A European Journey from Zagreb to Graz

In Graz, everybody discussing Southeastern Europe, including myself, is eager to point out that Zagreb is closer than Vienna. Of course, this might be true in terms of kilometers, but not necessarily if measured by hours travelling. If you take a car, the journey for the less than 200 kilometers is a quick two hours, but if public transport is your choice (or not) things look different.  If one wants to travel directly between the two cities, there is a bus at 6 am, a train at 7.30 and finally one more bus at 23.00. These take a breathtaking four hours to Graz (average speed 50 kilometers per hour)

Those not lucky to catch these trains or buses will have to take a slightly longer journey, as I did today.

The not-too-friendly at the ticket counter give me a flyer with my connection predicting an sobering 7 hour journey. I got on the intercity “Sava” from Belgrade to Munich. I remember the cars of the Yugoslav railways, when I took them for the first time 20 years ago, back than surprisingly how new they were. How could the Yugoslav railways (the Yugoslavia which was just Serbia and Montenegro) have new cars, when everything around it was collapsing, under sanctions. Now, the cars looks appropriately worn. The Yugosphere is alive and well with exchange of crude graffiti between supporters of Delije and Ustasha in the toilets, where they belong.

At the border, the Slovenian carina official kept shouting at a hapless Bulgarian “nešto za prijaviti” and the other passengers gladly repeated after the customs official in both Serbian and Croatian prijaviti, prijaviti. The customs official got increasingly aggressive amidst his disbelief that this word could not be the same in all world languages (or at least all of the ones spoken in the Balkans). After all this, is a Schengen border, the EU begins here and displaying good old habits marking ones national sovereignty with rudeness are now Europeanised.

A friendly Serbian waiter came shouting through the car “restaurant arbeiten—restauran radi”, but not enough time before Zidani Most, a little hamlet in a valley between Celje and Ljubljana. When I first changed trains here two decades ago, I thought I had arrived in the wild gorges of the Balkans, but it is only a charming train stop at the end of the Alps. A place nicer when driving through than when stopping. Mentally preparing for an hour stay here, a train rolls into the station that my Croatian timetable kept from me. Stopping in every village to Maribor, I might even arrive earlier in Graz. Maribor is only an hour and a half away from the stony bridge and Boris Kidrič continues to welcome new arrivals.

An elderly lady sells a little knitted Slovenia map, another one offers a  little kitchy cityscape drawn (or rather burnt) on wood and as additional incentive to make the purchase, engraved on top “Maribor European Capital of Culture 2012”. A few colorful cubes mark the main squares and a two car rail bus slowly moves towards the border, Spielfeld-Strass. In order to honor Maribor become cultural capital, the train connection between Graz and Maribor, some 50 kilometers apart has been cut down to two direct trains a day (despite “EuroregionMaribor-Graz and nice headlines such as Graz and Maribor are getting closer together in the local newspaper).

At the border, the two trains approached each other like for a cold war prisoner exchange. The Slovenian train and the Austrian train meet head to head, spit out their passengers and took the ones from the other side. Nobody was left behind. So when the local train (called Wiesel or in English Weasel) pulled into Graz, it took only five and a half hours instead of the feared seven.

Thus, one year before Croatia joins the European Union, getting from Zagreb to the European capital of culture 2012 and on to Graz is a journey at an average speed of less than 50 kilometers per hour, taking not much more time than the journey did over 100 years ago. My Baedeker Austria-Hungary from 1905 tells me that it take two hours from Agram to Steinbrück (Zidani Most to Zagreb today, one and half hours ) and around three and a half hours from Steinbrück to Gratz (today anywhere between two and a half and three hours).

After the five and a half hours, four trains, three changes, and two cultural capitals, Croatia’s EU integration felt like a virtual world, far removed from the stuffy, torn up trains that make this a journey at the borders, not the centre of Europe as it should be.

