In Russia’s backyard of the Balkans, EU enlargement plans are back in focus

• Rising geopolitical tensions have made the European Union more willing to extend membership to prospective members in the Western Balkans, according to the EU's special representative for the region.
• The Western Balkans is a strategically significant region in southeastern Europe. It marks a notable gap in the map of EU membership.
• The push toward enlargement comes as Russia's invasion of Ukraine gave the bloc a heightened political focus, Miroslav Lajčák said.

Davos, SWITZERLAND — As spiking geopolitical tensions thrust the European Union into the spotlight, attention has turned to the strategically important Western Balkans. But whether the neighboring region is ready — and willing — to finally make the steps needed to join the union remains unclear.

The Western Balkans, comprised of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia, represent a notable gap in the map of EU membership in southeastern Europe.

Though each has applied for — and been granted — candidate or potential candidate member status over the past two decades following the fall of the socialist federation of Yugoslavia in 1992, progress on accession has been generally slow.

"I see the European Union more ready for the Balkans than the Balkans for the European Union," Miroslav Lajčák, EU Special Representative for the Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue and Western Balkans, told CNBC last month.

Accession to the bloc is a rigorous and often lengthy process involving several phases of negotiations and reforms to ensure a candidate state meets the EU's judicial, administrative and economic standards.

Lajčák said that countries in the Western Balkans, in the past, had been hesitant to truly engage in such reforms because they "did