowering of EU accession conditions. Reversed conditionality yielded poor or no results. That said, we should not underestimate the repercussions of the EU’s temporary concessions to the leaders of candidate countries in the case of democratic backsliding. The consistency of the EU’s enlargement policy and the reliability of accession conditionality have been compromised. Moreover, the image of the EU’s normative power in the eyes of the democratic pro-European forces in candidate countries has been damaged.

It is impossible to conduct an exhaustive examination of reversed conditionality in EU enlargement negotiations with just two case studies. Research on additional cases would provide more empirical evidence about how applicant country leaders strive to advance their interests in EU accession negotiations. Moreover, examining the cases of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova, the three most recent countries to have been offered the prospect of EU accession, will show whether processes of policy imitation or transfer of practices are at play. Finally, a more in-depth investigation of the agency of applicant country leaders in EU accession negotiations would help us gain a more comprehensive understanding of the policy learning dynamics in the EU’s enlargement process.