Response to 2016 and Years Before: European Union and its Future

Our research fellow Michal Vít wrote an opinion piece concerning future of the European Union in the context of Western Balkan. Michal Vit was a participant at the international conference Move.Link.Engage, organized by the Belgrade Open School on 18 and 19 September 2017.

First of all, the future of the EU is about developing and cultivating narrative of the EU integration as a thing that is worth to defend. At the same time, one should be aware to avoid simplified propaganda supporting the EU because of EU funds provided, etc.
(...)  This brings the most crucial commitment – to develop the narrative of the integrated EU not only rhetorically but as a deeply penetrated within public administration or political parties. This penetration and willingness to cooperation on all levels of public administration helps to avoid paradigmatic shift when it comes to cultivation of narrative of the integrated EU.

In current international political environment it is foolish to keep the enlargement process towards Western Balkan in “business as usual” mode. Are the decision makers in both the EU and EU member states aware that the integration process turned into empty phrases?
(​..) As was mentioned above, it is late to expect that suddenly leaders of Western Balkan will start to care about the narrative of the EU without significant political and economical engagement of current EU member states. 

You can read the full article here.