By: Christina Griessler, Fanni Elek
The trust in the EU’s ability to move forward and enable the next round of enlargement has more or less vanished. Still, there are EU member states actively pursuing the EU accession of the Western Balkans. Hungary is one of those countries. However, Hungary is in conflict with the EU, due to its reluctance to comply with the EU’s values and rules, especially regarding the rule of law. This Policy Brief analyses how Hungary did turn from a “good pupil” to a “problem child” of the EU, has a look at Hungary as a role model for the countries of the Western Balkans and explores how good bilateral relations to the region supports its national interests.

By: Djordje Popović
Serbia is a country with enormous challenges in the area of rule of law. The postponing of reforms in this field leads to rather unsatisfactory results in the accession process to the European Union. Not opening any negotiating chapter last year should be understood as a clear sign that the necessary reforms are a precondition for any progress in the negotiations. In this context, the author of this Policy Brief gives several examples of the dire legal situation in Serbia and offers policy recommendations for improving the rule of law in the future.

By: Faris Kočan, Marko Lovec
Within the Slovenian Presidency of the Council of the European Union several priorities are relevant from the perspective of the EU’s Western Balkans strategy. The informal EU-Western Balkans Summit scheduled for 6 October will be one of the highlights and opportunities to achieve progress. Against this background, the authors explore what can be learned from the way enlargement policy has accommodated to the changing contexts and discuss the possible scenarios for the Western Balkans agenda during the Slovenian presidency.

By: Katrin Böttger, Dominic Maugeais
Seventeen years after the big round of EU enlargement and with the Conference on the Future of Europe up and running, the EU and the Western Balkan countries are confronted with a serious backsliding of the rule of law. A challenge, which is not only posing a risk for the democratic foundation of the EU but also favors those who argue for a de facto hold on all future enlargements. In their recommendations the authors of this Policy Brief, part of our "WB2EU" project, take account of the current state of the EU, the rule of law situation and democratic backsliding of the (potential) candidate countries in the Western Balkans.

By: Florian Woschnagg
Although media policy is a fundamental issue for European democracies, the European Union has only limited competence in this field, and the policy area is segmented into different approaches. Against this background, this Policy Brief discusses the situation of the Austrian media market on the basis of the "Media Pluralism Monitor" (MPM) 2020, puts the results in context with the EU-wide situation and formulates policy recommendations.

By: Dorothea Herzele, Susanne Wixforth
The current Guidelines on State aid for environmental protection and energy have been extended by the European Commission to the end of 2021. That means reform is imminent. The authors of this Policy Brief take a look at what the cornerstones of that reform should be and formulate policy recommendations.