What the Belgrade-Prishtina Agreement means for Bosnia

The agreement between Belgrade and Prishtina, even if its implementation will surely hit some snags has repercussions beyond the two countries themselves. In particular Bosnia is going to be affected, being the other country in a continuous major political crisis.

First, the ability of the Serbian and the Kosovo government to find a compromise should put the current political elite of Bosnia to shame for not agreeing on some basic reforms, ranging from the implementation of Sejdić-Finci verdict to ensuring that Bosnian farmers can continue to export their dairy products to Croatia after it joins the EU on 1st July.

The second major consequence of the agreement will be for Republika Srpska and Milorad Dodik. Lately, he and his associates from the SNSD seem out of step with reality.When Tomislav Nikolić apologized the other day for Serbian war crimes, Dodik only commented that the interview (for BHT) was aggressive and that because he wants “good relations with Serbia and its leadership, there is no sense nor need to go into public comments and polemics“–hardly an endorsement for Nikolićs apology. Relations with Serbia have deteriorated after Dodik placed all his bets on Boris Tadić during the elections last year and thus is clearly not in favor with the current government, especially Aleksandar Vučić. The corruption investigations in Serbia that involve good “friends” of Dodik also did not help to improve relations.

Now with the deal between Serbia and Kosovo, Dodik has also lost his ability to evoke a credible alternative to Bosnia. His continuous suggestions that Republika Srpska might eventually become independent  has received a serious blow. While he never talked about the RS joining Serbia, it is clear that the RS could only leave Bosnia with Serbian support. The RS is too small and isolated to achieve this without a supportive neighbor, especially as few other countries in the region and in Europe are likely to take a favorable view. It never seemed particularly plausible that Serbia would support the RS in independence (instead of supporting it as an at least formal part of Bosnia) at the price of EU accession and worsening relations with its neighbors, but it has now become even less credible. The Serbian government has shown a degree of pragmatism and willingness to not pursue the idea of partition in Kosovo. So why would a government of Serbia “give up” on Kosovo, despite it being still part of Serbia according to its constitution and turn around and support the RS. As Dodik’s ally in Serbia, the DS also supports the agreement, Dodik seems rather isolted with his more critical view of the agreement. In fact, he is now closer to Koštunica and thus without strong allies in Serbia. Even if the DS were to return to power in Serbia (unlikely any time soon), it would be without Tadić as a friend and without the same ambiguity he displayed over the RS and Kosovo. Just a few days ago, Nebojša Radmanović, the Serbian member of the Bosnian presidency, evoked  in an interview the RS assembly resolution from 2008 that claimed if half of the UN members recognized Kosovo, the RS would also have the right to declare independence. Now, the count is over half with 98 (of 193) UN members recognizing Kosovo and a referendum on independence of the RS seems increasingly unlikely and evoking its might just start sounding a lot holler in next year’s electoral campaign.

Kosovo Lies and Dacic’s good cop/bad cop Routine

May the real Dačić please stand up?

 

In my home country Luxembourg, there is a traditional hopping procession (Sprangprëssioun) in the town of Echternach Tuesdays after Pentecost. It involves more than 10,000 people in a slow procession with  that takes two steps forward and one back.
Ivica Dačić’s statements in recent weeks about about Kosovo remind a lot of this dance–Two steps forward, one back. Last week, Dačić stated that “[f]or 10 years, Kosovo was taboo. No one could officially tell the truth…  Tales were told; lies were told that Kosovo is ours…the Serbian president cannot go to Kosovo, nor the prime minister, nor ministers, nor the police or army. Serbs can only leave Kosovo. That’s how much Kosovo is ours and what our constitution and laws mean there.” Just later the same day he noted that Serbia would not give up Kosovo for a date to begin EU accession talks: “Serbia showed the will for a compromise in the talks with Priština authorities. We don`t have anything else to propose except the Kosovo independence and we will never do it. Everyone must know one thing: we won`t give up on our legitimate interests just to get a date for the start of EU membership. Don`t count on it”  Of course, such contradictory statements did evoke some comments and questions about what Dačić really meant.

