The transforming power of the EU on the Western Balkans: The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Studies on the integration policies of member and candidate countries have an important place in European Union studies, which is within the international relations discipline. Given the acceleration of integration in the Western Balkans, these countries have recently started to be discussed within European Union studies. The recent bloody wars based on ethnicity in the Balkans have increased interest in promoting the security of both the Balkan countries and the European continent. The integration process, which is the most well-known foreign policy tool of the EU, came into the table when the USA, which was effective on the region during the war, gave its place to the EU in time. The presence of the EU in the region, which has become evident over time, has led to the questioning of the EU influence on the changes in the Western Balkan countries and on the current situation. Regional and bilateral relations conducted within the scope of EU integration are the main factors bringing the Western Balkan countries closer to the EU and enabling them to see a future in it. In this context, the integration process has started for these countries, which became candidate countries during the Thessaloniki Summit in 2003.From this date on, the EU has begun to present road maps on what needs to be done to the Western Balkan countries within the scope of integration policies. Since then, the EU has presented road maps for integration policies that must be applied to the Western Balkan countries, and through the integration process, changes in these countries have been documented by EU progress reports on both the region and individual states. The main purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the EU on the region's states, which became evident with the integration policies. Therefore, the basic research question is that: How and in which direction did the change in Bosnia-Herzegovina take place with the EU integration process and what role did the EU play in this change? The study includes a case study, selecting Bosnia-Herzegovina as a typical case to demonstrate the effects under investigation. It primarily aims to describe the current situation and the EU's influence on it by establishing a cause-effect relationship between EU policies and the general changes in the Western Balkans as well as more specific changes in Bosnia-Herzegovina. It therefore examines the EU's regional policies as well as those specifically supporting its integration process. The main finding of the study is that: since it is necessary to carry out reforms simultaneously in more than one reform area in the country, the EU has a limited impact.