VOX  CEPR Policy Portal

With the end of the Balkan conflicts in the late 1990s, the EU and the US set up the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. This column – the first of two – argues that, as well as promoting regional economic integration, the Pact’s central aim was to safeguard peace. It suggests reasons why it took so long for the Balkans to negotiate regional free trade and why they ultimately succeeded.