Despite its damaged reputation due to recent democratic backsliding in new Member States, conditionality remains the EU’s most powerful foreign-policy instrument. In the Western Balkans, EU conditionality addresses not only democracy and the acquis but also the region’s conflicts, which range from intrastate disputes in highly polarised states to interstate disputes with neighbouring Western Balkan (potential) candidates or EU Member States. This has given rise to a specific type of EU conditionality—conflict conditionality.

Several studies have already examined how EU conditionality has influenced conflicts in the Western Balkans. However, how does this conditionality look like and how has it evolved across different stages of the contractual relations between the EU and Western Balkans?

Answering such questions provides valuable insights, because as Hughes, Sasse and Gordon (2004, 526) argue, conditionality is not a rigid, rule-based instrument; rather it shifts its nature according to the context, country concerned, or policy area. Therefore, studying the substantive dimension of EU’s conditionality offers a unique opportunity to explore the EU’s policy dynamics in a specific area (Gateva 2015). This seminar will demonstrate that, despite the EU’s vested interest in resolving conflicts, it lacks the resolve to settle these disputes before accession. This approach, however, risks further delaying the Western Balkans’ integration into the EU.