The European Union Accession and Climate Change Policies in the Western Balkan Countries

Democracy, economic development and even statehood itself are all less than secure in the Balkans, a region with a history of conflict. Now, as the countries of the region (Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo) strive for individual and collective stability, they face the additional challenges brought by climate change and do so against a background of weak or recovering economies with limited budgets for addressing issues of environmental protection, insufficient environmental regulation or implementation, limited public participation and political tensions. Looking to the current legal and institutional framework on climate change in this group of countries, we try to identify the main obstacles to climate change policy and to access what has been the EU role at this level. We defend that although the several challenges that these states still must address on, such as corruption and weak governance, the EU accession process has been the main political driver of change in the region, providing opportunities for improving the environment in different ways. Using the comparative method, we argue that there is a correlation between institutional capacity and implementation of environmental laws and that governance aspects have a strong effect on environmental actions and outcomes.