THE EUROPEAN INTEGRATION OF THE WESTERN BALKANS AND THE RULE OF LAW (CURRENT SITUATION AND CHALLENGES)

The further enlargement of the European Union is in a critical phase due to the changed political circumstances both internally in the EU member states, but also in the geopolitical context. The experiences from the past cycles of enlargement, both positive and negative, motivated some of the member states and the European institutions to revise the process of the European integration of the candidate countries, primarily the accession negotiations as a central part of the process, by setting the Rule of Law as a fundamental and most important criterion for the accession. The Rule of Law is set as a crosscutting issue in the new revised Methodology for the accession negotiations, adopted in 2020. It is part of the first cluster “Fundamentals” with which the accession negotiations start and end. The paper analyzes the current situation and challenges in the area of the Rule of Law in North Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro and Albania, all of them candidate countries from the region of the Western Balkans, following the 2024 Rule-of-Law Report prepared by the European Commission that included beside the member states, also the mentioned candidate countries.