Dr. Dimitar Bechev is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe, where he focuses on EU enlargement, the Western Balkans, and Eastern Europe. He is also a lecturer at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford.
Bechev is the author of Turkey under Erdogan (Yale University Press, 2022), Historical Dictionary of North Macedonia (Rowman, 2019), and Rival Power: Russia in Southeast Europe (Yale UP, 2017) as well as co-editor of Russia Rising: Putin’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East and North Africa (Bloomsbury, 2021). He has also published numerous academic articles and policy reports.
His past positions include lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and senior policy fellow, head of the Sofia office at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Bechev has held fellowships at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna; Harvard’s Center for European Studies; and the European Institute, London School of Economics. He contributes frequently to Foreign Policy, Al Jazeera, Politico Europe, and RFE/RL and his quotes have appeared in the FT, the Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other major news outlets.
Entrenched divisions in Bosnia and Herzegovina have hampered EU and U.S. efforts to build functional institutions and integrate the country into Western clubs. Dysfunctionality in turn provides fertile ground for meddling by Russia, which appears to have won the battle for the hearts and minds of Bosnian Serbs.
The EU’s enlargement momentum, fueled by Russia’s war against Ukraine, is wearing off. To make political conditionality work, the union must prioritize securing buy-in from candidate countries’ elites and civil society.
Being pro-EU does not win politicians many votes in the Western Balkans and the Caucasus. There, Viktor Orbán’s version of an illiberal Europe appears to be the union’s top-rated political export.
Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, and Serbia are caught in between Russia and the EU, building ties with the latter even as the former seeks to maintain influence there and deter the West.
The full-scale invasion of Ukraine is accelerating the process of China edging out Russia from Central and Eastern Europe.
The opening of EU accession talks marks an important milestone for Bosnia, where ethnic tensions run high. But progress on the EU track is no remedy for the chronic crisis besetting the country’s politics.
The new government’s pledge to align with EU standards makes Montenegro the likely next addition to the bloc. But fractious domestic politics could yet derail the country’s European ambitions.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Turkey has sought to maintain relations with both Russia and the West: an approach it will strive to continue.
Dimitar Bechev and Oana Popescu-Zamfir discuss the social and political dynamics in the Western Balkans, why EU enlargement to the region has stalled, and how remaining obstacles can be overcome.
The conduct of Serbia’s latest elections points to the country’s democratic decline. The EU cannot stay neutral in the face of President Vucic’s provocations and authoritarian tendencies.
