The year 2024 was marked by crucial elections – both in Europe and the United States – and the continued tensions in the most fragile parts of the Western Balkans. EU enlargement has the potential to stabilize the region and it has gained momentum in 2024. The main question in 2025 will be whether this momentum will be sustained.
The incoming Trump administration has not paid much attention to the Western Balkans, and it is doubtful that the region will play an important role in the US foreign policy. Nevertheless, the global impact of this administration could also be reflected in the Balkans.
While the region is never far away from early elections, only two regular elections are scheduled so far – in Kosovo in February and in Albania in May. In both countries, the incumbents are favourites to return to office. Democracy in the Western Balkans continues to suffer from many longstanding problems, and citizen mobilization in the streets, especially in Serbia, is gaining significance.
2025 – a crucial year for the continuation of EU enlargement momentum
Back in 2018, the European Commission, led at the time by Jean-Claude Juncker, adopted an enlargement strategy which set 2025 as a potential accession year for Serbia and Montenegro. Even at the time, this was described as overly ambitious, and this turned out to be the case, as 2025 has now arrived and no country is at the threshold of entering the Union. For a time, no specific year was proposed as an alternative.
However, following the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, EU leaders started to once again refer to enlargement as a priority. Recently, new dates were mentioned, at least in the cases of Montenegro and Albania, which now aim to close all negotiating chapters by 2026 and 2027, respectively. Serbian leadership also made a more noticeable effort to make at least formal progress on the EU accession path, which is yet to materialize.
The enlargement process has picked up speed in recent months, and the year 2025 will be crucial to see whether this momentum will be maintained. After closing three negotiating chapters in December, Montenegro plans to close more next year, and the Council of the EU confirmed its readiness to start working on the accession treaty with the country “in due time”. Polish Presidency of the Council, which will last until 30 June, committed to making progress in the enlargement.
European Commission will carry out policy reviews in 2025 to determine which reforms are needed to make it enlargement-ready. The negotiations for the next Multi-Annual Financial Framework (2028-2034) are expected to formally begin, and its content will serve as an indicator of whether the EU expects to accept new members in that period.
How will Trump’s second administration handle the region?
Since he won the second term as the President of the United States, neither Donald Trump nor his associates have indicated what they plan to do in the Western Balkans, illustrating a relatively low priority of the region for the current US foreign policy. During Trump’s first term, while there were attempts to change the course on some issues, particularly Serbia-Kosovo relations, continuity mostly prevailed.
In their pre-election analyses, foreign policy experts assessed that Trump’s victory would be a boost for the conservative and nationalist forces in the Balkans and that the American engagement in Europe and in particular in this region “might shrink substantially”. Some Trump cabinet picks, who are perceived to hold more “establishment” views on foreign policy, make it harder to predict to what extent the situation will change once he takes over on 20 January 2025.
Richard Grenell, who got to know the Balkans well during Trump’s first term as President’s Special Envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, was picked by Trump as the Envoy for the Special Missions. The extent to which his work will focus on the Balkans remains unknown. Serbian leadership has already invested in a good relationship with the returning administration, striking business deals with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and (possibly) Donald Trump Jr.
Kosovo-Serbia relations: Continued tensions or progress towards normalization?
If no major upset occurs in the upcoming elections in Kosovo (see below), Albin Kurti and Aleksandar Vučić will continue to participate in the normalization process which has seen no normalization in 2024. In fact, with the 2023 attack in Banjska and the recent water canal explosion, for which Serbia has denied any responsibility, tensions have reached the high point of the past decade.
Vučić and Kurti accepted the 2023 Brussels-Ohrid agreement, which then became a part of their negotiating frameworks for EU membership. The end goal of the agreement has been described as “de facto” recognition, and the sides were called to continue implementing their elements, including the mutual recognition of symbols and documents.
However, various subsequent meetings in Brussels bore little fruit. Kurti’s actions in the north of Kosovo aimed at establishing full state control over the area, without the formation of the Association of the Serb-majority Municipalities, have been seen as adversarial by many in the Serb community and have led to the cooling of Kosovo’s relations with the EU and the US. Serbia’s main shortcoming, apart from the formal requirements of the dialogue, remains the prosecution of Milan Radoičić, who took responsibility for the 2023 Banjska attack.
The term of Miroslav Lajčák, EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue, expires in January 2025. The new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, has not detailed her plans for mediating the dialogue, including whether she would appoint a new Special representative or lead the process herself.
Elections in the region: Can somebody surprise the incumbents?
The parliamentary election in Kosovo is scheduled for 9 February 2025, while the election in Albania is scheduled for 11 May 2025. Incumbent parties led by Albin Kurti in Kosovo and Edi Rama in Albania are favoured to retain power, but even if they do not, no changes are expected in their general geostrategic orientation, as the consensus of supporting Euro-Atlantic integration still exists in both countries.
In 2021, Albin Kurti’s Self-Determination Movement won the most votes by a single party since Kosovo’s declaration of independence, which also enabled it to serve the first full four-year term in office. Opinion polls suggest that the party has maintained a high level of support and that it is leading the two main opposition parties, the Democratic League and the Democratic Party, by a wide margin.
As the campaign in Kosovo started, a controversy emerged when the Central Electoral Commission refused to certify the Serb List, which has had a dominant position among the Serb community. It remains to be seen whether the Serb List will be certified, following the appeals procedure.
In Albania, the ruling Socialist Party is aiming to secure a fourth straight term in office under Prime Minister Edi Rama. The main opposition Democratic Party has suffered splits and infighting in the past couple of years and is now headed by the longtime leader Sali Berisha, former Prime Minister. Berisha spent much of this year under house arrest charged with corruption, which he denies.
The political atmosphere in Albania remains highly polarized, which was highlighted by the European Commission reports as well. Nevertheless, the country has managed to make progress on its EU path and it is expected that the Union will closely observe the conduct of the upcoming elections.
Serbia: Will the ongoing unrest shake the ruling party?
While in June 2024, following its victory in the local elections, the position of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party and President Aleksandar Vučić seemed quite stable, they soon ran into trouble after announcing the resumption of the highly controversial lithium mining project. The scale of protests which began following the announcement took even the ruling party by surprise. Their situation was made even more difficult by the massive protests and student blockades which ensued following the tragic collapse of the recently reconstructed railway station in Novi Sad on 1 November.
For now, the idea of an early parliamentary election has been floated in the public but none of the actors seriously supported it (regular elections are not to take place until 2027). While protests in the streets are massive, political opposition remains fragmented. Since 2016, SNS has successfully weathered multiple political crises and a series of protests. But instead of subsiding, the protests keep getting bigger as the years pass.