The Role of Identity Discourse in the EU Accession Process. Case Studies: Montenegro and Serbia

The EU has faced several challenges in recent years which raise questions on the ‘Future of Europe’ but also those of disintegration (Vollaard, 2016). One of the prominent issues is the acceleration of illiberal practices in some democracies that have become Member States since 2004. Issues relating to the rule of law, media freedom and freedom of expression have been worsening. (Kelemen, 2017; Sedelmeier, 2014). Simultaneously, EU integration of the Western Balkans, and external Europeanisation (Schimmelfennig, 2010), have not been as effective as planned, with the European Commission (2020a) noting that ‘it is also clear that the effectiveness of the overall accession process and of its implementation must be improved further’. Similar issues with illiberal practices such as those seen in some EU Member States continue to stifle democratic progress in the Balkans (Dzankic et al., 2019). Despite these concerns, the EU accession process in two Western Balkan countries, Serbia and Montenegro, continues and is designed to lead both countries to becoming EU members (European Commission, 2023).
Most research on the EU accession process has been focused within the two logics of social action, the logic of consequence and the logic of appropriateness (Schimmelfennig, 2010; Borzel, 2016; Matlak et al., 2018) noting the political, structural and institutional role different EU and domestic actors carry. These include different aspects of conditionality (Grabbe, 1999; Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier, 2004), costs and benefits of socio-economic interdependence (Moravcsik and Vachudeva, 2003) and the importance of shared community values and norms (Checkel 2001; Herrmann et al., 2004). However, very little research has been done on the role of identity discourse that the EU institutions and their officials facilitate within the EU accession process. My research addresses this gap in literature by focusing on observing and comparing the legitimising discourses that take place throughout the negotiations between the EU and national partners of Serbia and Montenegro. The thesis aims to further our understanding of the accession process, by looking at how the EU institutions and their officials, through the identity construction of ‘EU/Europe-Self’ and ‘Western Balkans – Other’, discursively shape the identity construction of these two accession countries, thus also contributing to (the lack of) progress of the EU accession process. I observe this institutional balkanism by using discourse analysis of the official EU and national documents and speeches, and through a series of semi-structured elite interviews with negotiators and political leaders. The aim is better to understand how EU actors normatively shape the accession process, and whether this impacts upon their accession state counterparts, thus potentially impacting the conditions for sustainable EU accession in the Balkans.