The European Union does not have a clear strategy for managing candidate countries’ engagement with China, the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) has warned in a report, raising concerns about Beijing’s growing influence in the Western Balkans.
“The EU lacks a clear ‘China conditionality’ in its enlargement policy with Western Balkan countries—that is, defining and implementing conditions for candidates to engage with China—and the topic of China remains largely absent from accession talks,” said the report by Vladimir Shopov, visiting fellow at the ECFR.
The report, titled “Eyes wide shut: How to read China’s playbook in the Western Balkans”, highlighted that the EU’s own cautious stance towards China contributes to the problem. “The union’s official stance of balancing cooperation and rivalry no longer reflects EU actions in practice, which lean towards confrontation,” the report noted.
The ECFR cited a 2021 crisis in Montenegro as a warning sign. The country was nearing financial collapse after a “huge loan from China’s Exim Bank for a controversial highway project swelled into a debt mountain—at one point topping a third of the country’s annual budget.” The EU intervened to prevent what it called “debt bondage with China,” but four years later, the report observed, “the EU still does not have a clear ‘China conditionality’ for EU aspirant countries, and the topic of China remains noticeably absent from formal accession talks.”
Cross-sectoral Chinese presence
China’s engagement in the Western Balkans has expanded beyond infrastructure loans to a broader network of investments and partnerships. “Beijing’s footprint in the region is evolving from infrastructure projects and loans to investments and acquisitions, with its influence ever more entrenched in the region’s core institutions,” the report said.
In Serbia, for example, the ECFR highlighted defence cooperation that includes shipments of CH-92 and CH-95 military drones, “bundled with eight laser-guided missiles,” as well as the deployment of the FK-3 air-defence system within the Serbian air forces. The report also cited the transfer of industrial assets in Bosnia: “Actors with significant links to Chinese and Russian business interests continue to expand their influence in the Western Balkans.”
North Macedonia has also sought loans from Beijing. The ECFR noted that the government, led by Hristijan Mickoski, obtained “€500m from the Hungarian state-owned Export-Import Bank, which appears to have acted as an intermediary. Hungary itself obtained loans worth €1bn euros from Chinese lenders (the Exim Bank and the Hungarian branch of the Bank of China).”
Infrastructure remains central to China’s strategy. While Montenegro’s near-bankruptcy over the Bar-Boljare motorway led to EU scrutiny, Chinese firms continue to pursue deals in public procurement, energy, and transport across the region. Telecommunications also remains an area of concern, with Huawei “entrenched in the Western Balkans” despite US containment efforts.
The ECFR notes China is increasingly embedding itself in civil society and cultural sectors. “China has shifted from large-scale, sector-specific projects, such as in infrastructure and energy, towards a more diffuse, multi-actor approach across several sectors. This includes engaging with cultural, academic, business and educational organisations and using projects and institutional agreements to embed and consolidate cooperation.”
EU policy
Shopov stresses that EU enlargement was meant to integrate candidate countries into European legal and political norms, generating “effective constraints on third countries”. But the accession process in the Western Balkans has been “dominated by … manoeuvring, with some governments using accession as a tool in their broader geopolitical calculations.”
Albania and Kosovo remain relatively sceptical of China, the report notes, but Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and North Macedonia increasingly hedge their foreign policy with Chinese engagement. “Traditionally, Serbia has engaged the most with China, even if President Aleksandar Vucic has found it ever more delicate in recent years to do so as EU policies pull Belgrade closer to Brussels,” Shopov wrote.
Meanwhile, Bosnian Serb politician Milorad Dodik uses ties with Russia and China to “ensure political survival and deflect international pressure”. In North Macedonia, the nationalist VMRO-DPMNE-led government has pursued a “multi-vector” foreign policy, as it continues to resist constitutional changes to recognise the small Bulgarian minority required for progress on EU membership. Montenegro, despite the highway debt crisis, continues to sign procurement deals with non-EU countries.
The ECFR report warns that the EU’s strategy on China is inconsistent. “The EU’s longstanding three-element formula of cooperation, competition and rivalry no longer reflects the real dynamics of the EU-China relationship. While there are instances of cooperation, the dominant theme is competition, at times even confrontation,” the report said.
Efforts to incorporate China-related conditions in accession talks remain limited. Updates on Serbia’s negotiations show few references to China, and even when discussed, they “tend to be vague and lack explicit conditions and deadlines”.
Chapter 30 on external relations mentions Serbia’s free trade agreement with China, noting some compatibility issues, but “the text is brief and non-committal and lacks a timeline and an awareness of the consequences of this agreement.” Chapter 5 on public procurement and Chapter 31 on foreign, security, and defence policy similarly note Chinese ties but “do not set out corrective measures.”
The ECFR urges Brussels to clarify its China policy and embed it firmly in the enlargement process. “The EU must clarify its China policy and embed it as a clear conditionality in the accession process. It also needs to establish a firm timeline for Western Balkan membership and strike a better balance between requirements and incentives to encourage progress,” the report said.
Without such measures, the ECFR warns, the EU risks undermining the transformative power of enlargement, while Beijing continues to consolidate influence in a region long considered Europe’s geopolitical periphery.