Serbia’s candidate status delay: Romania, the Vlachs of Serbia and the EU

After everybody expected a smooth confirmation of Serbia’s EU candidate status today, following the agreement between Belgrade and Prishtina last week and the support for status by Germany that had earlier blocked Serbia’s bid, the decision seems to have hit an unexpdected snag. Romania has blocked a final decision over the treatment of the Vlach minority in Serbia. This blockage is both surprising and worrying, even if it ended after just a few hours:

Romania had not indicated earlier any intention to block the EU candidate status for Serbia. It appears to have been a surprise by many observers . Such last minute efforts to push ones own agenda on such an important issue is clearly worse than a little sneaky. It undermines the already weak credibility in the region and leave the impression that accession countries can fulfill conditions, but member states will come up with their own ecclectic agenda. As a result, legitimate conditions are tainted by such requests. There is a further problem with Romania’s blockage: While the status of Vlachs leaves much to be desired, the treatment of the community certainly does not merit such an intervention. The most recent report of the Advistory Committee for the Framework Convention notes a number of problems, but nothing either that substantial or specific for the community that would merit such a drastic kin state intervention (if Romania is a kin state at all, a role not accepted by all Vlachs in Serbia).

Delaying Serbia’s candidate status is also likely to doubly hurt the Vlach, Romanian and other minorities in Serbia. The use of the kin state to block (even if it will turn out for a few hours) progress towards the EU over minority rights is only going to have a negative impact on minority rights. Of course, the EU accession process is a key tool to improve minority rights, but not like this: Giving Serbia candidate status and beginning negotiations is much more likely to improve the status of minorities than letting Serbia wait. As with other aspects of the accession process, the actual negotiations are the most effective tool to secure change rather than punishing a country. As a result, the Vlack minority will be more likely to benefit from the candidate status for Serbia as soon as possible rather than from Romania’s intervention at this point. Of course, once negotiations start, the minority rights agenda will be driven by the Commission, not by member states. This means that kin states like Romania now might be less interested in genuine minority rights and rather in flexing their smallish muscle and present themselves as the protector of national interests. Considering the large number of cross border minorities and kin states in the region, the Romanian delaying tactic is a worrying signal for the EU enlargement process and unfortunately unlikely to do much good for minority rights.

 

 

The surprising-unsurprising “Yes” for the EU in Croatia

The referendum on EU accession of Croatia gave a resounding “Yes” in favor of joining the EU. According to the final results, 66.27% of citizens who turned out voted in favor. The No vote got only  a third of the vote. Striking is that every county of Croatia voted in favor of joining the EU, even the most Eurosceptic region of Dubrovnik-Neretva stilled voted 56.93% in favor. The regional variation is thus not very great and there is no clear regional pattern except for the two southern regions of Split and Dubrovnik being more skeptical. Support was great in towns close to the EU, such as Varazdin and Cakovec, but also in poorer towns and regions like Slavonski Brod or Gospic. This suggests that the reasons for support were multiple. Opponents of the EU did not do well, even in strong-holds of more nationalist parties, such as in Slavonia where the HDSSB did well in parliamentary elections. Ironically, it would seem that the Euroskeptics did best on the Dalmatian islands of Brac and Hvar. For example in the two municipalities of Jelsa and Stari Grad on the Island of Hvar, support for EU accession was just above 50% (51.16% and 51.79% respectively). This would also suggest that rejection of the EU is less based on the nationalist arguments heard in the referendum campaign, but possibly on the sense of some tourist destinations that membership will not bring an tangible benefits. The few Bosnian Croats that voted (just over 6000, or 2.3% of eligible voters) endorsed EU membership with 87.85%.