It mostly means that Dačić seems to be well in tune with public opinion or at least is following them closely. Just as he made is flip-flopping statements, B92 published a new survey that suggest that his position is a good reflection of popular opinion. Not only does a majority consider him to be the best negotiator (61% approve and only 26% think a different negotiator would do a better job. Among the alternatives only Vučić is able to have some support), they also seem to share his views. A clear majority of 63% think Kosovo is independent, mirroring Dačić first statement. At the same time, most (65%) would be willing to forgo EU membership if a return of Kosovo to Serbian rule were possible (28% take the opposite view), reflecting Dačić’s second position.

Of course, the latter options seems like a misleading choice: While EU membership is realistic, if far off, a return of Kosovo under Serbian rule sounds completely impossible. Thus, the choice given is between a far off goal and an impossibility. So does this mean that Serbs prefer Kosovo over the EU? Not exactly, there is a different meaning to this number. First, EU and Kosovo have been discussed as a pair for the past six years: first as parallel tracks and more recently increasingly as alternatives. The numbers suggest that citizens do not like to be forced to make a choice or if they do, they might choose Kosovo.  Second, if the alternative is between material benefits (the primary association with EU membership) and “patriotic duty”, Kosovo wins as a hypothetical patriotic-political correct answer. It would be hard to opt for the EU, as long as it is framed as a ‘selfish’ economic choice over the self-sacrifice choice of Kosovo. This is even more so  as choosing Kosovo in an opinion poll has no practical costs or consequences. As a consequence, I would consider the poll as a reflection of pragmaticism backed up with a bit of hypothetical nationalist self-sacrifice. Citizens can live with Kosovo as an independent country, but appear not willing to give up the symbol of the possible return of Kosovo to Serbia, i.e. full recognition.

So what does this mean for Serbian government policy? Dačić’s contradictory statements suggest that he understands public opinion better than any of his predecessors. Opinion polls over the past decade in Serbia have often pointed to similar conclusion as the latest poll. However, his predecessors were unwilling or unable to pick up on the pragmaticism and emphasized the desired and unrealist goal of keeping Kosovo part of Serbia. When Dačić called the Serbian government policies a lie, he also clearly shifted the blame for loosing Kosovo to his predecessors. The opportunity for making such an argument was missed first by Djindjić and then his successors. Of course it take a considerable Chutzpah to make this statement, considering that Dačić has not only been in government since 2008, but also supported Koštunica’s minority government 2004-7, but Dačić has managed to steer clear of Kosovo to have sufficient credibility in making such a statement.

This leaves Serbia in a more pragmatic and realistic position than any time in the last decade. Dačić’s good cop/bad cop routine is clearly intended to satisfy public opinion, but also to move Serbia towards living with this new reality. This does not mean that he will not bargain hard and that finding a modus vivendi for Serbia and Kosovo will be difficult, but his statements suggest that the optimism of EU diplomats over the Serbia-Kosovo negotiations might be justified.

 

 

 

The Strange Verdict of the General with a Checkered Past

Back when they got along: Perišić and Milošević

Momčilo Perišić is the latest of a series of high ranking inmates at the ICTY that have been freed by the court. The last time I recall him being released was from his duties as Serbia’s Deputy Prime Minister in the first DOS government of Zoran Djindjić. He had to resign after he was caught meeting a US embassy official at Motel šaric outside Belgrade in what looked a lot like a conspiratorial meeting. While the “spy” affair never was fully cleared up, it seems that Perišić tried to pass on incriminating documents against Milošević. It also served as ammunition for Vojislav Koštunica and his loyal army chief Pavković against Djindjić. Perišić broke with Milošević in 1998 over Kosovo, but already met student protestors in 1996-7 to assure them tanks would not be used. After his break with Milošević he created his “Movement for a Democratic Serbia” and joined DOS. However, his movement was never more than a personal vehicle and once he was arrested and then dismissed as Deputy Prime Minister, he movement and political engagement came to end. It is thus ironic when a comment for Sense notes that “Momcilo Perisic was the only senior official from Serbia and FR Yugoslavia convicted by the Tribunal and sentenced for crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Slobodan Milosevic was charged with the same crimes, and the judgment can be considered as Milosevic’s posthumous acquittal for Sarajevo and Srebrenica.”

