The reported number of COVID-19 cases in the region ranges from several hundreds in Montenegro and Albania to more than 1,000 in North Macedonia and more than 5,000 in Serbia, the country hardest hit by the virus.

Yet the true scale of the crisis in the region is difficult to estimate for political and practical reasons.

For one thing, there is little transparency. Fearing panic-induced instability, Western Balkan governments that have long failed to tackle perceptions of political opacity are withholding information on the capacity of health services and numbers of ventilators.

A shortage of testing kits also makes it hard to gauge the full extent of infections, with Western Balkan states at a critical disadvantage compared with their EU neighbours in tackling the “silent enemy”.

Serbia, with a population of around seven million, has almost 3,400 testing kits per million people, according to Worldometer data. Croatia and Slovenia have around 4,900 and 18,000, respectively, with populations of around four million and two million.

A Bosnian man smokes a cigarette with his face mask pulled down in a tavern in Sarajevo. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

The stress on health systems has revealed in no ambiguous terms the financial vulnerabilities of countries in the Western Balkans and the need for EU fiscal intervention.

The EU has delivered. Prompted by MEPs to include the Western Balkans in its common European response and keen to maintain order in its geopolitical sphere, the EU has mobilised a crisis relief package to give the region’s health systems the resources to contain and treat the pandemic.

The fiscal agreement unveiled this month allocates 410 million euros in bilateral assistance to governments in the Western Balkans.

In the immediate term, it provides nearly 38 million euros for medical equipment and protective gear. In the short to medium term, it gives 374 million euros to address the socio-economic implications of the pandemic and help the region’s economic recovery.

Although critics including the Serbian government have slammed the package as too little, too late, the EU relief has nonetheless helped bolster health systems and alleviate the impact of the disease.

Aside from straining health systems and state coffers, the pandemic has tested the EU’s influence in the region, stoked domestic and international tensions and inflamed pre-existing political tensions.

First, the crisis has challenged the EU’s authority while serving as an opportunity and a test for Brussels to revamp its credibility in Southeast Europe.

Years of reluctance to welcome Western Balkan states into the EU fold, culminating in a decision last year to freeze membership talks with Albania and North Macedonia, have been politically costly for the EU and the region’s governments.

A municipality worker disinfects clothes hanging on a rope to dry at a Roma camp in Plemetina, Kosovo, 8 April 2020. The government of Kosovo is enforcing a curfew from 5pm to 6am and has closed borders, schools and public facilities. Photo: EPA-EFE/VALDRIN XHEMAJ

The EU’s refusal to open its doors despite the investment of significant political capital in driving reforms and resolving historic disputes has fueled popular disenchantment, undermined progressive political forces and damaged EU legitimacy in the region.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the consequence has been a political crisis that has caused the country to diverge from the EU to the point that French President Emmanuel Macron has called it a “time-bomb” on the bloc’s doorstep.

However, most crises provide opportunities and COVID-19 is no exception. The EU’s package of bilateral assistance could help mend its reputation in the Western Balkans.

Most crises provide opportunities and COVID-19 is no exception. The EU’s package of bilateral assistance could help mend its reputation in the Western Balkans.

In some countries, the EU aid has served to reaffirm recipient governments’ political ties with Brussels. Leaders in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia have hailed the EU support and confirmed their commitment to the union.

But in others, the assistance has exacerbated divisions.

In the case of the increasingly illiberal Serbian government — which received 93.4 million euros, the largest cheque in the region — President Aleksander Vucic decried the size and timing of the aid and denounced EU standards while confirming his country’s loyalty to China and its president, Xi Jinping. 

In recent years, Serbia has attracted big Chinese loans for infrastructure projects, making it the fourth-largest recipient of Chinese foreign direct investment in Europe. This has led to an increase in Serbia’s pollution levels and raised EU concerns over environmental policy and Serbia’s compliance with EU privacy and data-protection legislation.

While these factors have escalated tensions between Serbia and the EU, the crisis has further sharpened their differences. This is problematic as the tensions have long-term implications for the development of the entire Western Balkans region.

