Causes of organized crime in the Balkans

• Author: Kol? Krasniqi
• Position: University of Peja, Kosovo
• Pages: 81-86

Academic Journal of Business, Administration, Law and Social Sciences

IIPCCL Publishing, Tirana-Albania

Vol. 2 No. 2

July 2016

ISSN 2410-3918

Acces online at www.iipccl.org

81

Causes of organized crime in the Balkans

DrKolKrasniqi

UniversityofPejaKosovo

Abstract

Legal systems are put in jeopardy and social stability wherever there are organized criminal

activities. In the Balkans, organized crime is the main obstacle to the European integration

ofthe regionThe permanentinuence oforganized crimein thestate structuresthe coop-

erationbetweendierentcriminalorganizationsandespeciallytheircollaborationwithsome

extremist group’s impacts political stability in an extremely negative way. The states in the

Balkans have recognized the dangers for their peoples constituted by organized crime and

have already taken a number of required legal, institutional and political measures in order

to be able to successfully combat organized crime. However, organized crime still constitutes

the main risk in the new democratic states in the Balkans in spite of these measures. For that

reason, combating organized crime may not be treated just as the task or responsibility of one

single state but it needs to be understood as an obligation and responsibility of all the states in

the entire region as well as of the European Union. Therefore, cooperation and coordination of

joint activities for combating organized crime have to be based on modern international stan-

dards. Besides, a continual perspective is required according to the interest of the people of the

region to live together in peace and mutual harmony and to establish a society where human

rights are not threatened by criminal violence but protected just like in the European Union.

Keywords: Organized Crime, Balkans, Corruption, causes of organized crime.

Introduction

The Balkans is a geopolitical region of Southeast Europe that includes an area of

kmwhereaboutmillionpeoplewithdierentidentitieswhosometimes

are in adversarial ethnic, cultural and political positions, live together (Hobsbawm,

2005).

Such confrontations led to the discourse of the Balkan Peninsula where the word

Balkanism was increasingly used during the nineteenth century to refer to a

disintegrating geographic area in which small states and the states which had been

recentlyliberatedfromtheOomanEmpiredevelopedexpansionistpoliciestowards

eachothercommied cruelactsofviolenceagainstmembersof otherpeoples and

instigatedvariousethnicconictsintheBalkansSooverthelasttwocenturiesthe

Balkans has been adequately treated as a problematic area of Europe by the Western

World (Hobsbawm, 2005).

Aerthe endofthe ethnic conictsof the twentiethcenturythe Balkan countries

supported by the European Union and the U.S., started opposing the past practices

of confrontation among each other by engaging in active policies of mutual

friendship and cooperation as fundamental European values. Since that time, the

Balkan countries have begun more openly to reject their being labeled as “Balkan

countriesonthegroundsthattheircountriesnolongerundergoethnicorpolitical