The Western Balkans in Today’s Transatlantic Landscape | A Debrief with Dimitris Tsarouhas

Why It Matters

If Europe fails to build strategic capacity and a coherent approach to enlargement, the Balkans could become a security blind spot with broader implications for regional stability and transatlantic cohesion. Strengthening European responsibility would ease pressure on the US and help preserve Western influence amid a fragmented global order.

Summary

Speakers argue the transatlantic alliance is in a period of strategic uncertainty as the Trump administration reshapes US policy toward Europe and the war in Ukraine strains Western unity. At the Munich Security Conference debates over NATO burden-sharing and Europe’s role highlighted a longer-term trend: the EU’s influence in US foreign policy has been diminishing and Europe has not adequately prepared to shoulder greater responsibility. Professor Dimitris Tsarouhas warns that talk of European strategic autonomy has produced little concrete capacity, leaving NATO as the primary guarantor of European security. The Western Balkans face particular risk of being sidelined as the EU revives enlargement discussions without a clear plan to integrate or stabilize the region.

Original Description

The transatlantic relationship is being reset and Europe is scrambling to keep up. The agenda is no longer set in Brussels. It is set in the White House, shaped by the Trump administration and driven by events from Ukraine to the Middle East. Who controls the agenda now? And what does this mean for the Western Balkans?

In this episode of #BalkansDebrief, Ilva Tare, Resident Senior Fellow at the Europe Center, sits down with Dimitris Tsarouhas, Professor at Georgetown University and Washington DC Representative of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), for a frank and far-reaching conversation on one of the most consequential shifts in global politics.

Professor Tsarouhas argues that Europe has failed to do its geopolitical homework. The dream of strategic autonomy has collided with reality. A new global security architecture is taking shape, one in which the role of the United States will be smaller, old assumptions about Russia are being questioned, and Europe must urgently boost its own defense capabilities or risk becoming a spectator in a world it once helped shape.

And at the heart of Europe, literally, there is a gap. The Western Balkans remain outside the EU family, trapped in a waiting room with no clear exit. Young people are leaving. Trust is eroding. Professor Tsarouhas is unambiguous: the process must be transparent and meritocratic, and if countries in the region are doing the work, Europe has no excuse to keep them waiting. The goal must be full EU membership, nothing less.