EU Membership: The Union’s fear of accepting “balkanajzers”

The system recognizes only “balkanizers,” not “balkanajzers”

Europe’s leading politicians, especially in Germany, France, and several other European Union member states, increasingly resemble a line of goalkeepers standing in front of the gate that leads into the Union. They are afraid that people from Southern and Eastern Europe might actually get through. And that fear persists despite the fact that it was they themselves who invited them onto the field. Two decades later, the ball still hasn’t gone into the net.

We tend to imagine the political leadership of EU as goalkeepers guarding the entrance. They stand there nervously, worried that the inhabitants of Southern and Eastern Europe, still outside the Union, might actually cross the threshold. Western Europe chose an open-ended approach to enlargement and invited everyone on the continent to take part in this game, including Southeast Europe. Yet twenty years later, those invited are still unable to score.

The so-called candidate countries remain stuck at the penalty spot. Instead of lining up for a decisive shot, they keep circling within the chalk line drawn around them by the EU. To step out of that circle, they must fulfill accession criteria imposed by Brussels. But those conditions are structured in a way that makes them effectively unattainable, particularly when it comes to the economic convergence expected from candidate states.

According to calculations based on current average growth rates in both the EU and the candidate countries, as published by the OECD, real economic convergence would be reached only in 2076, more than fifty years from now. Until then, the outflow of people and capital from Southeast Europe to Western Europe is likely to continue, through migration, trade deficits, debt repayments, and the export of cheap labor.

People from Southeast Europe who are not EU citizens are often implicitly treated as a threat. In this text, they are referred to as “balkanajzers,” a term coined by writer, musician, and entertainer Danko Rabrenović, who lives and works in Cologne and Düsseldorf. He introduced it in his 2015 book “Balkanajzer – A Yugoslav in Germany”. Between 2005 and 2015, Rabrenović hosted nearly 600 episodes of his radio show “Balkanajzer” on WDR in Cologne.

Rabrenović explained that he wanted a word that conveyed action while reversing the original negative meaning associated with the Balkans. His aim was to shift perspective by telling the real stories of people from Southeast Europe who migrated to Germany. He wanted to challenge the stereotypes embedded in the term “balkanization” and replace them with empathy. In his understanding, “balkanajzers” change Germany and Western Europe for the better through their lives and experiences. They are not the destabilizing figures the West fears.

Traditionally, “balkanization” refers to the fragmentation of a region into smaller, often hostile and politically weak entities, usually along ethnic, religious, or political lines. The term carries connotations of instability and conflict.

That definition does not come from a dictionary or a scholar. It comes from a chatbot ChatGPT, which I asked to explain the term. Like all such systems, it is trained on existing texts and reproduces dominant narratives, assumptions, and prejudices. In doing so, it reflects what is already widely accepted, including the negative framing of the Balkans.

When asked whether the EU truly fears that enlarging by roughly four percent of its population could undermine its cohesion if six Southeast European countries joined, economic arguments quickly fall apart. EU companies, especially German and Italian ones, are already deeply embedded in the region. Around 80 percent of the Western Balkans’ trade is conducted with EU member states. Studies by economists Vasja Rant, Mojmir Mrak, and Matej Marinč have shown that the financial cost of enlargement through cohesion and structural funds would be negligible for the Union.

Yet the machine, much like EU politicians, think tanks, and much of the media, went on to list familiar concerns: weak rule of law, corruption, fragile democratic institutions, doubts about commitment to EU values, limited integration capacity, and public fears about migration and cultural differences.

In short, the system recognizes only “balkanizers,” not “balkanajzers.”

Politicians, unlike machines, are expected to offer vision rather than merely list concerns. In a speech at Charles University in Prague in August 2022, former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz argued that EU enlargement to the east benefits everyone and that Germany, as a central European country, has a responsibility to connect east and west, north and south.

Yet in the same speech, Scholz warned that each new member increases the risk that unanimity-based decision-making will be blocked by vetoes. More members, he suggested, could paralyze the Union.

This contradiction lies at the heart of the EU’s enlargement dilemma. On the one hand, leaders insist that Europe is incomplete without the Western Balkans. On the other, they fear that admitting these countries could lead to internal fragmentation, a kind of “balkanization” of the EU itself. Beneath this lies an unspoken anxiety that the Union might share the fate of Yugoslavia, dissolving under the weight of internal conflicts among supposedly irrational and selfish nations.

To avoid this, leaders like Scholz and Macron advocate expanding qualified majority voting in areas such as foreign policy, enlargement, and finance. Smaller and eastern EU member states resist this, fearing a loss of sovereignty and influence, and the dominance of larger powers.

In effect, a modern version of Brezhnev’s doctrine of limited sovereignty looms in the background, now repackaged as a tool to preserve EU unity. Combined with fears about the consequences of Ukraine’s eventual accession, these contradictions explain why further enlargement toward the southeast or east is unlikely anytime soon.

This raises a critical question: can the EU keep candidate countries politically aligned if membership remains a distant illusion? Or will those countries eventually stop fearing the consequences of drifting away?

In “The Prince”, Niccolo Machiavelli asks whether it is better for a ruler to be loved or feared. His conclusion is blunt: it is safer to be feared. Much of international relations theory stems from this logic.

The EU, however, no longer inspires fear or love. It has become routine. Its power is exercised primarily through trade, regulation, and gradual alignment, not through decisive political authority. Even the recent calls for a “geopolitical EU” have not changed this reality. In the end, what matters most is maintaining a positive trade balance.

Admitting new members would disrupt existing power relations. That is why Southeast Europeans are still seen primarily through the lens of fear, as potential destabilizers rather than contributors. This undermines the EU’s self-image as a peace project and a civilian power, exposing its imperial reflexes.

As a result, candidate countries increasingly view the EU without emotion. While the Union continues to expand economically and absorb labor from the east and southeast, it withholds political inclusion. In doing so, it loses leverage. Fear fades, conditions lose force, and what remains is calculation rather than aspiration.

Will this story ever have a happy ending? Will Europe overcome its fear of enlargement and become whole? No one can say. Predictions about the future are always uncertain.

What is clear is that Western decision-makers are increasingly driven by anxiety about “geopolitical competition.” What is needed instead is calm, focus, and confidence. Only a goalkeeper who remains completely calm can force the shooter to kick the ball straight into his hands. /Nova/