COMPETING GEOECONOMIC LOGICS: EU AND CHINA’S IMPACT ON THE WESTERN BALKANS’ REGIONALISM BETWEEN 2013 AND 2025

Сажетак

This article examines how distinct geoeconomic logics advanced by the European Union and China generate differentiated mechanisms of regional integration and fragmentation across the Western Balkans between 2013 and 2025. Rather than treating external influence as uniformly integrative or destabilizing, it asks whether competing external influences foster integration or deepen fragmentation across the region. Building on a comparative framework of actor logics, the article contrasts the EU’s regulatory, market-based, and standards-driven approach with China’s project-oriented, loan-financed, and bilateral engagement model. It argues that competition between these geoeconomic logics does not simply promote or undermine regional cooperation. Instead, this dynamic leads to a model of “intersecting regionalism”, combining EU-led, formal institutional frameworks with China-backed, project-oriented initiatives. In this context, the Western Balkans emerges as a significant area where competing geoeconomic logics intersect, reshaping established patterns of regional cooperation. Empirically, the paper focuses on two arenas where these logics intersect – infrastructure/transport and energy. In the infrastructure sector, the analysis focuses on transport and connectivity initiatives in the Western Balkans between 2013 and 2025, comparing Chinese loan-financed projects implemented by Chinese contractors with EU-supported initiatives developed under the Connectivity Agenda and the Berlin Process. Energy is assessed in light of projects implemented and/or financed by one of the two sides – the EU and China. The article proposes that the interaction of EU and Chinese geoeconomic logics may contribute to the emergence of a form of intersecting regionalism in the Western Balkans, combining institutional integration with project-based connectivity and generating differentiated outcomes across sectors.

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