Integration and disintegration are the two poles of the economic, political and security discourse in an area, the Balkans and Southern Eastern Europe (SEE), which over the past fifteen years has been the stage of dramatic events. Integration and disintegration are the two dimensions of an identity problem that many feel the area can solve by joining the European Union and diffusing its many conflicts in the peaceful waters of Europeanisation. However, quite apart from the obvious point that the accession process cannot be taken for granted in relation to many of the new Balkan countries, integration into the EU can be argued as having been and still being a further catalyst for disintegration. This book assesses the extent to which the integration of the Balkans into the EU will either foster or discourage the integration of the area itself, as well as the winners and losers under this process. The book addresses the topic in a multidisciplinary way. The contributions are the result of a fruitful co-operation between scholars from the Balkans, the UK and the US.The book tackles the issue of the relation between the EU and the Balkans in all its controversial and contradictory dimensions.
About the Author: Dr Leila Simona Talani is a Lecturer in International and European Politics and Political Economy at the University of Bath. She was previously a lecturer at the European Institute of the London School of Economics, and spent a year as Associate Expert on migration issues at the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Cairo. She gained a PhD with Distinction from the European University Institute in Florence in 1998. Her thesis has been published as Betting For and Against EMU (Ashgate:2000). She is also the author of European Political Economy: Political Science Perspectives (Ashgate:2004), Between Growth and Stability: the Demise and Reform of the Stability and Growth Pact (Edward Elgars:2008), Back to Maastricht (CSP:2008), EU and the Balkans: Policy of integration and disintegration (CSP:2008), The future of EMU (Palgrave: 2008), and From Egypt to Europe (I.B.Tauris:2009). Her current research interests focus on the political economy of migration flows from southern Mediterranean countries to the EU and on the credibility of exchange rate commitments and economic agreements. She is a native speaker of Italian but is also fluent in English, Spanish and French, has a working knowledge of German, and is learning Arabic.