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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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Before making up to the ranks of EU members, most countries in the so-called region of the Western Balkans, another name to describe most ex-Yugoslav republics plus Albania, will have to wait. Experts differ on how much, but certain analogies from other countries in similar situations suggest that reasonable period may be for at least 10 years, if not more. Two main factors explain this delay in a process that everybody considers as inevitable: a certain enlargement 'malaise' in Brussels, and bad political signals coming from most regional capitals. And with this delay comes delays in other domains as far as this region is concerned, beginning with economic integration and ending with establishing common European identity. For a region that was so advanced just 20 years ago in both economy and ideology compared to most Central and East European nations, this is really a shameful outcome after a series of unnecessary but bloody wars.

Now it's official; the EU doesn't plan any imminent new enlargements. What is in the menu is rather a long and painful process of pre-negotiations with some Western Balkan countries. With the exception of Croatia that stands alone in her next-to readiness to join the EU, the other regional neighbors will have to wait for many more years before the doors of Brussels open wide, and their citizens can see the letters 'European Union' on their passports. The Croatian exceptionality, however, shouldn't be considered as an unconditional triumph. The most optimistic forecasts are that this nation will have a signed treaty with the EU within 1-2 years. Add to that another 2-year period for ratification, and you have more realistic time frame for joining the Union somewhere by 2011-2012.

As for the other Western Balkan nations, it seems that Brussels will probably prepare a package entry, in a similar way as it did with many former communist nations of Central and Eastern Europe in 2004. To begin the negotiations en bloc, however, some better performing countries (e.g. Macedonia) should wait until others (e.g. Albania) are ready to join the party. Optimistically, this means that the whole group may be ready to start negotiations for membership by early 2009. With the usual speed they will be quite happy to join the EU by 2017 at the earliest. As for Turkey, it seems that it will again be separated in a special league of its own; for it the time of joining the EU will be determined by a complex of power relations within the Union, something that has nothing to do with the preparedness of the country. As a last resort, those who oppose Turkey as EU member may decide to organize a referendum in one or many European countries on this issue (e.g. France), which in fact will be the end of the project, given the mass opposition to it among the European public opinion.

This enlargement 'malaise' in Brussels is partly responsible for the delay in accession negotiations in regard to the Western Balkans. The general mood in Brussels after almost doubling the number of the EU members since 2004 from 15 to 27, is that not only procedural difficulties make impossible any further enlargement, the financial part of the puzzle is also present given the enormous need for more grants going east and the incapacity of most western EU members to meet the financial criteria of the single European currency. In such a context, accepting even more countries, predominantly poor by the average European standards, will only add more fuel to the fire. Nothing guarantees that the situation will dramatically change by 2017 when the bulk of the Western Balkans may be considered apt for membership, but at least until then the predominant public mood in Europe may change again and become more tolerant toward new adventures.

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