The turn out in the diaspora was low, but so was it in Croatia itself. This somewhat puts a dent into the referendum results. Only 43.68% of eligible citizens voted. The low turn out is not unique to Croatia: elsewhere similar referenda often had an equally low turn out. Now it could be argued that the result is no surprise. No significant parliamentary party campaign against joining and even Ante Gotovina in custody at the ICTY endorsed the vote, undermining nationalist argument against accession. So no surprise? Well, there might not have been no surprise now, but only a year ago, Euroskepticism was high. Protests last year in Zagreb burnt the EU flag, even if protestors agreed on little else. For years prior, Croatia had become by far the most Euroskeptic country in the region. In 2009, according to the Gallup Balkan Monitor, only 26.2% of Croats thought the EU was a good thing, nearly half of the runner-up Serbia, in 2010 the number dropped to 24.8%. So were the numbers wrong? The referendum suggests two things about support for EU accession in the Western Balkans: First, citizens might be growing weary of the EU as negotiations drag on, once they are concluded, it is easier to warm up to the EU. Second, many citizens might not “love” the EU, but they consider it the least bad option. Thus among many “Yes” voters in Croatia today are surely also those who rather not take any chances, especially as the alternative remained unclear and potentially risky. Thus, even if support for accession is likely drop in the other countries of the region–as it so often dues in the accession process–this does not suggest that citizens will vote against membership at the end.

Croatia’s EU prospects and voices from the past

The conclusion of negotiations between Croatia and the European Commission is great news for the region. After nearly six years of talk, this crucial period of EU accession for Croatia has been completed. There is little doubt that Croatia will manage to join within around two years due to the cumbersome ratification process (note for any politician in the region: if it takes 8 years for Croatia between beginning talks and membership, it’s unlikely to be faster anywhere else.

Now the question is how to “sell” accession to the current member states. Here, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in a commentary today [paywall] clearly heads into the wrong direction. The author writes “In some [European] capitals, the candidate Croatia is considered a Balkan country and a corner stone of Tito’s Yugoslavia.” He goes on to note that the “former Hungarian crown land is as central European as Slovenia and resisted Belgrade’s Serb hegemony.” While the comment notes that the difference between Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim sozialisation (whatever that means) is not a source of conflict in the EU, they are not irrelevant when it comes to national specificities (Eigenheiten). Implicitly, the comment suggests that Croatia completes the European Union rather than opening the door to the inclusion of the rest of the “Western Balkans”: Every inclusion is also an exclusion of those who are not joining at the same time. To argue that Croatia is joining due to its Catholic and central European nature is not only doing the EU a disservice which is more than a club of Central and West European countries, but it also challenges the process of enlargement over the past decade and serves cheap and rather dated Balkan stereotypes (recently revived thanks to the Greek crisis). Finally, it also throws an ugly light on the way on way the FAZ has been commenting on the dissolution of Yugoslavia exactly twenty years ago with offensive commentaries by Johann Georg Reissmüller which lacked any critical distance towards the Tudjman regime and in its blatant Balkan stereotyping.

 

Negotiating Division and Cooperation in today’s Bosnia

As Bosnia is recovering from the latest crisis, once more the largest one since Dayton, it is useful to reflect on the underlying challenges Bosnia is facing today. When late Richard Holbrooke brokered the Dayton Peace Accords in late 1995, most attention was devoted to drawing the new internal boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina (henceforth Bosnia) to arrive at the “magical formula” which implemented the previously agreed division of the country into 49 percent under control of the Serb Republic (RS) and 51 percent under control of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), the predominantly Bosniak and Croat entity. Thus emerged an over 1000 km long border know euphemistically as the inter-entity boundary line (IEBL). On the other hand, the constitution and new institutions of the country received only scant attention during the negotiations. It is thus not without irony that it is those institutions which have been at the core of the profound political crisis which Bosnia has been slipping into over the past five years, while the borders have remained relatively uncontested.

Does this mean that too much attention has been placed to borders and too little to institutions? While certainly the institutions established at Dayton were often flawed, the border drawing was controversial and remains potentially a source of contestation. The boundary between the two entities largely followed the ceasefire line and only contained two major adjustments: One in western Bosnia to accommodate the 49/51 formula by placing thinly populated regions under control of the RS and granting the Federation full control over parts of Sarajevo previously under Bosnian Serb rule—a territorial transfer which came about with last chapter of ethnic cleansing with most Serbs leaving the neighborhoods under pressure from the RS leadership in March 1996.

