This article examines the political dynamics of Euro-Balkan police cooperation in the context of recent Balkan history. In the existing scholarship, the process of the ‘externalisation’ of EU-wide law enforcement cooperation outside the Union's geographic frontiers is widely considered to be a ‘functional-instrumental’ response to the menace of organised crime. Scholars believe that the functional rationale has been a primary driver behind the Union's endeavours to extend its governance of internal security to the EU's...