Protesters in Athens. Demotix/Aitor Saez. All rights reserved.The EU looks, walks and talks like an empire. After extending its borders into Central and Eastern Europe, the EU has just created its third protectorate in the Balkans. From now on Greece will effectively be run by the EU the way Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina already are.
Empire is not a synonym of evil despite some bad historical connotations, especially from the colonial era. Power can be exercised in noble ways, and peripheries often prefer to be “conquered” than abandoned. However, the EU’s ambition to run dysfunctional countries by decree is doomed to fail and will represent yet another blow to the project of European integration. Formal involvement of the UN or the IMF in running the protectorates will not exonerate the EU.
Enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe has been successful because it empowered local actors. Fragile states were asked to adopt EU laws and regulations, but they were not ruled by “guys in black suits” from outside. The EU’s Balkan protectorates are not empowered but subjugated. Over the past several years Kosovo’s and Bosnia-Herzegovina were de facto governed by European officials. European institutions and EU members were by far the largest donors to these countries. They had their peacekeepers and police forces on the ground there. Most of the laws and institutions in these countries were set up and run under EU supervision. EU officials frequently intervened in detailed economic and fiscal provisions related to tax, customs or privatization. For instance, in Bosnia-Herzegovina the EU once created a ‘Bulldozer Committee’ to push through simplification of tax codes and boost public revenues with a country value added tax.
