Budapest Outlook 2023/2: Zeitenwende and the Western Balkans

Kilátás

In this episode of Budapest Outlook, the renewed podcast series of the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, Germany’s foreign policy shift and its possible implications for the Western Balkan region will be discussed. Our guests are Heinrich Kreft, Holder of the Chair of Diplomacy and Head of the Centre for Diplomacy at the Andrássy University Budapest, and Margit Wunsch Gaarmann, Visiting Fellow at the Berlin-based Institute for International and Security Affairs. The host is Tamás Molnár, research fellow of the HIIA. One year ago, Chancellor Scholz’s speech in the Germany Bundestag on 27 February, the so-called Zeitenwende speech signalled a shift in German foreign policy. One year after the declared Zeitenwende there is a forming consensus in the international media, but also among academics and the think tank bubble that indeed we can observe some kind of a Wende, but it takes an awfully lot of Zeit in Germany’s foreign policy. The episode deals with the following questions: How can we summarize Germany’s main foreign policy goals towards the Western Balkans in the past year? What has changed in Germany's enlargement policy since Russia's aggression against Ukraine? Can the war in Ukraine revive the EU’s enlargement agenda for the Western Balkans, and break the enlargement fatigue witnessed in many member states? What should be done in the EU before we talk about integrating further members? The recording took place on the sidelines of the Budapest Balkans Forum. Music on the recording: Alexi Action: "Passion" via Pixabay. Photo: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/germany-steps-up-in-the-western-balkans-will-the-eu-follow-its-lead/?fbclid=IwAR3XnutMxxczHpbwNNI8bALBcYaZQV0L6fNqPYmHrM1Cf0XdL_8yP4-UbEw