The EU Problem We Need to Talk About

By: Saša Janković

Dear Ilir,

I have been thinking a great deal about your previous article, in which you compellingly argue that neither democracy nor European integration functions according to the rules we once took for granted.

And I am seeing it through the lenses of a recent poll showing that, among all the countries of the Western Balkans, the EU is the least attractive for the citizens of Serbia. I believe that the statistics indicate a deeper issue, relevant beyond our borders, and connected to the essence of your statement.

For many years, EU membership in Serbia was associated with a clear promise: not only economic prosperity, but belonging to a community of constitutional democracy, rule of law, and political freedom.

That perception is now under pressure. The question is no longer only whether the EU is attractive, but what exactly it represents today – and why that representation is no longer persuasive for a growing number of citizens in Serbia.

Why do people like me want their country to become a member of the EU? Because of its values, above all its commitment to constitutional democracy. To me, Europe is synonymous with the rule of law and legal certainty, free elections, respect for human dignity, freedom, equality, human rights, institutional stability, democratic accountability, solidarity, and high environmental standards.

At the same time, economically speaking, the EU is currently losing ground to the other major global players. The United States dominates the digital economy, artificial intelligence and capital markets. China is catching up through a combination of state-led industrial policy and technological development. One need only look at China’s automotive industry to see that European manufacturers can no longer count on the technological and market advantages they took for granted for decades.

Europe remains strong in engineering, pharmaceuticals, the chemical industry and precision manufacturing, but precisely in the sectors that will determine future growth, its gap is becoming apparent.

These are all serious challenges. But each of them can be addressed, and none of them is the key reason why I became committed to Europe. The much more important question is whether Europe remains true to itself. While its economic strength may once have been the principal argument for joining the EU, today its greatest strength is, above all, its political architecture.

Precisely because it is under economic pressure, the European Union must not abandon the European values that constitute its greatest comparative advantage.

It is because of those values that I remain committed to Europe and want to see my country become a member of the European Union. If EU membership were merely a matter of interests, without a community of values, one could argue that Vučić’s policy of balancing among different centres of power is more rational than a clear European orientation. It is precisely because I see and experience the consequences of such an approach that I cannot agree with that conclusion.

If, as you argue, European democracy no longer functions in the way I understood it when I embraced the European idea – and I fear you are telling the truth – then it is entirely legitimate to ask what makes Europe more attractive today than other centres of power. If it is prepared to relativize its greatest strength – constitutional democracy and the liberal relationship between the citizen and the state – then the European project is reduced to a matter of geopolitical interest. And that is something altogether different.

You see, I do not feel like a member of a nation that has spent twenty years waiting in a corridor to be admitted somewhere. Rather, I feel like a member of a nation that once lived within a system of values – far from perfect, but nevertheless a system with many positive features – which then collapsed. Instead of building a new one, ideally founded on constitutional democracy, we were left confused, under the illusion that living exposed to every wind was the same as being free, while opportunists, both from within and from outside, were stripping us bare.

To me, European values have never been geographical; they have always been political. Europe was never the goal simply because it was Europe, but because it represented a place where freedom, the rule of law, and limited government mattered more than raw power.

I believe we need the European Union as a point of support to establish, after more than thirty years, such a constitutional order and a compatible, sustainable economic system, because we have quite evidently failed to do so on our own.

The European Union is imperfect, as are all human creations. If it is currently going through a crisis of competitiveness, it can overcome it. Economies rise and slow. Industries emerge and disappear. Technological advantages shift. Far more difficult than restoring economic competitiveness would be restoring confidence that the European Union remains a community founded on freedom, the rule of law, and accountable government. That is precisely why abandoning those values would be its greatest strategic mistake.

I believe that this will not happen – not even in the case of its relationship with the countries of the Western Balkans.

Kindest regards,
Saša

Twenty Years of Waiting in the Hallway