The Western Balkans increasingly looks like it is entering an arm build-up: from Croatia’s large-scale military modernisation to Serbia’s rearmament and, more recently, Kosovo’s acquisitions of drones and other military equipment from Turkey and the USA. How should we interpret this trend? Is it primarily a reflection of the broader global surge in defence spending, or does it point to more troubling dynamics given the region’s recent history of conflict?

Although Croatia has been a member of NATO since 2009, it is only now reaching the agreed standard of allocating 2% of GDP to defence and plans to reach 3% by 2030, in line with NATO’s efforts to increase defence spending. It first came close to the 2% target in 2021, when a fleet of second-hand Rafale multi-role fighter jets was purchased. At that time, defence spending was 1,97%, but by 2022 it had already fallen to 1,79%, and by 2003 to 1,75% of GDP.

Croatia has aligned its defence policy with NATO’s defence policy, participating in NATO operations such as KFOR in Kosovo, Sea Guardian in the Mediterranean, and Enhanced Vigilance in the East of the Alliance.

Croatia does not see itself as part of the ‘Western Balkans region’ in either a political or economic sense and does not direct its public policies towards that area. That is why interpreting the modernisation of its defence system as part of a trend in the Western Balkans is a misnomer. Croatia’s armament is taking place within the NATO Alliance and with the help of European funds from the European Defence Fund and the SAFE mechanism, and within the SAFE mechanism Croatia is carrying out joint procurement of weapons with several European countries in three projects (howitzers, tanks, heavy trucks). Likewise, in an alliance with several European countries, Croatia is developing defence drones. All these procurements are focused on the common defence policy of the EU and NATO, and not on the Balkan context.

The impetus for the growth of defence spending in Croatia is global: first, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and then the announcement of the US withdrawal from ensuring Europe’s security.

On the other side, Serbia is not a member of NATO, nor does it intend to become one, and its European integration has been halted, despite formally opened accession negotiations. Unlike Croatia, Serbia was already allocating more than 2% of GDP to defence in 2023, and in the meantime this percentage has risen to around 2,6%. Serbia’s military purchases are not related to the European or Euro-Atlantic context but are aligned with its national defence policy. Despite the passive-aggressive, nominally peaceful rhetoric, Serbia has in several situations clearly demonstrated its military strength. In crisis situations in Kosovo, Serbia demonstrated its military capabilities, for example through army movements, the scrambling of fighter jets and the use of drones. The fact that it never punished the participants in the terrorist operation in the village of Banjska in the north of Kosovo in the autumn of 2023, and that the group’s alleged links with the Serbian Army (its training and arming) were not investigated, indicates that the risk of future escalation of security relations in the Western Balkans is linked to Serbia. This is evidenced by Serbia’s un-investigated connection with the attacks on KFOR in the north of Kosovo in May 2023.

Serbia’s rearmament is also connected with the concept of the Serbian world, which is the latent regional policy of the regime in Belgrade. In the same way, Serbia has never really condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, does not participate in the system of sanctions against Russia (unlike the EU), and politicians in Serbia publicly talk about the establishment of a new paradigm, a multipolar world, whereby the Balkans would no longer be in the sphere of influence of the collective West. In this narrative, with Russian support and the realisation of Serbia’s military goals in the Western Balkans (Kosovo, Montenegro, the entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and perhaps parts of Croatia), these could become Serbia’s military goals.

The arming of Kosovo is only symbolic, and it is visible to the public because of Serbia’s interests, as it creates the appearance of a military danger for Serbia and a justification for further arming by Serbia. Kosovo’s goal is to get closer to the European Union and NATO.

Croatia, Albania and Kosovo have recently moved to deepen defence cooperation, prompting sharp reactions in Serbia. Belgrade has described this as a “military alliance” directed against it. How credible is that claim, and how should these initiatives be assessed in terms of regional security and deterrence?

There is no military alliance between Albania, Croatia and Kosovo. In fact, the Declaration on Military Cooperation, signed in Tirana in March this year, explicitly states: “It does not create any new international or intergovernmental legal obligations between the states, nor does it affect existing obligations with other states.”

The idea of military cooperation is linked to the concept of joint military procurement, but also to the idea of strengthening the southern wing of NATO. By increasing the scale of procurement, Croatia wants to open a niche for its military industry, but its priority goal is to strengthen the European and Euro-Atlantic identity of the Western Balkans.

