International Conference: Current Security Challenges for the Western Balkan Region Addressed by Means of Joint Responsibility and Cooperation well in terms of its failure to perform well in comparison to the countries that have a history of performing less well than the former Yugoslavia. If you add to this Slovenia and Croatia as former Yugoslav countries that are EU members, they are performing less well, converging with Romania and Bulgaria. In 2000, Slovenia, had two and a half times better standard of living in purchasing terms than Bulgaria and now that is 1.6-7 times. Croatia has also been falling in recession for the last ve years, non-stop. One would expect that with the fulllment of criteria and joining the EU and receiving more money that the country would do better, but it has not gone well. If you add to this some countries of the wider region that are doing pretty well, there is a country that has managed to surpass Bulgarian level and that is Belarus, which has done none of the right things it was supposed to do, no benets, a low level of economic assistance; Armenia is also doing very well. There seems to be, just looking at eh hard numbers, there is something distinctive about former Yugoslavia. There is something, to speculate, there is something about the Yugoslav legacy of political economy, the Yugoslav way of doing things, which is poorly suited to the modern world. If this is true, it is worrying because the entire system needs to change. This system can survive integration into Europe, so the European medicine is not sufcient to work the kind of changes that need to be worked. It is difcult to talk of comprehensive examples of systemic change. Poland and the Check Republic went through the shock therapy after the fall of communism, but that was after the complete discrediting of the communist system. That has not happened here. There is still nostalgia about 1970s and 1980s throughout the region, probably except Kosovo and Albania. One of the frequent sayings is that you have EU reforms, but you need rule of law reforms to crush down on organized crime and corruption. The system of clientelism and rent-seeking is something what political elites are expected to do and this is difcult to tackle through rule of law reforms because clients are a very large group of people. The second thing is the idiosyncratic set of nation-building issues that are currently in the pipeline of the EU accession, that are unlike anything that has been dealt with in the accession process before. Serbia-Kosovo dispute is unique, BiH is highly idiosyncratic constitutional system is unique. Until recently Albania has struggled with holding a clean election. Kosovo right now showing that it does not have a capacity to execute a peaceful change of government without international intervention and arm twisting. There are unique kinds of weaknesses with which the EU is inexperienced. These two profound challenges, the nation-state issues, and political economy issues are going to dominate next period and need to be resolved successfully in order for the Western Balkans to have a future and a decent life in which one does not think'how do I get out of here and move somewhere else where I can make it.' 107