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Begin New Search Political Geography Southeast Europe Author Plamen Pantev

1. The Integration of the Western Balkans in NATO: a Logical Step in the Strengthening of the Regional Security Community in South East Europe

Author:
Plamen Pantev
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
In the Spring of 1991 Mette Skak, a Danish political scientist, and the author of this article, discussed in Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridsky” during a BulgarianDanish conference the possibilities of building a security community in the Balkans – in a similar way as it has been created in the Nordic region of Europe and in the territory covered by NATO and then European Community (EC). The core idea of this concept, elaborated during the 1960s by the American political scholar Karl Deutsch, was to get rid of war as a method of solving conflicting interests between states. It is unthinkable and inapplicable for the member countries of the security community to use force in case of a dispute among them. Of course, certain preconditions are to be met by the participating states and key among them is compatibility of the values of the societies and the states in the group. The discussion led to naming this idea of the two scholars as ‘political science fiction’. To some extent this assessment was true – the wars in a dissolving Yugoslavia had not yet started, the former federation has been lured by the EC, USA and still existing USSR to preserve at any cost its integrity, the animosities of the Cold War Balkan international relations were still persisting, the national democratic transformations in the former totalitarian states were just beginning to toddle.
Topic:
NATO, Regional Cooperation, International Security, Military Affairs, and Regional Integration
Political Geography:
Bulgaria, Balkans, and Southeast Europe

2. Security Risks and Instabilities in Southeastern Europe: Recommended Strategies to the EU in the Process of Differentiated Integration of the Region by the Union

Author:
Plamen Pantev
Publication Date:
11-2000
Content Type:
Case Study
Institution:
Institute for Security and International Studies (ISIS)
Abstract:
The chain of events and developments in Southeastern Europe during the 1990s provoked increasingly sophisticated political reactions, political approaches and longer-term strategies towards the region on the part of the EU. The firm requirement for ethnic tolerance and respect of human rights constitutes one end of the range of EU positions concerning Southeastern Europe. The gradual beginning of the process of integration of some countries from the region in the Union constitutes the other end. At the end of the 1990s, these positions gravitated towards two principles – regionality and conditionality. These principles are partly overlapping and mutually reinforcing, but to some extent also contradictory. The institutional arrangements of these two principles by the EU are identified with the Stability Pact (July 1999) for the principle of regionality, on the one hand, and with the accession negotiations and the Stabilisation and Association Process for the principle of conditionality, on the other hand.
Topic:
Security, European Union, Regional Integration, and Risk
Political Geography:
Europe and Southeast Europe