For some in the European Union, the return of Donald Trump to the White House was dire news. His presidency could mean renewed trade wars, tariffs and an uncertain fate for Ukraine.
For others, however, it was reason to celebrate. In the Balkans, where countries such as Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina have been waiting for years to join the EU, right-wing political forces more compatible with the Trump worldview got a boost.
“They feel they might get away with things they did that were frowned upon from others within the EU,” Vanja Filipovic, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s head of mission to NATO, tells The Parliament.
Serbia, in particular, has drifted so far from the EU’s accession criteria that it raises doubts over its membership prospects.
Boosting the right
Donald Trump in the White House could pose problems for the EU’s languishing enlargement agenda. Those in the far-right camp could use it to strengthen their own nationalist rhetoric.
“Reactionaries all over Europe were burning their votive candles hoping Trump would come back, thinking: ‘Great, there's going to be that much less restraint that we have to exercise’,” Kurt Bassuener, co-founder of the Berlin-based Democratization Policy Council, a transparency NGO, tells The Parliament.
Geopolitics have shifted quite a bit since many of these countries were granted EU candidate status. The first was North Macedonia in 2005, followed by Montenegro and Serbia in 2010, Albania in 2014, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2022. Kosovo, which neither Serbia nor five EU members recognise, applied in 2022 and is also on the candidate list.
Progress has been slow. North Macedonia’s accession journey has stalled after the country’s lawmakers objected to changes to its constitution, which proposed adding language protections in recognition of the country’s Bulgarian minority.
Montenegro is the next most likely member, though probably not until at least 2029. Further afield, Georgia – the one candidate not to share a border with the EU – has drifted into authoritarianism and closer to Russia. There and in Moldova, also under consideration for membership, accusations of voter fraud abound.
Serbia, under President Alexander Vučić, has tried to play both sides. He has brandished his nationalist credentials, such as draping himself in a Serbian flag at the UN while the assembly debated marking the Srebenica genocide.
Ethnic tensions remain. In June, the Serbian government and the Republika Srpska, which rules the northernmost part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, adopted an “all-Serb declaration” which seeks to overturn the post-Dayton settlement and reclaim Kosovo as a part of Serbia.
“In Serbia, they saw Trump as their chance to create a greater Serbia,” Tomislav Sokol, a Croatian MEP, tells The Parliament. His Balkan country, also a result of the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia, joined the EU in 2013.
Trump’s first term may offer a preview of his second. Back in 2019, he appointed Richard Grenell as special envoy for Serbia and Kosovo peace negotiations, with little collaboration with EU counterparts. Now, the president-elect has named Grenell as an envoy for special missions, tasking him with helping the incoming administration deal with foreign policy challenges.
Copenhagen criteria obsolete?
In 2023, EU officials offered a €6bn growth plan to the Western Balkan countries, hoping to double the region’s economy over the next decade and accelerate their efforts to join the bloc. The aid is contingent on reforms that would bring their economies in line with EU reform and growth rules.
Whether a country qualifies for EU accession is based on the Copenhagen criteria. They require a country to preserve democratic governance and human rights, have a functioning market economy and effectively implement EU law.
The annual ranking by Reporters Without Borders classifies Serbia as “partly free.” Amnesty International has said new laws passed by Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina threaten freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. In North Macedonia, activist voices are regularly repressed, according to Amnesty.
“If we look at Trump’s track record before and also his speeches now, he has no attachment to the values of democracy and the rule of law,” Vessela Tcherneva, deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, tells The Parliament. “I think a lot of those leaders in those countries are going to see his return to the White House as a kind of blank cheque.”
Serbia straddles a thin line between the West and Russia – angering Moscow by joining the UN resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine and refusing to recognise Russia’s annexations. Belgrade has also indirectly provided around €800m of ammunition exports to Ukraine.
It has simultaneously frustrated the EU by declining to join its sanctions regime against Russia, which expanded following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A question of self-interest
That has put EU enlargement more into a security context, as Brussels increasingly views the need to bring more third countries into its fold lest they fall into Russia’s.
“After 24 February 2022, there was a strategic reassessment of European security, and this is part of the argument for why the EU needs to enlarge,” says Bassuener. “But what kind of EU do you want?”
Some argue that the path to EU membership has become more transactional, as opposed to values based. In 2024, Serbia and the EU signed a deal for a lithium mining project, despite environmental protests in Serbia and accusations that it undermined the EU’s Green Deal.
“The EU has gone from calling out crooked elections [in Serbia] in December to saying: ‘Hey, we have a great partnership’ in July,” Bassuener says.
Other commercial interests to consider come from ousted EU member Hungary, which in October loaned €500m to North Macedonia as part of a “strategic partnership” that critics have accused of hiding political interests.
The Hungarian state owns six media outlets there. Orbán has described Republika Srpska leader, Milorad Dodik, as an “honourable neighbour.”
“There is a very clear axis of influence emerging there,” says Tcherneva.
Part of that influence extends across the Atlantic, with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, pursuing property deals in Serbia and Albania.
As EU promises of membership stall, Balkan states are pursuing their own interests, which can align more closely with Trump’s preference to “pick and choose your allies,” says Vessela.
The EU, however, is playing a similar game. Enlargement has become increasingly part of an interest to pull countries out of Russia’s orbit. Under Trump, it’s unclear which way the US might lean.