Word: eu
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...Although conditions have improved drastically since the Kosovo War in 1998-9, it is clear that the stabilizing force of EU membership is the only way to normalize relations between the two countries. The EU must immediately take a strong stand in favor of admitting the Balkan nations, including eventually Serbia and Kosovo, if the scars from centuries of ethnic and political conflict in the region are ever to be healed...
...While Serbia has traditionally been closer diplomatically to Russia than to the West, its current leadership is pro-Western and has announced its desire to apply for EU membership in the first half of 2009. The Serbian populace would almost certainly look more favorably on their pro-Western governing coalition if joining the EU becomes a more realistic goal...
...Serbia is still barred from entrance into the EU, however, by several problems, most notably its failure to comply with EU demands that it arrest Ratko Mladic, a former Bosnian Serb general who is accused of carrying out the massacre at Srebrenica during the 1992-5 Bosnian war. The EU has made it clear that Mladic’s capture will be one of the conditions of Serbia’s membership...
...Furthermore, the partnership created in uniting to survive this crisis would likely increase social capital and improve relations between Eastern and Western Europeans. When the newly accepted Eastern European countries first joined the EU, Western Europeans initially reacted with hostility to the wave of immigrants that entered their society. Persistent unison and a shared economic venture may well reduce such antagonism...
...troubled conditions, countries have a natural impulse to turn inward and focus on their own problems. However, the member states of the European Union are not isolated nations, but part of a larger political cooperation. Both for egotistic reasons and for the long-term well being of the EU, Western European countries must lend their support to Eastern European nations and attempt to retain a unified Europe...