The border between the entities has become largely invisible over the past 15 years: In the first years, many feared crossing the border and police check points in the vicinity of the border constituted efforts by the entities to prevent people from moving freely within Bosnia. Even if the police were absent, this invisible line became visible by stalls selling cheap cigarettes from the other entity and taxi drivers waiting for customers from the other side as few were willing to cross this line with the wrong license plates. With a common currency and a unified license plate, and a decline in the profitability of the cross-entity cigarette trade, the most visible reminders today are the large signs reading “Welcome to the Republic of Srpska”.

With few exceptions, the IEBL has also become the ethnic dividing line in Bosnia. Prior to the war, most municipalities were multinational, with a significant share of the population hailing not just the largest, but also from other groups. The ethnic cleansing during the war largely destroyed this diversity and territorialized ethnic belonging. The internationally administered return process was possibly the largest experiment to undo the consequences of ethnic cleansing. Refugees and internally displaced did not only have an unconditional right to return (unlike what seems currently likely in either Cyprus or Palestine/Israel), but were also assisted if they did want to go back home.  Even if (on paper) half of the two million IDPs and refugees returned (the return process has slowed to a trickle since 2003), the returnees often did not stay or became a new minority, marginalized when it comes to jobs, education and services. Only three municipalities bucked the trend and ‘changed hands’ since the end of the war. Grahovo, Drvar, Glamoč in Western Bosnia today have Serb majorities, as they did before the war, although they lie in a Federation canton named after the Croat secessionist project ‘Herceg Bosna.’ The main reason that these municipalities saw such massive returns after the war was due to the overwhelming Serb population majority they had before the war and the fact that Serbs were expelled from the region only towards the end of the war in 1995. These three towns are thus the exceptions which prove the rule that ethnic cleansing has largely worked.

The internal borders of Bosnia are today less physical markers, but continue firmly separate political power and cementing ethnic divisions. A second category of borders in Bosnia are the external borders with its three neighbors Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. Here a two-level border regime emerged. The physical border became more substantial since 1995 as Bosnia’s border regime evolved and it is likely to increase in significance as Croatia’s EU accession will lead, if not immediately, to a Schengen border between the two countries. On the hand, there is an ethnic border regime: The overwhelming number of Croats in Bosnia hold Croatian passports and a growing, but unknown number of Serbs in the RS have been acquiring Serbian passports. According to the Gallup Balkan Monitor in 2009 and 2010, 15.4 and 7.5% respectively of surveyed inhabitants hold a Serbian passport, n the Federation, 15.2% and 33.8% respectively hold the Croat citizenship.

This trend was certainly encouraged by the one year gap between the EU decision to liberalize the visa regime for Serbian (2009) and Bosnian citizens (2010). Beyond formal dual citizenship, other informal privileges granted to Croats or inhabitants of the RS create a virtual ethnic trans-border community. There are two ways of looking at this reality. Often, the ethnic ties are seen as a negative hold-over from the war years and help to undermine the already weak Bosnian state cohesion. These networks produce and reproduce loyalties and identities which can challenge the Bosnian state. This is exemplified by statements from the current president of the RS, Milorad Dodik, in which he stated that “case that tomorrow Bosnia and Serbia would play, I would cheer for Serbia.” Accordingly, only 15.8% of inhabitants in the RS support the Bosnian football team, while 75.8% in the Federation do. Forging closer ties to Serbia and fostering informal cross-border ties also reduced the identification with Bosnia. A consequence is the large support (over 80%) among Serbs in the RS support the independence of their entity over the continued existence of Bosnia.

Alternatively, one could also interpret these ties as having a moderating effect. In 2009, Tim Judah, the Balkan correspondent of The Economist coined the term Yugosphere. This Yugosphere describes the network of ties with the countries of former Yugoslavia in business and culture which have emerged since the end of the wars. They do not express a desire to re-constitute a political unit called Yugoslavia, but rather describe an alternative within the framework of existing states. Now, in addition to the Yugosphere, there are also a ‘Croatosphere’, and a ‘Serbosphere’. These are cross-border networks based on affinity along national lines. These ties are fostered by the above mentioned examples of state policies, including citizenship regimes, and create a sense of community. If the Yugosphere does not necessarily present a challenge to the existing states, it could be argued that the national spheres similarly provide for another layer of identity, but do not have to undermine multi-national states per se. It could be argued that these linkages provide for multiple centres and networks, which might reduce the degree of contestation over only one, namely the state.

The challenge for Bosnia arising from the ‘Croatopshere’ and the ‘Serbosphere’ is that these often enjoy more legitimacy and have been able to provide greater benefits to Bosnian citizens which partake in these alternative spheres, including freedom to travel and jobs, than the state. Moreover, these spheres are exclusive and the largest Bosnian community, Bosniaks, lack such a comparable dimension. Most importantly, unlike the Yugosphere, the national spheres often (but not necessarily) challenge the legitimacy of the state and thus constitute an alternative rather than an additional layer to identity among Bosnians.

Both transnational and subnational structures and networks have been unable to overcome or to short-circuit the cumbersome decision-making processes within Bosnia. While there is widespread agreement that institutions in Bosnia which require consent across national lines have struggled to take decisions for years. The frequency of blockages increased since 2006 when Milorad Dodik came to power in the Republika Srpska for a second time and pursued a confrontational line towards the international actors and Bosniak parties. The fact that neither the state nor the Federation have had a government for more than four months after the elections in October 2010 is indicative of the tense political environment. The reason for the political blockages can be easily attributed to, depending on the perspective, the President of the RS, Milorad Dodik, or Bosniak politicians insisting on a further centralization of the state. The modest legislative record of the Bosnian parliament in recent years and the slow government formation cannot, however, are not caused only by a particular politician, or a particular elite.

Instead, it might be tempting to shift all the blame to the power-sharing arrangement established at Dayton. With its emphasis on ethnicity and strong linkage between ethnicity and territory, it seems to a recipe for confrontational ethnopolitics. Nevertheless, it is equally misleading to consider the entire political system as source of the current crisis in Bosnian politics.

While it is true , that just as there are populist politicians which thrive on the current impasse, there are institutions with multiple veto points and excessive emphasis on ethnic representation, colloquially known in Bosnia as “counting blood cells”, i.e. predetermining peoples professional opportunities based on their ethnic belonging. In order to find out why Bosnia is struggling, we need to explore other causes.

As survey for UNDP in 2007 found Bosnia to be at the bottom of international leagues when it comes to social trust. Only 7.8% of surveyed citizens indicate that they trust others, considerably lower than other countries, including in South Eastern Europe. This low level of trust transfers into low levels of trust in institutions and low level of interest in politics, again significantly less than in any country in the region. What is striking about the findings is that Bosnia is less characterized by low levels of trust between ethnic groups, or by particular groups towards some institutions—by Serbs towards the state for example—but by a generally low level of trust, not ethnically neutral, but preferences along ethnic lines are overshadowed by the general breakdown in trust.

Considering this backdrop, it is not surprising that Bosnia has essentially become a “low trust state”. The institutions are predicated on the low trust along ethnic lines: Veto rights and blocking mechanisms are the embodiment of low levels of trust in political opponents (sometimes justified). International supervision since Dayton has often interfered into political decisions due to low trust in local political elites (often for good reason). The political discourse of elites has been based on the rhetoric of low trust: A key theme of Milorad Dodik’s party SNSD over recent years has been the need to preserve the RS against threats from Bosniak parties and international pressure. The supposed threat and low trust in both parties from other ethnic groups and international actors were the core message. Similarly, Dodik recently rejected the introduction of a new article in the Bosnian constitution, known as the “Europe clause” which would allow for laws essential to EU integration to pass with fewer veto rights. Similarly, Croat parties have emphasized the need for a third entity to protect Croat interests from being marginalized. Finally, predominantly Bosniak parties emphasize their distrust toward the RS and the intentions of the non-Bosniak parties towards the state. While most citizens’ distrust is not primarily ethnic, the distrust of parties has clear ethnic overtones. If the goal of parties with a mono-ethnic electorate is to generate loyalty within the ethnic group at the expense of interethnic relations, the parties in Bosnia have failed. If, however, the ethnic distrust is both a way to channel broader frustration and a mechanism to re-produce distrust, it has worked. The effect of distrust is disengagement from politics and helps to sustain parties that re-affirm low trust politics and, while not being particularly trusted themselves, direct high levels of distrust elsewhere.