Albania is a NATO member that has significantly accelerated its accession negotiations with the EU and has the ambition to complete the negotiations by the end of 2027 and join the European Union by the end of 2029. Kosovo is blocked in the process of joining the EU and NATO; it has not even managed to achieve membership in the Council of Europe, and Croatia strongly supports the efforts of the Kosovo authorities to steer their country towards NATO and EU membership.

From a defence policy perspective, Croatia has an interest in moving the external border of the EU and NATO as far away from its borders as possible. When it comes to supporting Kosovo in building its Euro-Atlantic identity, Albania was a natural partner. Unfortunately, after the change of government in August 2020, Montenegro called into question its NATO identity and credibility by jeopardising classified information obtained through exchanges with NATO members and opening a niche of influence for Russian intelligence services, and for the Serbian intelligence service, which, in addition to acting in the interests of its own state, also acts as an intermediary for Russian services. There is also a possibility that Bulgaria, as a NATO member, will join this cooperation in the future.

The aggressive rhetoric of the Belgrade regime related to the Declaration of the Three States on Military Cooperation (which it calls the Triple Pact) is linked to the internal situation in Serbia, the construction of an enemy, and the effort to explain the tendency towards the militarisation of society in Serbia. Kosovo itself is difficult to present to the domestic public as a security threat, and Albania cannot be presented as such either.

Since Croatia began to rebuild its armaments, and especially after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Serbia has systematically presented Croatia as a state that is arming itself because it has ambitions to attack Serbia, even though Croatia’s military purchases in the previous period were smaller than those of Serbia. The reason for such aggressive rhetoric is that the regime is facing social pressures, instability, signs of declining support, and the fact that the current president, who completely controls all branches of government, will be serving his second five-year term next year. The rhetoric about the Triple Pact is intended for the domestic political public in Serbia and serves as a typical tool of homogenisation against an external enemy.

The Declaration on Military Cooperation of Albania, Croatia and Serbia did not stand out in any way from the system of collective security within the NATO alliance.

On EU enlargement, Montenegro and Albania appear best placed to join next, potentially widening the gap with Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and North Macedonia. What would be the strategic and political benefits of adding two EU member states in the Western Balkans – and what risks or unintended consequences might follow from leaving the remaining four outside the Union for longer?

Despite the fact that Montenegro has a significant advantage in terms of the number of closed chapters in the pre-accession dialogue with the EU, and despite being generally seen as a leader in the accession process, and despite Albania’s serious problems with state and nation-building, it seems that Albania’s plan to conclude accession negotiations by the end of 2027 is more realistic than Montenegro’s plan to close twenty accession chapters this year.

Even if Montenegro were to close negotiations by the end of this year, the sword of parliamentary elections at the beginning of next year would still hang over the country, and given the social dynamics there, it is not certain that pro-European political options would secure a majority after the elections, or that the ratification of the Accession Treaty would proceed successfully by the end of 2028.

It is important that the Directorate-General for Enlargement is planning a new type of accession treaty that would incorporate protective mechanisms in the event of democratic regression and abandonment of the European and Euro-Atlantic political direction in Montenegro as a new member. However, since the end of last year, it has been obvious that the dynamics of the accession process have been significantly threatened by domestic political developments. This was evident after French reservations about closing the chapter on fisheries in agriculture, which were caused by the poor work of Montenegro’s Ministry of Agriculture, and the political dynamics that emerged around attempts to block the construction of a treatment plant on the Morača, on the edge of Podgorica, during the New Year holidays.

Montenegro’s problem, which could result in the blocking of accession negotiations, is that a pro-European coalition was not formed to lead the country through the accession process. Instead, a negotiated administration was established, consisting of the pro-European wing of the Montenegrin political arena and most parties advocating pro-Russian and Greater Serbian politics. Moreover, control of parliamentary procedure (the parliamentary speaker) is in the hands of pro-Russian forces. The crisis related to the treatment plant in Botun near Podgorica was used by pro-Russian forces to try to impose constitutional changes to advance the interests of the Serbian national community and the Serbian state in Montenegro, that is, to redefine the constitutional definition of the Montenegrin state.

