The primary aim of this publication is to briefly discuss the current »normative marketplace« in the region. We want to draw contours of the current state of this marketplace and of those powers and actors that are challenging and endangering it. It is also our intention to engage in thinking about possible utopian horizons able to reclaim democracy, freedom, and emancipatory societal values. Of course, the »realist utopian horizon« deserved a sober acknowledgment of challenges faced by the European Union and its internal disputes, as well as the profound lack of strong socio-political forces in Southeast Europe that could be able to push for Europeanization as long desired, but never actually realized process.