Since the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union (EU) in 2007, South Eastern European countries - but more so countries of the Western Balkans - are increasingly showing an eagerness to join the EU. The most recent accession of Croatia to the EU on 1 of July 2013 has further intensified the desire of the other Western Balkan countries to become members of the European family. Yet, a closer examination of this particular region of Europe discloses striking heterogeneity, be it culturally, politically or economically. Such differences between the Western Balkan countries makes generalizations about their European integration prospects very hard to make and conclusions even harder to reach. Croatia stands alone as the only successful Western Balkan country to have acceded the EU thus far. Serbia, Montenegro and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia2 are EU candidate countries and on the way to EU membership. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, on the other hand, are potential candidate countries facing significant hurdles on their road towards full integration to the EU. However, in spite of the striking distinctions between countries in the region, the European Union has adopted a conditionality policy oriented toward the future integration of the entire region to the EU. Linking this region to Western Europe is arguably a desired goal of both parties. The aim of this paper is to observe and analyze the challenges and obstacles that the Western Balkan countries face regarding EU integration. In order to do so the first part will focus on the policy of EU conditionality in the Western Balkans. The second part will evaluate the progress towards integration. Countries will be analyzed in groups according to the European Union’s categorization in members states, candidate states and potential candidate states. Croatia will not be examined here given that now it is a member of the EU. Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, will be first examined, to be followed by Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. Concluding remarks on the European integration prospects of the Western Balkans will be made. The political and economic criteria will be examined in each country in order to determine the progress towards European integration. 1. EU Conditionality and the Western Balkans “Notwithstanding the emergence of ‘enlargement fatigue’ after the 2004 mega-enlargement to CEE, further enlargement to other post-Communist countries has not essentially been halted” (Pridham 2008: 62). Membership negotiations were officially opened with Croatia as early as 2005 and further Stabilization and Association Agreements (SAAs) were pursued and signed with various countries in the Western Balkans. Already, Croatia is the first of the Western Balkans countries to have joined the EU on the 1st July 2013. While the next decade might turn out to be the period of enlargement to encompass the Western Balkans as a whole. In late 2005, The Economist argued in line with the enlargement dynamic that opening to these countries was compelling because the alternative would be more costly in the long run: Despite resistance in some quarters, EU policy-makers seem to have decided that it is better to have these countries inside the club rather than causing trouble outside. A look at the map explains why. In 2007, Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU. The remaining Balkan countries will then be encircled by the EU. Unless they have a genuine prospect of membership, that could have serious consequences. With some 22m people penned inside a kind of poor Balkan reservation, inter-ethnic conflict, smuggling and organized crime would be certain to flourish. The Balkan wars and conflicts in the 90s were a powerful stimulant in forcing the EU to recognize the need for a sustained involvement, having previously been absorbed with East-Central Europe (ECE) insofar as enlargement affairs were concerned (Turkes and Gokgoz 2006). A commitment to consider future membership for the Balkans began to emerge at the Zagreb European Council in 2000 which recognized these countries as `potential candidates’, while in 2003 the Thessaloniki Declaration made the proclamation that `the future of the Balkans is within the EU’, a phrase that has been repeated on several official occasions since. The EU’s fundamental objective for the Western Balkans was to create a situation where military conflict is unthinkable – expanding to the region the area of peace, stability, prosperity and freedom established over the last 50 years by gradual European integration’ (Pridham 2008: 64). This echo of the Schumann Declaration of May 1950 about making war impossible put the new insistence on proper observation of conditionality – whether political, economic or administrative – into a wider or geopolitical context. It also explained new themes of conditionality such as regional cooperation to enhance the security environment, of whi