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The western Balkans and the EU
西巴尔干半岛和欧盟
In the queue
请排队等候
The door to membership remains open, but the region must do more to get it
欧盟的大门永远为西巴尔干半岛敞开，但是该地区必须做更多方可获得该身份
TO THOSE who oppose further European Union expansion to the western Balkans, the statement in July by Jean-Claude Juncker, the new European Commission president, was heartening. Negotiations would continue, he said, but “no further enlargement will take place over the next five years.” The political message seemed to be that the whole process was being slowed down.
对于那些反对西巴尔干半岛入盟的人来说，新任欧盟委员会主席让-克洛德·容克在七月份发表的声明足以让他们兴奋不已。容克表示，谈判仍在继续，但是“未来五年不会有进一步外扩。”这则政治信息似乎显示了欧盟扩大的整个进程正在慢下来。
The statement was “controversial and populistic,” says Stefan Fule, the outgoing enlargement commissioner, because no Balkan country would have been ready to join in the next five years. “It was a wrong message to the western Balkans at a wrong time”. Rumours spread the enlargement job would be dropped in Mr Juncker's new commission. A few angry words (and tweets) from Carl Bildt, the outgoing Swedish foreign minister, helped head that off. To drop the enlargement portfolio, he said, would be a “very bad signal” and an “abdication of responsibility”.
即将卸任的欧盟扩大委员会专员 斯特凡·富尔表示，由于巴尔干半岛的国家并没有做好在未来五年进入欧盟的准备，这个“民粹主义的声明是很有争议性的”。“对西巴尔干半岛来说，这是个错误时间的错误信息”。关于欧盟扩大工作将被容克的新委员会腰斩的谣言正漫天传播。而即将离任的瑞典外交部长卡尔比尔特的一些愤恨的言辞（和他的推文），有效地制止了谣言传播。他说，扩大工作的中断，将会是“一个极其不利的信号”和“一种对责任的放弃”。
The appointment earlier this month of Johannes Hahn, an Austrian, as the new commissioner, led to a search for meaning in his job title: neighbourhood policy and enlargement negotiations. The neighbourhood comprises six ex-Soviet countries plus the southern Mediterranean. Charles Tannock, a British member of the European Parliament, suggests that Mr Juncker's downplaying of enlargement “is to assuage public opinion”. It has become a harder sell, he says, because of fears of organised crime and migration, quite apart from the unrelated controversy about a future membership of Turkey.
在本月初，奥地利人约翰内斯哈恩被任命为新专员，引起了对他这个专员职位意义所在的一次探究：欧盟下一步要推进睦邻政策和扩大协商。现如今欧盟的邻居是6个前苏联国家和南地中海。英国人查尔斯坦诺克——欧洲议会成员——表示，容克对扩大政策的淡化就是在“平息舆论”。他表示，除了对土耳其的未来欧盟会员身份的无关争议，出于对有组织犯罪和移民的恐慌，欧盟扩大策略愈发举步维艰。
The western Balkans have lost the previous strong support of Britain, which mainly worries about immigration these days. But Germany has become more active. However, the deeper problems lie not within the EU but in the region itself. The progress of Bosnia, with its dysfunctional government, has been stalled for eight years. That of Macedonia remains blocked by a dispute with Greece about its name. Kosovo is so far behind that it remains the only country west of Ukraine whose citizens cannot travel to the EU's Schengen zone without a visa.
西巴尔干半岛已经失去了先前来自英国的强力支持，而英国最近也十分头疼外来移民问题。但德国却越来越积极。然而更深层次的问题不在欧盟，而在于西巴尔干半岛本身。因为政府功能失常，波斯尼亚的发展已经停滞了八年。马其顿也因为与希腊在其名字上的争论而一直闭关锁国。科索沃如此落后，它仍旧是乌克兰以西的唯一一个国家，其公民进入欧盟的申根区需要签证。
This leaves Montenegro, which is negotiating, Albania, which became an official candidate in June, and Serbia, which has a green light to begin talks and hopes to do so by the end of the year. Tanja Miscevic, Serbia's chief negotiator, has mixed feelings. Putting the emphasis on negotiations is a good thing, she says, but political commitment also matters.
这种情况使得黑山目前正在积极谈判，阿尔巴利亚已于6月份成为欧盟的正式候选人，还有塞尔维亚，也为谈判开了绿灯并希望于今年年底落实。对此，塞尔维亚的首席谈判专家Tanja Miscevic却表现的喜忧参半。她说，着重谈判是好事，但是政治承诺也很重要。
There is a risk, says a new report by The Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group of analysts, of a “Turkish scenario” of talks that never end. That could open up other dangers, including meddling by Russia or Turkey. The report suggests that giving up the goal of EU membership, even if not formally, would have consequences “for democracy, inter-ethnic relations and for long-term economic investments”.
欧洲政策咨询委员会的分析师们针对巴尔干半岛的一个最新报告显示，永无尽头的“土耳其方案”会谈存有风险。这可能引出其他的危险，包括俄罗斯或是土耳其的干预。报告还表明，即使是形式上放弃加入欧盟，这样做还是会对“民主国家、民族间关系和长期的经济投资”有影响。
Luckily the western Balkans will shortly acquire one new ally in Brussels: Federica Mogherini, the Italian who is to be the EU's high representative for foreign policy. Her country, like Mr Hahn's, knows the Balkans well and understands that enlargement is a security issue. A stable Balkans is an asset for all, but an unstable and poor one could export crime and migrants or even lurch back into conflict. For Mr Juncker, says Miroslav Lajcak, the Slovak foreign minister, enlargement is clearly not a priority; but this need not cause the Balkans undue alarm. As Elmar Brok, chairman of the European Parliament's foreign-affairs committee gruffly sums up, they just need to do their homework.
幸运的是，西巴尔干半岛将很快会在布鲁塞尔获得一个新同盟：将负责欧盟外交政策最高级代表的意大利人Federica Mogherini。与哈恩的国家一样，她的国家，对巴尔干半岛十分了解，也明白扩大问题是一种安全问题。一个稳定的巴尔干半岛是世界的财富，但是一个动乱又贫穷的巴尔干半岛很可能会输出犯罪和移民甚至陷入战争。斯洛伐克外交部长Miroslav Lajcak表示，对于容克来说，欧盟扩大显然不是应该优先考虑的事情，但是欧盟扩大也不必引起无故恐慌。就像Elmar Brok—欧洲议会外交事务委员会主席—总结的那样，他们只需要做好自己分内的事就好。
