Todor Gardos, researcher with the Human Rights Watch, writes in an opinion piece for EUobserver that the new European Commission strategy for enlargement of the EU, expected to be presented on February 6, could be greeted with skepticism at the Western Balkans. However, if the EU is willing to end its 'drift policy' and commit to support of human rights and the rule of law, "it could be a new beginning."

Gardos remarks that so far the EU has shown little attention to the region of the Western Balkans except when there is a flare-up of political tensions as with the killing of the Kosovo Serb political leader Oliver Ivanovic in Mitrovica north. "Limited political and criminal accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity has left open wounds for the victims of the conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia," Gardos writes.

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