A Comparison of Policy Responses to the Global Economic Crisis in the Balkans: Acceding Versus EU Candidate Countries

Current research shows that the severity of the first global economic crisis of the twenty-first century tested the resilience of even the most developed economies in the world, as it caught them unprepared to battle their own systemic deficiencies. With the biggest and most powerful global economies teetering on the verge of collapse, the question about the fate of the globally insignificant economic players remains unresolved. Yet, many of those small countries survived the financial tsunami, and while not unscathed, they did emerge more robust than earlier. Still not a complete member of the EU bandwagon, but refusing to be branded by its dark Balkan past, these small countries were caught between two contrasting worlds – one not ready to embrace them yet, the other one refusing to let them go without a fight. The purpose of this paper is to examine the various roads taken by a host of very similar, yet very different countries in their pursuits of joining the EU and remaining afloat during the largest financial calamity of recent times. The structure and nature of each economy is contrasted along with the divergent level of integration in global economic flows. The main questions raised center around the changes to the oversight to the financial system and coordination with the already rigid EU policy framework. With one country already an acceding EU member, and the other one in danger of being a perpetual EU candidate yet never a member, the main issue to be discussed is whether this situation is due to the policy responses linked to the economic crisis.