It was on June 28, 1992 that French President Francois Mitterrand made a surprise visit to the besieged city of Sarajevo. He took personal and political risk by coming to Sarajevo in what initially seemed like a humanitarian gesture of help for the four hundred thousand besieged citizens of Sarajevo. We soon found out that his trip was a successful effort to block possible US-led NATO air-strikes against the separatist Serb besiegers of the city.

Similarly, French President Emmanuel Macron took political risks to block Albania and North Macedonia from opening accession negotiations with the European Union in October. It was hoped that Macron would infuse the EU with new energy and expand its influence abroad. Macron’s veto came as no surprise to Western Balkans observers. France openly supported the Greek veto on Macedonia and did its best to end Turkey’s EU prospects under President Sarkozy. Macron took this policy a step further and made clear that France was going to return to its traditional posture of open support for Serbia when he visited Belgrade in the fall. Fittingly, he promised to provide Serbia with Mistral MANPADS, thereby joining Putin in inexplicably beefing up Belgrade’s air defense capabilities. Also inexplicably, France still opposes visa liberalization for Kosovo despite there being no apparent downsides for France in allowing Kosovars to travel freely to the EU since they constitute a tiny percentage of asylum seekers in France.

Macron was widely condemned for his non to Albania and North Macedonia by many in the EU, most importantly by Germany. Austrian daily Der Standard is echoing many credible voices when it says that “the enlargement process is dead”. So, why did Macron decide to diminish EU’s influence in the Western Balkans? Loic Tregueres, French political commentator, eloquently argues that there was no real political danger for Macron in allowing the already slow EU accession process to continue because he has already moved to the right on issues of immigration and Islam in France. Hence, his decision to block countries with considerable Muslim populations is a logical extension of flirtation with the far right in France. This is best illustrated by him granting an interview to the far-right magazine Valeurs Actuelles which was found guilty in France of inciting racial hatred in 2015. Macron is simply more overt in treating European countries with large Muslim populations like they ‘do not belong because they would be only Muslim countries in Europe’, as Mitterrand said of Bosnia in the 1990s according to Taylor Branch's book "The Clinton Tapes.

Europeans do not like being reminded of their governments’ complicity in genocide and other crimes against former Yugoslavia’s Muslims in the 1990s. There is no willingness to recollect that EU’s promise of membership to all the Balkan countries was partially an attempt to atone for what they tried to explain away to President Clinton in the 1990s as ‘ugly but natural restoration of Christian Europe’. To atone for its sins and stabilize the post-war Western Balkans, the EU promised membership perspective to all of region’s countries at its 2003 Thessaloniki Summit. The process would not be called ‘unification’ but ‘enlargement’ of Europe, yet it was viewed as inevitable and without alternative.

Despite the recent history, there was unquestionable belief by the governments in the region that EU would honor its promise. Macron, together with the Dutch and Danish governments, has finally put an end to that illusion. To be fair to Macron, how we got here is more important than his veto. France, for a good reason, saw enlargement as favorable to the Germans. To damage EU’s credibility in the Balkans is apparently also the point of French recalcitrance. Merkel’s role in Macron’s veto is not apparent but Germany is partially responsible due to the fact that Berlin had the most influence in determining the pace of EU integration of the region, as the French often like to point out. The enlargement has diluted French influence in the Union and did not bring about the economic and social transformation in new entrants. Croatia’s official embrace of its Nazi-era collaborators, Hungary and Poland’s democratic backsliding, as well as numerous other examples give credibility to French requests for reform. Germany made a strategic decision to push for Croatia to enter as quickly as possible while favoring Serbia as the leader of the rest of the region early on during Merkel’s reign. As a result, both Tadic and Vucic governments in Serbia enjoyed preferential treatment, which saw them overtake the rest of the region in negotiating with the EU. Despite that, Serbia-together with the Croatia-has been a destabilizing actor in the entire region. Its democracy is in deep state of crisis, media freedom is under serious threat and it has become one of the most obedient Russian allies.

Also, Germany’s been reluctant to sanction the Moscow favorite Bosnian Serb-Milorad Dodik who has stymied all reform processes in Bosnia long enough to allow Serbia to assume the leadership role. It rarely mentioned that France and Germany joined Russia in requesting that the Office of High Representative in BiH be closed down. Despite the fact that the Dayton Peace Accord could not be implemented with out the OHR, its closure made it into official EU accession requirements for BiH.

Macron’s non will certainly create a vacuum. Some have argued for filling it with promise of European Economic Area (EEA) membership. It is a somewhat creative proposal. However, it has zero chance of salvaging EU’s credibility in the region. Macedonian PM has already resigned because of EU’s broken promise to his country that it would start membership negotiations if it agreed to Greek demands to change its name. Leaders in the region have taken note of the developments and the citizens will soon catch up.

Fear is that this vacuum will enable China and Russia to have more influence. This fear is overblown. China and Russia have had no problem extending their influence within the EU integration framework in the entire region, including in EU-member states. For example, Chinese companies are building the EU-funded controversial 800 million Euro Pelješac Bridge in Croatia and have extensive presence in the rest of the region.

The debacle of the EU integration process is a chance for renewed focus on NATO accession which has proven to be a more credible and attainable prospect. Croatia, Albania and Montenegro will soon be joined by the Macedonians in the Alliance.

United States and the United Kingdom can take the lead in focusing on the last two bastions of Belgrade-induced obstructionism: Bosnia and Kosovo. Bosnia is very close to activating the politically important NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP). U.S.-UK can jointly provide the necessary pressure and incentives for this process to move forward.

Additional pressure on Serbia to recognize Kosovo is now possible because EU cannot continue to interject itself with claims that Serbia should be given time to make that decision at a later time-just before it becomes EU Member State.

Encircling Serbia with NATO states would make any security agreements it strikes with Moscow obsolete. Under no scenario is Serbia going to challenge a NATO Member, even if Russians create more military bases there in addition to the so-called Humanitarian Center in Niš.

Since Western Balkans countries already have major trade arrangements with the EU, the crisis of the accession process will not have effect on their economic ties. U.S.-UK should extend more trade opportunities and invest in the economic cooperation with this region. UK could use the upcoming privatization of the corrupt state monopolies in the region to make a grand gesture that it is still a continental power even after Brexit.

Macron has effectively ended European Union’s primacy in the Western Balkans but that should not mean the end of democratic and the badly needed free market reforms in the region. There is now room and opportunity for United States and the UK to make a difference should President Trump and Prime Minister Johnson decide so.

Reuf Bajrovic Co-Chairs the US-Europe Alliance in Washington, DC. He previously served as Minster of Energy of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina