It isn't directly as much about the hegemony of any country or nation.
It's more about huge capital/business interests that have found their way into political parties in both the EU and most of its member states. While democracy is a great thing if it indeed represents the will of a people, even if divided by philosophical and practical disagreements, when political parties (covertly) become lobbying agencies for large business interests it becomes a very different story.
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of Yugoslavia, plenty of business were immediately involved with the "privatizations" of (formerly) nationalized resources and services. A lot of that was done with the assistance of local collaborators, many of which later became what we now call those local oligarchs and way too powerful politicians. What is currently happening has a lot to do with reigning back in these locals, after becoming a bit too powerful (and greedy), and taking even more than was already originally taken (if not stolen).
A big problem in all this is that shady business deals often stay below the radar of ordinary citizens, even though these same business deals might be of a huge influence of what happens in the (international) political arena.
Just as an example, think about how Royal Dutch Shell managed to score exclusive rights to natural resources in the Ukraine, for I believe as much as a decade. This happened either right before or shortly after the change of power in the country, but certainly before Crimea and the east of the country decided that they did not agree their new masters in Kiev. Now, go and guess where most of those natural resources are located. Looks to me like Shell just lost a lot of potential profit there. But of course the military/policing campaign that followed was all about crushing local terrorism. The key point in all this: I don't remember even a single EU news outlet running any story about Shell and the serious investments it just made (and then saw evaporate) in the Ukraine. This is just an example. There are plenty of other stories where business deals made in the dark end up being "conveniently coincide" with political events involving former Soviet or Yugoslavian countries.
Just like the EU government and media suffering from a case of instant autism regarding the (filmed) police brutalities in Serbia last year, despite many NGO's writing letters to both EU governments and the media alike. Of course it is a coincidence that the EU was just about to conduct talks with the country's president about Kosovo, where foreign industrialist would love to finally get their hands on the trillions (as in literally trillions) worth of natural resources. Something the "independence" war of Kosovo didn't manage to fully achieve, much to the dismay of some very powerful people.
It is said that Kosovo "happened" not long after members of the Albanian mafia made considerable campaign contributions to US lawmakers linked to the Clinton administration. I've seen plenty of Serbs therefore claim that this mafia essentially bought itself their own fiefdom. In reality, they are more like the local useful idiots who get a relatively small reward for their cooperation. The real story is how foreign industrialist (tried to) get their hands on this very important piece of land. For historical reference: Hitler rushed to Kosovo to get exclusive control over it. Back then for the same reason as now: key natural resources. There's some very interesting stuff in the ground there (and not all of it publicly declared, but it can be deduced with some basic knowledge of geology)