Assessing EUSAIR as a Driver of Functional Integration in the Western Balkans

Macro-regional strategies (MRS) have been under increasing academic scrutiny since the 2004 enlargement. Contributions have touched a wide array of fields, from multi-level governance to spatial and urban planning. Scholars have also examined how MRS encompassing non-member states, namely the Western Balkans and Moldova, can foster Europeanization processes and facilitate EU integration of candidate countries. The EU Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR), born in 2014 building on a decade-long experience of transnational cooperation, involves today more candidate countries (Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia) than Member States (Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Greece). EUSAIR is thus a privileged standpoint to inquire the potential of these governance instruments in favouring Europeanisation patterns. In one of the most recent contributions on the topic, Chiodi et al. (2025) identify the “untapped potential” for EU enlargement of territorial cooperation financed under INTERREG ADRION within the broader EUSAIR framework. Authors find that Communities of Practices (CoPs) in territorial cooperation produce useful exchanges of knowledge and skills, but that results achieved at the local and technical level lack the political recognition and institutional support to scale up to policy level. UE recommendations go in the same direction. The “embedding” principle, mentioned in the EU Commission EUSAIR Action Plan as well as in the report on the implementation of macro-regional strategies, points at integrating priorities established at macro-regional level in EU-level funding streams. Addressing both gaps revealed by the literature and policy recommendations from the Commission, this paper aims to establish whether EUSAIR has served as a driver of functional integration in the Western Balkans. Specifically, it will inquire whether membership in EUSAIR has been an opportunity for candidate countries to contribute to EU agenda setting, which would represent a unique example of differentiated integration. Given the common functional feature of the Adriatic-Ionian sea basins, the research focuses on Pillar 1 of the Strategy (Blue Growth) and the maritime economy. Albania and Montenegro are taken as case studies of coastal countries involved in “blue economy” experiments where sector-specific cooperation offers potential for bottom-up policy feed-in. Methodology will draw on qualitative analysis, coupling literature and documental review with semi-structured interviews with EUSAIR National coordinators, the Montenegrin Pillar 1 coordinator, and officials from DG REGIO in Brussels. The paper should represent a step further in current research looking directly at how EUSAIR have or could in the future represent a model for functional and differentiated integration, rather than merely a political forum for cooperation, through a substantiation of the “embedding” principle.