Deconstructing the EU’s Routes of Influence in Justice and Home Affairs in the Western Balkans

Abstract: What routes of influence could the European Union use to bring the Western Balkan states closer to EU standards in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA)? The paper argues that although the mechanisms of Europeanization identified for the Central and Eastern European countries are useful for understanding the EU's external influence, they are not sufficient for fully deconstructing the avenues of external leverage. The key to understanding the Europeanization of the Western Balkans is to take policy-related conditionality into account, in addition to membership conditionality. In offering more relaxed travel conditions in exchange for the signing of an EC readmission agreement and reforming domestic JHA, the EU could counterbalance the shortcomings of the pre-accession strategy and establish an additional avenue of external leverage. The paper suggests understanding the EU's use of policy-related conditionality in the Western Balkans as exemplary for the European Neighbourhood Policy.