Non-Western countries have gained ground in the Western Balkans while EU influence continues to shrink, and its soft power evaporates. With so many opportunities missed to move EU accession forward, the EU and its members are increasingly faced with a problem that is largely of their own making. More specifically, the EU is unable or unwilling to counter external states that destabilize peacebuilding and derail conflict resolution, undermine democracy and the rule of law, and sabotage sustainable development, while its own transformative power through accession conditionality has been neutralized. This dynamic is underscored by the 2021 BiEPAG survey (conducted by IPSOS), which confirms the validity of these concerns. The EU and its member-states are considered as greater propagators of fake news than Russia in all Western Balkan countries but Albania. In the case of Serbia, the survey showed that Russia and China largely outpace the EU across almost all indicators of influence and appreciation.