![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldMy thanks to Alexander Bossy for informing me, via the BBC, that the European Union has announced that it is ready to begin negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro as an eventual precursor to EU membership, though as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jussi_jalonen notes at Dragan Antulov's blog stringent conditions will likely be imposed.
At one level, this is good news: A European Union that permanently excludes the western Balkans would always be incomplete. At another level, this is sad news: Two decades ago, the very idea that Belgrade would get into a European Community-descended federation after Bucharest would have struck observers as bizarre. At still another level, this is irrelevant: The upcoming collapse of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro and the complications of Kosova/o will, as certainly as Britney Spears will transform the situation radically. And from the perspective of a happier alternate-historical world than ours, if only Yugoslavia had managed to use its manifest advantages the entire booming federation would have gotten into the European Union at the same time as its northern neighbours last year.
jussi_jalonen notes at Dragan Antulov's blog stringent conditions will likely be imposed.At one level, this is good news: A European Union that permanently excludes the western Balkans would always be incomplete. At another level, this is sad news: Two decades ago, the very idea that Belgrade would get into a European Community-descended federation after Bucharest would have struck observers as bizarre. At still another level, this is irrelevant: The upcoming collapse of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro and the complications of Kosova/o will, as certainly as Britney Spears will transform the situation radically. And from the perspective of a happier alternate-historical world than ours, if only Yugoslavia had managed to use its manifest advantages the entire booming federation would have gotten into the European Union at the same time as its northern neighbours last year.