The Bosnian system of government is thus characterized by the tension between the different types of distrust: the distrust by citizens, as captured by surveys, is based on the perception of corruption and abuse of office, as well as by the inability of the state (and sub-state units) to deliver services citizens expect, such as health care, social protection and employment. The low levels of trust along ethnic lines, as promoted by most political parties, on the other hand reinforces ineffective institutions and legitimizes the (ab)use of office to further a particular mono-ethnic agenda, often in conjunction with party and individual interests. The two different sources of low trust in Bosnia thus are seemingly disconnected, yet mutually reinforcing. This has made institutional change and the emergence of new elites more difficult in Bosnia than in neighboring countries. Although low levels of trust are not a given, they are part of the DNA of Dayton Bosnia.

What does this experience tell us about post-conflict institutions and international intervention?

First, if the institutions have as many veto points as in Bosnia (a law proposed by government can be blocked in at least four different ways by both entities and “constituent people” before being passed), the risks of blockages increases and the state fails to deliver, further undermining the legitimacy of the state.

Second, if the state lacks incentives for cooperation and instead constantly has to compete with national ‘spheres’ or sub-state units which can govern in the absence of multiethnic decision making, the prospects for elites finding an interest in making institutions work decreases.

Third, without islands of ‘success’, where the state can generate trust and legitimacy, the underperformance of the state only helps to legitimize alternative state projects.

Fourth, while political contestation might often have ethnic overtones, social concerns are shaped by fear, distrust and low levels of social cohesion, with limited ethnic dimensions. In brief, the causes for ethnic politics might not be found in ethnicity, but in other dimensions of alienation and exclusion.

See you at the next crisis!

Once more “the most serious crisis of Bosnia since the signing of the Dayton Agreement” seems to have been averted thanks to the mediation of Catherine Ashton and EU threats against the RS. However, as Tim Judah reminds us, this is just the latest installment of the worst crisis since the end of the war. There is little reason to believe that the next “most serious crisis since the end of the war” is not far off. Dodik put himself in a win-win-win situation with the referendum: If it would have taken place, it would have given him popular-populist legitimacy to challenge any OHR decision (see the question: Do you support the laws imposed by the High Representative of the International Community in BiH, especially those pertaining to the Court of BiH and BiH Prosecutor’s Office, as well as their unconstitutional verification in the BiH Parliamentary Assembly?), including any state-building done over the past decade, from the flag to currency and numerous state institutions. If the OHR had banned the referendum, it would have polarized public opinion further, likely to his benefit. So what is the current “win” for Dodik for backing down? He manages to avoid sanctions and can even get some public displays of support (“We welcome your leadership, Mister President,” Ashton said) and gets internationals willing to negotiate with him. The EU offered a “structured dialogue” in exchange for shelving, not dropping the referendum.

I concur with Dan Serwer that this seems like a bad idea. The EU needs to have talks and take the lead in BiH, but not (only) with Banja Luka and certainly not on Dodik’s terms on the judiciary. Instead, solutions are needed on the implementation of the ECHR ruling in the Finci-Sejdic case and ensuring progress in regard to EU integration, as well as forming a govenrment. Once more, the EU is caught on the back foot, reacted rather than clearly acting in BiH. Dodik will continue to hold the threat of a referendum over such talks and with a largely hapless EU on the ground he is likely to gain from the talks.

The negotiations between Ashton and Dodik have shown that the RS parliament is a rubber stamp in the whole process and Dodik’s word is all that matters. Taken together with the structured dialogue, this is just the latest example of how international intervention continues to reaffirm the extra-institutional practices in BiH.

There will be a temptation among international actors now to relax and hope BiH will go away for a while to deal with other issues. However, if there is no follow up to address the core problems, the next, most serious crisis since the end of the war, is just around the corner.

Oh yes, and there is also that crisis in the Federation over the legitimacy of the government and there is no state level government.

