The Western Balkans region encompasses countries which were the principal members of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, namely: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia. Yugoslavia had collapsed in the 1990s in a very violent and volatile manner, mainly due to heightened ethno-nationalistic tensions[1] and a severe economic crises and political fragmentation of federal authority.
In this article we will explore how does the EU contribute to the reconciliation process, promotion of multiculturalism and interethnic cooperation along with increasing overlapping identities through the Erasmus + programme.
The war tor apart many countries with a particular focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia where there have been more than 117 000 – 122 00 combined, including both military personnel and civilians.[2] The genocide in Srebrenica was the most disastrous in Europe since the WWII, where over 8 000 Bosniaks were systematically killed as means of ethnic cleansing and achievement of ethnonationalist goals.
One of the major forces which drove these atrocities was nationalism, particularly ethnic nationalism – which is defined as a political ideology which emphasises the interests, culture, or identity of a specific nation which acts as an imagined political community because those belonging to a specific nation will never know most of their fellow members.[3] Thus, ethnic nationalism focuses on shared ancestry, language, religion or ethnicity.
It is important to mention that national feeling isn’t something given by birth but is socio-psychologically conditioned[1] and often utilized by institutions as means of mobilising groups and achieving collective action for different goals. Identity Politics – Political beliefs and systems that place a lot of importance on the group to which people see themselves as belonging to[2] remains at the core of the ethnonationalist ideology. Identity politics views identity as fixed and static. Identity is used as a practical category by lay actors to help them make sense of themselves, but it is also used by political entrepreneurs to persuade people to understand themselves, their interests in a particular way as well as to organize and justify collective action along certain lines.[3]
Thus the Erasmus + programme introduces an important turning point in breaking the monopoly of identity politics and relieving the emphasis placed on the notion of fixed identities and bolstering a more fluid and changeable nature of it. The way this is done can by captured by the concept of soft power – ”The ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment.“[4] The concept of soft power encompasses the tools such as diplomacy, economic assistance and most important for the position of this article – cultural exchange.
As we know, there exist different actions under the auspices of the Erasmus + Programme, such as:
- Capacity Building in the Field of Youth
- Capacity Building in the Field of Sports
- Partnerships for Cooperation
- Small scale partnerships
Each of these implements mobility activities which gather people from different countries, cultures in an informal setting, to pursue common learning goals. Special attention is devoted to the geographical composition of the project consortium, with certain regions such as the Western Balkans being labelled as on of the priority regions. The nature of this composition ensures that there is sufficient and efficient cooperation among European Union and non-EU countries aspiring to join the EU. This cooperation leads to exchange of practices and creation of joint initiatives, but all of this is guided by the forces of cultural and identity diversity, fostering a more inclusive and diverse dialogue.
The transnational mobility of youth significantly broadens their perceptions and fosters the deconstruction of stereotypical narratives and biases.[1] This also contributes to the critical reasoning and restructuring of common ethnonationalist narratives and discourses. [2]
[1] https://history.state.gov/milestones/1989-1992/breakup-yugoslavia
[2] https://www.icty.org/en/about/what-former-yugoslavia/conflicts
[3] https://criticallegalthinking.com/2023/04/25/benedict-andersons-imagined-communities/
[4] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4899-0188-0
[5] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/identity-politics
[6] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/43651/?sequence=1
[7] https://www.e-ir.info/2013/03/08/joseph-nye-on-soft-power/
[8] https://valuedtravel.com/how-can-travel-broaden-our-perspective-on-the-world/