THE EU INTEGRATION PROCESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE IN SERBIA.

In 2008, as a reward for the extradition to the Hague of most of the indicted war criminals, the EU agreed to sign the Stabilisation and Accession Agreement (SAA) which marked a turning point in the Serbia-EU relationship as it prepared the way for the granting of the candidate status in 2012. [...] 5 Chapter One The EU enlargement policy in the Western Balkans and the case of Serbia The European Union’s (EU) engagement in the Western Balkans (WB) dates backs to the 1990s when the Balkan region was torn apart by ethno-nationalist wars in the process of dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). [...] In 2015, the European Commission affirmed that «The peoples of the EU and the (WB) region have a common heritage and history and future defined by shared opportunities and challenges» and it recognised the need to «Reaffirm unequivocally the European perspective of the enlargement countries to avoid the risk of disillusionment with the process» (European Commission 2015, 3). [...] Together with the financial aid, the EU also increased cooperation in tackling common challenges, such as the joint procurement of medical equipment, with the association of the WB countries with the work of the EU health security committee and with the supply of testing material developed by the EU Joint Research Centre to guarantee the correct Covid-19 tests (European Commission 2020a, 4). [...] The shortcomings of the EU approach to civil society in candidate countries were also unveiled by the accession of Croatia in 2013 and the post-accession developments: the late involvement of CSOs in negotiation talks and the suspended support for the sector once the country had become a member state have indeed prevented CSOs from significant participation in the accession process and from influe.