BERLIN, May 24 (UPI) -- With Montenegro breaking away from Serbia, Europe is getting a new country. But what about the European Union?
The successful Montenegrin push for independence from Serbia may pose a problem to the 27-member EU which is already suffering from enlargement fatigue.
The final from the referendum removed any lasting doubts Tuesday, after 55.5 percent of the ballot chose independence. The Serbian leadership in Belgrade said it would respect the outcome of the referendum, the rules of which had been closely brokered by Brussels, where officials said they would also respect the result. But the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana at the same time did not elevate Montenegrin hopes for a swift accession to the EU; after all, Brussels wished the two countries had stayed together, fearing further split-ups and instability in the Balkans.
It was Solana who set the mark for independence as high as 55 percent.
"They have administered the whole process, now they can't just bail out," said Klaus Segbers, international security policy expert and head of the East Europe Institute, a political think tank at Berlin's Free University.
Europe now has two rather than one country bidding for entry into the club; and while the EU is as attractive as ever -- having jumpstarted economic growth in the Eastern European states and offering vast financial support -- it is also suffering from a serious enlargement crisis.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a speech earlier this month to Germany's lawmakers said the EU should make clear where its borders are. While the EU obviously had to honor ongoing accession talks, it couldn't enlarge forever, she said.
That view is shared by people across the continent, who fear Brussels may be rendered inefficient by an ever-expanding process.
"No country will anytime soon have the chances to get into the EU because of the alleged enlargement fatigue," said Dusan Reljic, a Balkans expert with the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin-based think tank. "But the entire population of the Western Balkans are only 4 percent of the EU, so it's just a small drop."
Montenegro is a tiny country, which would hardly influence the EU's policy making, but could greatly benefit from club membership. The roughly 650,000 Montenegrins tucked away in their mountainous country would be a far easier addition than Turkey is, which would be the largest and most populous nation in the EU, if granted entry.
And given the prospect of accession, reforms securing the rights of the Serbian minority (roughly 30 percent), who at the moment are deeply unhappy about the breakaway, might be accelerated. Montenegro had hoped for swifter EU membership after a breakup from Serbia, which has a dubious human rights record and has angered the EU due to its failure -- or unwillingness, as some say -- to locate and hand over war crimes suspect Ratko Mladic.
But there is another problem: Kosovo. Brussels is not eager to irritate Serbia as it aims to find an agreeable solution for the province administered by the United Nations. Any deal may include all three countries to join the EU together. Before that happens, observers in Brussels say, the conflicts in the region have to be solved.
Montenegro by itself would have to leap a few more hurdles to be granted accession. The country is so small that it would have a tough time finding enough diplomats for all the administrative bodies of the EU. While it would likely meet the human rights criteria set forth by the EU, Reljic said, Montenegro would need to step up the fight against government corruption and organized crime.
Government officials have been allegedly involved in cigarette smuggling, Reljic said, and the current leader, Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, "does not have a particularly clean sheet."
Montenegro is voting in October, however, and it may well be that the Djukanovic is pushed out of office by a coalition government, Reljic said.
But before any kind of talks start, Montenegro first has to be granted entry to the United Nations, which "won't happen before September," he said.
