While we have entered the third year of the war in Europe as a result of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, the difference between the north and the south of the continent is evident in terms of shaping the architecture of security and the rule of law. NATO filled in the pieces of the security architecture in the Northern, Arctic, and Baltic parts, thanks to Sweden joining the Alliance. Sweden will be a center for military activities in the northern part of Europe, linked for the first time in the same military alliance with other countries such as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Norway. At the same time, Sweden will strengthen the defense of the three Baltic NATO members, by providing naval and air support, as well as contributing additional troops to the NATO brigade in Latvia. This group of countries is the vanguard of the rule of law standards. Immediately after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Nordic countries became the "handlers" of the Baltic neighbors on the path of democratic transformation and reunification with Europe.

With Sweden's NATO membership, the Baltic Sea turns into a NATO lake, with Alliance member states surrounding the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, while simultaneously controlling the northern and southern shores of the Gulf of Finland, leading to the second-largest city of Russia, in St. Petersburg. It must be said that Sweden has cooperated in a structured manner with NATO since 1994 when it became part of the Partnership for Peace program. It spends 2% of the Gross Domestic Product on defense, which some of the members of the Alliance still do not do. Last December, Sweden signed the Defense Cooperation Agreement with the US, which provides for allowing US military equipment and troops on Swedish soil. Sweden possesses two world-class military assets, becoming a contributor to European geopolitics: submarines that can control large parts of the Baltic Sea and a consolidated fleet of fighter jets.

In some ways, Sweden's NATO membership is more significant than Finland's membership in 2023. With its long border with Russia, Finland's foreign policy and defense position has always been cautious. In or out of NATO, Finland's goal has historically been how to protect itself from Russia. NATO used to see Finland's neutrality as a key factor in contributing to regional stability. Everything changed in February 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine. Sweden's official reason for not joining NATO had to do with not abandoning Finland, so as not to leave it as the only buffer between the West and Russia. However, when Finland knocked on NATO's doors in the spring of 2022, due to Russian aggression against Ukraine, Sweden had no choice but to join NATO.

The unified response in the north differs from the overlaps and clashes in the south of Europe, even though we live in a new context of the security environment imposed by the Russian aggression against Ukraine. While it was expected that the EU would radically change its approach to the Western Balkans, that is, help to conclude the unfinished conflicts to provide a stable model against Russian aggression in the east of the continent, the EU is falling into the trap of the old policy in support of the status-quo.

Despite the laudable efforts of Albania to host a joint activity between Ukraine and a group of Southeast European countries, the positions formulated in the region regarding the security order in Europe, among NATO members or candidates, on the one hand, and Russia's allies on the other, failed to find common ground.

Although sometimes presented as a power with a large economic presence in the region, Russia's greatest influence is in the political scene, security structures, and intelligence services. This is particularly evident in Serbia, Republika Srpska of BiH, Montenegro, and somewhat less in North Macedonia. In short, Russia sees the Western Balkans as a territory that can constantly destabilize it and from where it can threaten European security.

Although it is said with a certain self-fulfilling prophecy that the countries of the Western Balkans have unanimously condemned Russia's aggression against Ukraine, the truth is that Serbia does so deceitfully, drawing parallels with NATO's intervention in Kosovo about a quarter of a century ago. We cannot talk about a unified stance or response of the countries of the Western Balkans, as long as Serbia refuses to join the sanctions imposed by the West and cultivates political, diplomatic relations, military, and economic with Russia. If Vladimir Putin in 2005 considered the dissolution of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century", Serbia did not accept the post-war reality in the former Yugoslavia, inciting tensions with all its neighbors that had emerged from the former federation. Serbia insists that the citizenship of Kosovo does not exist, promoting regional instability and hindering its functionality at all costs.

This is the main reason why the Western Balkans is the only corner of Europe, where the common approach to the new security environment is missing and where the sensors of the rule of law do not work. Initiatives to mitigate hostilities or tense relations between the countries of the region are useful, as a middle way between aggression and friendship, preventing the escalation of conflicts and promoting democratic coexistence. But this is not enough. A well-coordinated US-EU approach to the Western Balkans should be considered an opportunity to prevent another threat to regional and European security, taking into account the region's geographic and geopolitical location. The starting point is the recognition that, despite the efforts of the West for more than two decades, the countries of the Western Balkans cannot be considered a region in the political or security sense. They have special characteristics. By the way, for Albania, the only common point with the countries of the Western Balkans is the Albanians who lived in the former Yugoslavia. The presence in this group of countries has value in terms of the advancement of the rights of Albanians in the region. For Albania, it is vital to strengthen the Mediterranean identity in the geostrategic, political, economic, and cultural plan. The EU membership process will create opportunities and space for more interaction in the Adriatic-Ionian space. Adapting to these characteristics, without compromising the democratic standard, will promote healthy competition in the EU membership process, good governance standards, and sustainable economic and social development, but it would also show the most skeptics that this is the true path to progress and the democratic encirclement of malignant influences.

If the current approach does not change, fear that even after a few years, nothing will change. Security in the region will be fragile, cross-border and regional cooperation fragmented, the development gap with the EU the same, and the perspective of EU membership even more distant. In this context, it should be understood that the membership of the countries of the region in the EU is first of all a matter of security, which goes hand in hand with the reforms of the rule of law.

*The analysis is a publication of the "Friedrich Ebert" Foundation