Serbia’s exploitation of the health emergency to undermine EU authority and legitimise its alignment with the authoritarian governments of China, Russia and the Gulf states further deepens divisions in Southeast Europe.

A handout picture released on 9 April by the press service of the Russian Defense Ministry shows a Russian doctor studying a patient’s x-ray at the city hospital in Cuprija, Serbia. Moscow sent 11 military transport planes with Russian military medical specialists and equipment for epidemiological diagnosis and disinfection to Serbia to help its longtime Western Balkan ally combat the spread of the pandemic. Photo: EPA-EFE/RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY/HANDOUT

It also poses the risk that Bosnia and Herzegovina — with a 30 percent ethnic Serb population — will join Serbia in pivoting towards authoritarian influences while further diverging from Brussels.

That could harm the future coherence of the bloc and its democratic influence in the region, at a time when EU legitimacy is under fire even from older members, Italy and Spain, over German and Dutch opposition to “corona bonds”.

The catastrophe is helping populists construct a political narrative in which Western Balkan states are seen as abandoned by their EU neighbours even as they shoulder the burden of Europe’s migrant crisis. 

In the long-term, these developments will provoke populism and fuel instability in the Western Balkans — a region all too familiar with authoritarian politics, ethnic tensions and civil wars.

In the long-term, these developments will provoke populism and fuel instability in the Western Balkans — a region all too familiar with authoritarian politics, ethnic tensions and civil wars.

An additional implication of the crisis is its effect on domestic party politics. While the pandemic has aggravated tensions between governing and opposition parties in nearly all countries in the region, some governments look set to come out of the crisis in a politically advantageous position. Others do not.

At first glance, domestic spats concern disagreements on pandemic policies. A deeper look reveals that tensions are rooted in long-standing political conflicts and offer a clue to the fortunes of governing parties post COVID-19.

In Kosovo, the newly elected government of Albin Kurti refused to declare a state of emergency. Kurti even dismissed the country’s interior minister, Agim Veliu, for allegedly spreading panic over the pandemic.

The decision provoked the collapse of Kurti’s government by a no-confidence motion initiated by the Democratic League of Kosovo Party (LDK). In reality, tensions between the ruling coalition parties, the LDK and Kurti’s Self-Determination Movement, had been brewing for months over the vexed issue of import tariffs on Serbia, which Kurti proposed to lift when his party took office two months ago.

With new elections impossible in the midst of the pandemic, Kosovo’s domestic political strife has created a leadership vacuum that has critically undermined the country’s ability to manage the crisis.

A mobile phone is used to deliver a live video broadcast by Catholic pastor Viktor Ganc during the Easter Sunday mass in the empty Holy Heart of Jesus church in Podgorica, Montenegro, 12 April 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/BORIS PEJOVIC

In Albania, Prime Minister Edi Rama and his governing Socialist Party acted decisively to contain the spread of the virus. Still, the opposing Democratic Party (DP) has been critical of the government’s response.

The DP’s criticisms range from the limited supply of testing kits and funds to support the recovery of businesses to Rama’s overall strategy in fighting the pandemic.

Tensions between the two parties have been escalating for years, marked by DP parliamentary boycotts over allegations of political corruption and culminating in DP representatives burning their mandates and quitting parliament in February 2019.

The recent crisis, however, promises to be politically advantageous for the governing Socialist Party. Rama’s efficient response to the pandemic, combined with his brusque dismissal of the DP’s criticism, serves to consolidate the government’s authority while undermining the opposition’s credibility and long-term electoral prospects.

Finally, the Western Balkans’ response to COVID-19 has unveiled a latent tendency to govern with strict authority and little compromise.

The Western Balkans’ response to COVID-19 has unveiled a latent tendency to govern with strict authority and little compromise.

All countries in the region have implemented draconian measures to curtail the spread of the virus. They have sealed borders, imposed travel restrictions, banned large public gatherings, closed schools and local roads and imposed time-specific bans on free movement.

In moves eerily reminiscent of the communist past, governments have ensured sweeping police powers, shuttered courts, suspended elections, increased surveillance and imposed media restrictions.

