The EU’s policy framework for the Western Balkans, the Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP), is supported by activities within the Stability Pact (SP) framework in three major ways, concludes Special Co-ordinator Busek in a report to the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council. These are: enhancing regional co-operation, fostering regional ownership, and facilitating political co-ordination for the main international players (including the EU) as a means to achieve a meaningful burden sharing in assistance to the Western Balkans, and neighbouring countries.

As prominent examples of this complementarity, the report elaborates SP activities in the six core objectives for the year 2003; media, local democracy and cross-border co-operation, trade and investment, infrastructure and energy, organized crime as well as population movements. In these areas, the Pact has facilitated regional co-operation among the countries of the Western Balkans, thereby supporting the region in meeting the conditions for further European integration set out in the SAP. As examples of regional ownership, the report lists the 21 concluded free trade agreements between 7 SEE countries as well as the Sava River Basin co-operation. In terms of burden sharing and international (donor) co-ordination, infrastructure and security issues are explained in some detail.

The Zagreb Summit of November 2000 transformed the regional approach of the EU into the SAP, with Stabilisation and Association Agreements envisaged for the five Western Balkan countries. But while the SAP is mainly designed to help countries meet eventual EU membership criteria, the Pact is broader in its scope, both thematically and geographically. It is primarily a political initiative to encourage and strengthen co-operation between the countries of SEE, as well as to streamline existing efforts to assist that particular region on its way to political, economic and security integration. Participants’ activities are guided by the key principles of the SP, namely to contribute to regional co-operation, to expedite integration into European structures and to secure the region's involvement in relevant international organisations. Highlighting the added value of the SP to the SAP concerning its regional component, Busek underlines that the principles guiding the SAP in this respect should be re-enforced at the upcoming Thessaloniki Summit.

The report was prepared by the Special Co-ordinator upon request of the General Affairs and External Relations Council of 19 November 2002 and submitted to Secretary General and High Representative Javier Solana on 15 May 2003 “as a welcome opportunity to highlight the mutually supporting role of the SAP and the Stability Pact …… considering the upcoming …… EU-Western Balkans Summit”.

Complementarity Report