Interview for Infoglobi on Regional Developments

Here is the text of an interview I gave for InfoGlobi in English

How do you see overall situation in Western Balkan countries? Are you surprised that they are again causing headache to international community?

There are of course serious problems in the region, from polarized politics in Albania and Macedonia, no government in Bosnia, but these are political problems and it is hard to attract international attention at the moment. Especially with events in the Middle East, in particular in Egypt, the focus of the US and Europe is largely elsewhere and it is hard for the Balkans to be catching international attention. I also think that the problems of the region are serious, but one has to be careful not to exaggerate.

Kosovo and Macedonia are facing sort of institutional crisis. Albania and Serbia are involved in protests, is there a risk of spillover effect for other W.Balkan countries? Why?
I think there is no spill-over effect in the regions, the dynamics are different. What they share is three key causes: The economic crisis and thus lack of economic prospects, second the legitimacy crisis of governments in the region for not tackling corruption and third, the lack of sufficient and clear progress in terms of EU integration. This creates frustration in the region, but are not directly linked. In Serbia, the protests do not suggest that the government will fall, but rather that the Progressive Party might win the elections scheduled for next year. In Albania, it seems like the Berisha government is increasingly cornered like it was already 14 years ago and in Macedonia the opposition remains weak and the government firmly in control, although weakening lately.

Kosovo image has been damaged significantly. Having in mind that Kosovo remained a black hole in the Balkan, when it comes to visa liberalisation, or to the cut of preferential status of the goods from EU. Who is failing here and why? Isn’t this leading towards the isolation of Kosovo?
The problem is both with the government and the EU. The EU has been unable to formulate a clear perspective for EU integration, including visa liberalisation and a process towards accession. On the other hand, the government has lost a lot of credibility with being unable to really deal with allegations of corruption and moving Kosovo significantly forwards since independence.

KFOR will downsize its troops soon, while there are indications to end in a fast manner, the status of ‘supervised independence’. Is this a progress, or withdrawal of international community due to the decrease of the interest for Kosovo?

Generally, international organisations consider the political problems separate from security threats. While the political situation is unclear, both in terms of Serb-Kosovo relations and in regard to an effective government, but for this KFOR is not needed. I would thus not interpret this as an end to supervised independence, but a sign that despite the problems Kosovo is facing they are no longer security issues.

Prishtina and Belgrade are to start dialogue for technical issues. What do you expect from this dialogue and which are possible scenarios?

I am increasingly pessimistic. The longer it takes for the Kosovo government to form the harder it will be as little time is left. The Serbian government is unlikely to make any difficult compromises if it is concluded too close to the parliamentary elections, due by May 2012. Similarly, a Kosovo government is also likely to be weak and might hesitate to make compromises or be able to get sufficient support for such a compromise.

What Serbia has accomplished that Kosovo did not. The perception is that Serbia is closer to EU than Kosovo is?

Currently, Serbia is closer, and there is no doubt that in terms of laws and the institutions, Serbia will be ready much sooner to join the EU. However, the problem lies with Serbia’s relation to Kosovo. It is unlikely that Serbia will be able to join the EU without a clear relationship with Kosovo, which would include recognition of Kosovo.

What Balkan countries can do in order to speed up development process?

The problem is that parts of governing elites in most countries are not committed to EU integration, These elites often talk about being in favor of the EU, but block the process at the same time. There is a need for more serious reforms, not because the EU insists, but because it is benefiting the countries. What are intellectual elites doing? What do you think do they have a say at all in designing the future in the countries they live?

Intellectuals can be important in putting pressure on governments, to force them to take EU integration seriously and and also sending a clear message that reforms and EU integration is not just the only option, but also the most desirable option. Parts of the  intellectual elite in the region still talks about the nation and nationalism and are thus helping those governing parties which talk about national interests as an excuse to delay EU Integration.

Please, may you elaborate your vision regarding the future of Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro? Is there a estimated timeline when transition in these countries will end? When they will become part of EU family?