The only way out of this crisis is for pro-European parties to come together and protect the policies implemented by the Ministry of European Integration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. There is no leadership from the prime minister and president that would ensure the creation of a European bloc able to contest parliamentary elections next spring and win and thus ensure the successful ratification of the Accession Treaty.

Serbia’s accession process remains stalled, while the country has faced more than a year of sustained protests. How do you assess the political situation in Belgrade today? Despite continued mobilisation on the streets, President Aleksandar Vučić has so far managed to retain control – do you see elections as a potential turning point, or are the underlying power dynamics unlikely to shift?

In an authoritarian system such as Serbia’s, which is not based on truly competitive parliamentary elections, elections cannot be the solution to the crisis.

There are no indications that the next elections would prevent the manipulation of voter lists, the importing of voters from other countries, primarily from entities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or even open election theft. The regime increasingly restricts media freedom and the reach of the few remaining independent outlets.

The bigger problem, however, is that neither parliamentary democracy nor a transition from authoritarianism to a democratic order is possible without a strong democratic party infrastructure, and in Serbia the party system has disintegrated. Even the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) has disintegrated, which President Vučić is now trying to replace with a populist movement gathered around him personally. It is notable that after the crisis triggered by the death of 16 people in Novi Sad, the SNS government de facto fell. It had been led by the party president and top name on the SNS electoral list in the 2023 parliamentary elections, Miloš Vučević. The formal post of prime minister was taken over in April last year by Đuro Macut, who is not an SNS member but is among the initiators of Vučić’s populist movement. From the standpoint of a parliamentary system, it therefore appears that the SNS has already lost power in Serbia.

The student movement generated social dynamism over the past year, and it continues to some extent this year, but it is clear that Vučić’s authoritarian rule has consolidated, the repressive apparatus has been strengthened and is fully under the President’s control, and the prosecution and judiciary are being completely subordinated, despite EU warnings about regression in the rule of law.

Serbia – without a relevant parliamentary opposition, without a clear pro-European orientation among a significant part of the electorate, without free media, and without the rule of law – offers no prerequisites for a peaceful transfer of power, nor for a transfer of power in general. Everything points instead towards the establishment of a hybrid regime, only one step away from what Aleksandar Lukashenko has been doing recently, advocating dictatorship as the preferred form of government in a sovereign state.

On the other hand, it is also clear that within the framework of the Three Seas Initiative, European infrastructure projects have been encouraged that would allow Serbia (but also North Macedonia) to remain outside European integration, through the construction of the Via Carpathia transnational highway network, which connects Thessaloniki with Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and further to the Baltic states.

Finally, the Serbia–Kosovo dialogue remains central to long-term regional stability. With Vučić still in power in Belgrade and Albin Kurti back in Pristina, is there any realistic prospect of a durable settlement in the foreseeable future? If so, what kind of outcome – practical normalisation, mutual recognition, or another framework – seems most plausible?

Albin Kurti can be a problem for negotiators because he behaves unorthodoxly and unpredictably, but substantively, as a representative of the political majority of Kosovo Albanians with a strong pro-European and Euro-Atlantic profile, he does not represent a problem.

The framework of the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo is set by the Ohrid Agreement: a clearly defined path that links Serbia’s European perspective with de facto recognition of Kosovo’s independence, thus opening Kosovo’s European perspective. In practice, the dialogue is a technical process by which, on the one hand, institutional protection mechanisms for the Serbian minority in Kosovo would be built and, on the other, it would ensure the peaceful transfer of powers and responsibilities from the institutions that Serbia still controls in Kosovo to the institutions of the state of Kosovo.

The problem with the Serbia–Kosovo dialogue is that President (soon to be prime minister) Vučić is building a hybrid regime in Serbia like Vladimir Putin’s, and Serbia no longer has any ambition to join the European Union.

Belgrade’s offer to the EU boils down to Serbia being accepted into the Union without reforms and without alignment with the acquis Communautaire, even with limited membership without veto rights. This is not a serious political option, but it indicates that the EU’s key motivational lever for influencing Serbia has been lost. Despite occasional tactical mistakes by Kurti’s administration, the EU retains mechanisms of influence over Kosovo to ensure it develops as an integrated, pluralistic society. In the current situation, it therefore seems necessary to set realistic goals and give up the illusion that it is possible to link Serbia’s accession dialogue with the launching of Kosovo’s accession process.