Few words are used as loosely in regional development as “connectivity.” At the Western Balkans 2030 conference, it finally regained its true weight. Rather than a generic aspiration, connectivity emerged as the region’s most undervalued strategic advantage — a lever that can pull economies forward if leaders decide to use it with intention.
The physical dimension was illustrated by North Macedonia’s Deputy Prime Minister Ivan Stoilković, who pointed to the reconstruction of Corridor 10 as evidence of what happens when national priorities, European financing and regional coordination align. Infrastructure, he reminded the audience, is never just about movement. It is about compressing economic distance, expanding opportunity and signalling credibility to investors who want certainty, not patchwork systems.
Energy connectivity added another layer. From UN representatives to EPS leadership, the message was unanimous: the region cannot modernise or decarbonise through isolated national strategies. Cross-border electricity lines, regional balancing mechanisms, shared storage, and transparent market integration are not optional features but the backbone of energy security.
Without them, the region risks volatility, higher prices, and a slower transition to renewables.
Digital connectivity carried the conversation into the future. Finland’s remarkable benchmark — 85% of citizens already using digital public services — illustrated what is possible when systems are designed around people rather than institutions. Serbia’s mobile registration system for seasonal workers, now adopted across four neighbouring economies, showed how quickly regional digital harmonisation can begin. In the private sector, voices from MTEL and the Swiss-Serbian SME Hub stressed that transformation depends not only on tools, but on the willingness of institutions and companies to rethink how they operate.
Institutional connectivity may be the most intangible, yet it is the area where credibility is most visibly earned. The EU Growth Plan, the renewed engagement of Japan, UNOPS’ capacity-building programmes — all rely on the ability of institutions to coordinate across borders, sectors and political cycles. Fragmentation is the region’s most persistent weakness, but coordination remains its most powerful — and still underused — asset.
Connectivity, in all its forms, is the Western Balkans’ closest thing to a competitive multiplier. Whether it becomes an advantage or another chapter in the region’s long inventory of missed opportunities will depend on whether leaders treat it as the strategy it must be, rather than the slogan it has too often become.