@article{2021:becker:the_ski,
title = {‘The skies are empty and the continent is overflowing with insoluble problems’ – The Covid-19 crisis in the western Balkans and the failure of the EU},
year = {2021},
note = {Many societies are still in the stranglehold of the coronavirus.
China, South Korea and Taiwan have apparently overcome the pandemic
but problems that are almost impossible to resolve are piling up in
Europe. Despite the joint vaccination procurement campaign, the EU in
particular is struggling to regulate the crisis domestically. The
states of the western Balkans which have been relying on an EU
perspective for years and which have repeatedly been put off, have
also been hit hard, piling problems on top of health services that
are, for a number of reasons, already seriously jeopardised. In view
of the worsening situation - countries in central and south-eastern
Europe are over-represented among those with the highest numbers of
Covid-19 related deaths - we take a closer look at current
practicalities and political realities in these ‘high incidence
areas’, as the region is currently known (according to the
Ost-Ausschuss der Deutschen Wirtschaft). This article focuses on the
role of the EU, and how views of this are changing in the region, as
well as that being played by other, apparently more nimble and agile,
powers.},
journal = {SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe},
pages = {7--18},
author = {Becker, Jens and Kulić, Ina},
volume = {24},
number = {1}
}