Research Papers

Most accounts of European integration stress the positive role that EU conditionality and other foreign policy tools play in the process of institutional adjustment to EU standards. This paper explores whether the EU can affect conflict management in post-conflict and conflict-prone contexts in the Balkans and beyond (within the framework of European accession and association). The EU’s role is analysed on two dimensions: as a traditional third party player in conflict management, and as an agent imposing conditionality. Drawing from documentary research, the article claims that the EU’s role in conflict resolution has been undermined by clashing EU member perspectives and the weak leverage of the EU despite its assumed conditionality power. This challenge relates to a recent scholarly debate that revolves around the impact of the EU acting in a dual capacity, namely as a third party in conflict management and as an agent of European integration and association.