This is a nearly impossible task. I would imagine that all the countries will be members of the EU in 15 years. It is unclear at this point whether the countries will join together which some in the EU will favor or whether the EU will encourage countries to compete for joining first. The order in which countries join is still unclear, but it seems that Montenegro might be ahead of others as it has no serious problems with its neighbors and is able to change the structure more rapidly than elsewhere. Macedonia could move quickly, but it will depend on whether or not a compromise with Greece will be possible, which will be hard and has been getting more difficult in recent years. What is clear that even if all the countries, including Kosovo, would resolve the outstanding the bilateral issues tomorrow, the challenges remain huge for the region and will take considerable time.

Europe’s Silence

Much attention has been devoted to the difficulty of the US administration to deal with rapidly changing events in Tunisia and Egypt. However, the European Union has been equally struggling in endorsing the popular demand for reform and democracy in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the region. While Europe might have less of a military investment in the region, the repercussions of instability in the Middle East might be more direct–beginning with potential refugee flows. At the same time, more than half of the EU experienced democratic revolutions in during the past generation: Not only the countries of Central Europe, but also Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Greece) saw the ouster of dictatorships governing in the name of stability in the past 35 years. The countries can be a model for the Middle East and while overthrowing tested and tried dictators always brings with it uncertainty, the European Union at its core should understand the demands of citizens in the Middle East for greater rights and democracy.

It is thus a great pity, that the EU has not seized the moment to support the pro-democracy movements in the region more vocally. Sharing the know how and the advantage of democracy and the rule of law are after all the greatest export the EU can offer.

The End of the EU school year in the Western Balkans

Today the European Commission released its annual progress report. Throughout the Western Balkans analysts, journalists and government are paging through the reports and interpreting their meaning. Independently of the content of these reports, it confirms the weight of these reports. The reports have increased over the years.  Just the analytical report for Montenegro is now some 132 pages long, in 2007 it was less than half the length (48 pages). Of course volume is not everything, but as the reports increase in size they are getting more detailed and are thus able to provide more specific recommendations.

More importantly, the progress reports highlight the potential when the European Commission is communicating directly to the public. Even if the reports are technical and require a careful reading, their wide audience and the weight they carry suggest that more such communications would do the integration process in the region well. At the moment, the EU is perceived to be largely silent for 364 days and just issue its opinion on one day (except large events, such as visa liberalization, or granting candidate status).  While it is commendable that the reports are increasing in length and quality, their success suggests that the EU, the Commission in particular, needs to think about ways of communicating not just with the governments of the region, but also the citizens in more regular intervals and thus help to re-energize the accession process which appears to have run out of steam lately.

 

 

Momentum for the Balkans?

Just having returned from the Rose-Roth Seminar of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly I am left with a mixed, but overall rather gloomy impression of the Western Balkans. As often these seminars are a competition between the glass is half full and the glass is half empty analysts. While its hard to give a verdict who won, what clearly emerged from the discussion is that the US is not really engaged in the region anymore, irrespective of Hillary Clinton’s visit last week. Similarly, nobody was there to suggest that the EU wasn’t paralysed and without a strategy at the Western Balkans at the moment. In particular striking was the sense enlargement was no longer being pursued with any vigour by the EU (or rather its member states). One participant suggested that some member states are willing to risk delaying membership of the region in favor of not taking the risk of communicating the enlargement to their electorate. Thus, maybe the worst effect of the economic crisis is less the economic impact on the region, but rather the weakening stomach in the Western half of Europe to live up to its promise to the region.

What left a more optimistic impression is the clearly new atmosphere in regional relations, especially between Serbia and Croatia. Similarly, the tone of reps. from Kosovo and Serbia on relations was very promising, emphasizing the need for technical talks and improving lives of inhabitants of Kosovo.

The fact that the meeting could include MPs from the Kosovo assembly (including a Serb MP), and a Serb “Progressive” and former VJ general and a current German  general with KFOR without much controversy is telling. Maybe the passivity of the EU and the US throws the spotlight in the region. It might be that momentum for reform, the title of the seminar, might be more likely to originate from with the Western Balkans than from outside.