The stringent nature of these measures has been underlined by rigid and uncompromising rhetoric — delivered via state media and social media platforms — in which political leaders chastise violators for disrespecting quarantine rules.

The measures come at a politically opportune time for leaders and have depleted the power of citizen dissent.

In Montenegro, the government’s recent decision to prohibit public gatherings effectively shut down months of protests against a controversial law on religious freedom that has compounded tensions between Montenegro and Serbia.

In North Macedonia and Serbia, declarations of states of emergency have enabled governments to arbitrarily suspend basic rights.

In Serbia, this includes a complete ban on movement for people aged 65 or over and curfews for everyone else, plus strict quarantine rules for students and temporary workers coming home from abroad.

As measures get stricter and rhetoric more strident, these tendencies raise concerns about the long-term implications of the crisis on public health outcomes and human rights in the region.

While justified in times of a global pandemic and even recognised under international law, these steps must not be arbitrary or discriminatory and they need to be evidence-based.

Otherwise, as in the case of Hungary, the crisis risks being used by ruling parties to cement power. It also risks normalising political infringements on citizen rights. In the long-term, these crisis-driven practices threaten the democratic prospects of Western Balkan states.

But for all its chaos, the COVID-19 crisis also offers glimmers of hope.

It has connected the Western Balkans — as the rest of the world — in a fight against the invisible enemy. It has induced greater tolerance and created a common awareness that, for the time being at least, humanity takes precedence over politics and that the value of human life is not determined by skin colour, religious beliefs or the imprint on a passport cover.

In some cases, goodwill has come to the fore in the form of international cooperation.

Many have blamed Kosovo’s political crisis — including the fall of Kurti’s government — on differences between the EU and the United States in a dialogue process between Pristina and Belgrade. But German backing has produced some concord. 

As of last month, Kosovo lifted the 100 per cent tariff on raw materials from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. While the announcement was met with scepticism in Serbia, Kosovo’s decision nonetheless opens the door to increased reciprocity between the countries and confirms Kosovo’s alignment with the EU.

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio (centre-left) welcomes Albanian Foreign Minister Gent Cakaj (centre-right) with Albanian doctors who arrived at an airport in Rome to assist with Italy’s coronavirus crisis, 28 March 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANGELO CARCONI

Elsewhere, the crisis has provided an opportunity for Western Balkan governments to prove themselves to be equal partners in the international arena.

As global powerhouses like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and EU are joined by the better-off economies of China, Russia and Turkey in sending medical supplies and humanitarian assistance to help Western Balkan states, the latter are also stepping up to the challenge, albeit in more modest ways.

Albania did so by sending a team of 30 doctors and nurses to Italy to assist in the fight against the virus in the hard-hit Bergamo region. 

The act is more than a demonstration of Albania’s gratitude to its neighbour across the Adriatic, which for decades has been a destination country for Albanian migrants. It is also a statement of Tirana’s capacity and political authority to the rest of the Western world — a timely signal given the European Council’s recent decision to open membership negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia.

This in return helps the government’s electoral chances by sending a strong message to voters. By boosting the country’s reputation and advancing the EU integration progress, the government positions itself favourably against the opposition.

In the immediate term, cooperation in the region is to be welcomed as countries unite to counter the virus. In the long term, however, the crisis-induced cooperation could trigger a shift in political alignment with authoritarian states, risking not only common European values but also stability in the region.

The crisis-induced cooperation could trigger a shift in political alignment with authoritarian states, risking not only common European values but also stability in the region.

Medical and financial aid sent to the Western Balkans from Russia, China, Turkey and the Gulf states may serve as justification for governments to forge new alliances or introduce policies that under normal conditions would meet voter resistance.

Thus, as Turkey sends help to Kosovo or Serbia receives medical equipment and financial support from Russia, China and Hungary, the question is whether the help comes at a prohibitively high price for the region’s democratic prospects.

The struggle to protect democratic rights in post-communist states in the Western Balkans has been ongoing for 30 years. It is a battle that should not be lost during the immediate war against the pandemic.

Albana Shehaj is a political scientist and a postdoctoral research scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.