The latest judgment is troubling in challenging a number of key findings of a number of earlier rulings of the ICTY about the linkages between the army of the RS (VRS) and the Yugoslav army. The key argument of the judgement is that the concept of “aiding and abetting” is only applicable, if it was directed towards committing crimes and it does not suffice if assistance was used to commit crimes. The understanding o the appeals chamber of the VRS leads to rather odd conclusions “Appeals Chamber agrees with the Trial Chamber that the VRS was not an organisation whose actions were criminal per se; instead, it was an army fighting a war. The Appeals Chamber notes the Trial Chamber’s finding that the VRS’s strategy was “inextricably linked to” crimes against civilians. However, the Trial Chamber did not find that all VRS activities in Sarajevo or Srebrenica were criminal in nature.” (para. 53).” This is reiterated later on: “VRS was participating in lawful combat activities and was not a purely criminal organisation.” This assessment is highly problematic. First, the purpose of the VRS seems hard to reconcile with lawful combat activities, second arguing that not all activities were criminal is about as convincing as stating that the Mafia is not only involved in criminal activities and thus supporting it does not mean that one is “aiding and abetting” criminal activities. I agree with the dissenting opinion of judge Liu who argued that “to insist on such a requirement [of a specific direction] now effectively raises the threshold for aiding and abetting liability. This shift risks undermining the very purpose of aiding and abetting liability by allowing those responsible for knowingly facilitating the most grievous crimes to evade responsibility for their acts.” (para.3). Liu also challenges the idea that even if the Trial Chamber did not consider the VRS a criminal organisation, it was found to have conducted “systematic criminal actions against Bosnian Muslim civilians” (para.4) and that Perišić know about the crimes committed by the VRS (as in fact anybody reading a good newspaper at the time did) (para. 8).

In brief, the decision suggest that you can provide crucial support including weapons to an organization conducting a war that committed “systematic criminal actions” and get free because you did not direct them specifically to commit these crimes.  Although the judges note (para. 72) that “that this conclusion should in no way be interpreted as enabling military leaders to deflect criminal liability by subcontracting the commission of criminal acts. If an ostensibly independent military group is proved to be under the control of officers in another military group, the latter can still be held responsible for crimes committed by their puppet forces,” it seems to have become a lot easier to do just that.

Notes from Ditchley

I returned a few ago from a very interesting conference at Ditchley on the Western Balkans. The discussions with policy makers and analysts did not raise any radical new ideas, but it was good opportunity to take the temperature on thinking about and from the region. It was also a lesson in bad metaphors. Many felt that carrots and sticks are not working, but theories why differed: People in the Balkans prefer meat to carrots or the carrot is actually a stick. Either way, the days of carrots and sticks seems to be over (nobody mentioned that the metaphor implies that the person in question is either a horse or a donkey).

There was broad consensus that overall things were heading in the right direction, but there were a number of warnings: many (but not all) thought that the state of democracy & rule of law and lack of deep rooted reforms in the economy will continue to be a source of difficulties in the years to come. There was a bit of a divide between a number of Western policy makers who felt that the EU and its member states were doing enough to bring the countries of the region into the EU and that it was up to political elites to make an extra effort and a number of analysts who thought the EU should do more and make the membership perspective more realistic. A specific suggestion was for the EU to begin accession talks with all countries of the region as soon as possible rather than wait for each country on their own to fulfill the specific conditions. Once talks begin–the symbolic year of 2014 was mentioned as start date–the negotiation process will force countries to shape up and carry out reforms in a manner that is unrealistic prior to the beginning of talks. It seemed clear that such a scenario is unrealistic at the moment with a many member states skeptical about enlargement and afraid (although unjustifiably so–see Turkey) that accession talks would lead to membership ‘on the sneak’. A problem that has become more pronounced in recent years is the use of individual member states to use the accession process to set additional conditions. This has made the accession process less predictable as the Commission cannot guarantee the next step in the process as individual countries might block whatever comes next for unexpected reasons that have little to do with accession. Of course, this also undermines the credibility of EU accession. The current approach of the Commission to launch dialogues with countries without accession talks has been a good way forward but without beefing up the DG Enlargement this cannot be expanded more broadly.

The most encouraging signals came over the Serbia-Kosovo talks which are expected to lead to some tangible conclusions before the summer and when the current window of opportunity might close. On the other hand, Bosnia was much discussed, but there were few new ideas on how to help the country out of its current deadlock.

I found it encouraging that there is a clear sense that incrementalism is the way forward, there is not going to be a big bang, but rather small steps that will change the region and resolve the open questions. For this to be successful, one needs to overcome the dynamics of what one participants aptly called the EU member states pretending to enlarge and elites in the Western Balkans pretending to reform.

The Debate continues: Serbian membership of the EU or EEA?

As a follow up to my comment on Boris Begovićs suggestion that Serbia should join the EEA rather than the EU, NIN has published a series of responses. These include a clarification by Boris Begović, a comment by Boško Mijatović sand Miroslav Jovanović. The latter two I am including below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am pleased that NIN is glad to see a debate gowing, so there will be further comments by Suzana Grubišić, the Minister for EU Integration and a representative of the EU delegation.

Quiet interestingly, this debate is going on in parallel with the debate of the UK-exit/referendum. Here, similar arguments have been made about the Norwegian model. Here, a comment published on Open Democracy is instructive, as it makes some similar arguments I am making for Serbia. Below is my response for NIN in a slightly longer version than the Serbian text that will be published shortly.

I am glad that my response to Boris Begović’s article has triggered a number of responses and is leading to a useful exchange. However, I regret that sometimes the tone of the responses descends to insinuations that is neither helpful not appropriate. I used the term “shortcut” for membership in the EEA, not because of some kind of Balkan stereotype, but simply because EU membership and the negotiations require profound reforms that are crucially important for Serbia. The alternative proposed by Boris Begović is to me neither realistic nor desirable.

Miroslav N. Jovanović suggests that the EU is not very attractive, with foreign debts rising, agriculture destroyed and people migrating. This is a very one-sided view. The foreign debt in new member state did not rise because of EU membership, but due to the global economic crisis. The fact that people migrated is also in part a result of EU membership and not necessary a loss for a country (he should know better, being a UN diplomat in Switzerland) : many have come back with money and new skills, as has been the case with Poles that left for the UK in 2004 and came back.

Of course, the EU and the members have many problems. However, to blame the EU for all of them is simplistic. While many EU citizens are skeptical towards the EU, and despite having undergone a deep crisis, only the Great Britain and Eurosceptic parties on the extreme left or right are playing with the idea of leaving the EU. This is telling that most EU citizens consider it better than any alternative.

Second, let me know outline why I think EEA-EFTA membership is not a likely alternative for Serbia.  Boško Mijatović is right to point out that EFTA has signed a free trade agreement with Serbia. However, this is not evidence for a possible Serbian membership. Some 33 countries around the world have also signed a Free Trade Agreement with EFTA, including Columbia, Ukraine, Mexico and Singapore, hardly plausible candidates for EFTA membership.

The 2012 EU report on relations with Norway, the most important EEA partner, notes that “EEA membership entails either EFTA or EU membership. Until now, the EFTA states have not wanted to enlarge EFTA.”  Thus, unlikely the EU which has a commitment to enlargement, EFTA has none. It is thus hard to see why EEA membership is more likely than EU membership.

In addition, the responses suggest that the EU is setting unfair political conditions that Serbia is unwilling to fulfill (the only concrete example given is Kosovo). It is not clear why the authors believe that the EU member state would not insist on these conditions to join EEA. Consider that membership in the EEA entails freedom of movement: i.e. citizens can take a job anywhere in the EEA, one can expect EU member state setting high criteria, including political demands.

Next, does EEA membership reflect Serbia national interests? Being an EEA member means that much of EU law needs to be implemented, but there is no ability to influence the content. The relationship is not that different than during the accession when future members adopt laws, but don’t sit at the negotiating table. It is no surprise that the EU noted that the “EEA Agreement is best suited to small states, which are accustomed to having to adapt to others and have no particular desire to influence developments in Europe.” I also do not consider the EU to be a ‘humanitarian organisation’, but the EU provides substantial financial support to many member state that, if well used, can have tremendous impact.

Finally, Kosovo. Boško Mijatović suggest that EU is a good trader and demands that Serbia gives up part of its territory for nothing in return. Two points :  The EU  has not demanded Serbia to recognize Kosovo. The EU has asked for the normalization of relations which does not need to entail recognition. While some individual officials from EU member states have asked for Serbia’s full recognition, this is NOT EU policy. Second, some of the polemics and other comments suggest that Serbia has to ‘give up’ Kosovo for the EU. Who is being unrealistic now? Kosovo is not under Serbian control (except 15% in the North), it is recognized by nearly 100 UN members around the world. Kosovo’s independence is a fact and will not go away. It is good advice of the EU to Serbia to come to terms with this reality. It seems a folly to foresake EU membership for the fiction of Kosovo. This brings me to the comment by Miroslav N. Jovanović.  His suggestion that the EU would ask for an independent Vojvodina or “Raška” is totally unfounded and belongs to the horror cabinet of extreme nationalist ideology and merits no further comment.  His argument that there are 1890 possibilities of a veto and thus it is hopeless to even start negotiations is unfounded. First, his math is wrong, because from July 2013, there will be 28 member states, not 27. Croatia had 1890 possible vetoes and it took 5 ½ years (October 2005 to June 2011) to conclude its negotiations. That is long (too long), but not impossible. Yes, Kosovo will make it more difficult for Serbia, but there is no reason to believe that negotiations would take substantially longer.

Europe without the Union

Below I am publishing the original text in English by Boris Begović (which he kindly provided) to which I posted a comment yesterday. I will also posted a response to my comment by Boris Begović, both of which will be published in NIN in the coming weeks and I am glad to open my blog to this debate and welcome also further contributions.

 

Boris Begović

Europe without the Union

Serbia should abandon the path to EU accession, that is has taken, for several reasons. (1) After the accession of Croatia, enlargement of the EU is postponed indefinitely, or at least for a long time. New membership should not be expected until, let’s say, 2023. (2) The question is how the EU will look like in ten years, having in mind increasing political crisis that is happening in the EU, resulted from efforts to resolve the issue of sovereign debt of its member states and structural adjustment of the Eurozone. It is most probable that, in ten years’ time, a completely different community can be expected, for example, a community of concentric circles where the outskirts would be much less integrated than the central countries. The future of British status in EU integrations will have a significant influence to the future structure of the community. (3) These two reasons indicate that EU membership at this point is a „moving target“. Serbia simply does not know what to „aim at“. (4) Our insisting on EU membership, through existing channels for accession creates extraordinary possibilities for EU member states to create political conditions for Serbia and its Government, which has little or nothing to do with the Copenhagen criteria; instead it is mostly formulated through insisting on good neighborly relations, which means, more or less, implicitly or explicitly, the acknowledgement of Kosovo independence.

Instead, Serbia should ask for membership in the European Economic Area (EEA), an institution solution based on full economic integration which is not follow by political integration. It includes four basic freedoms that currently exist in the EU: free movement of goods, services, capital and persons. Basis for EEA membership is access to a unique market, based on a customs union and other institutional solutions that enable full freedom in movement of goods, services and capital. EEA member state takes over the obligation to harmonize its regulations in the area of movement of goods, services and capital with the EU regulations, without having the possibility to influence them. Due to that, this type of arrangement in Norway, which is the largest member state of EEA (only), is called „fax democracy“. Free movement of persons is enabled through accession to the Schengen Agreement, which is not mandatory when joining EEA.

This type of arrangement would provide Serbia with full integration to the European economic area and strong competitive pressures on a unique market, which would create incentives for economic efficiency of companies and institutional certainty regarding free movement of goods essential for export oriented business ventures, which are necessary for Serbian economic growth. In such circumstances, where no one is privileged, business circles would have incentives to strongly influence domestic Government to implement institutional reforms in order to improve business environment in the country thus increasing competitiveness of domestic economy. That kind of influence would be strong and sustainable – which is better than conditions coming from Brussels, that are directed towards the resolution of their own problems, such as the project „Independent Kosovo“, and not ours, such as bad business environment.

Through this type of arrangement, in comparison to full membership (under present conditions), Serbia would lose: (1) donations from the EU Budget and (2) the possibility to influence politics that is being created in Brussels which needs to be applied in Serbia. The first loss is not so big. New EU member states currently get though (net) transfers around 1.1% and 1.8% of their GDP (except in the Baltic States). This is very, very small amount. And it is not even certain that this will exist in the new budget. The second loss practically does not exist. The existence of any possibility for Serbia to influence politics in Brussels is close to zero. The number of people that would represent Serbia in Brussels is not to be confused with their negligible influence, which would not depend on them personally. However, if somewhere in the future it is estimated that this level of integration is not sufficient and full integration is needed, the accomplished economic integration will not represent an obstacle – on the contrary.

In the area of diplomacy, through this proposal Serbia would start having active relationship with its European partners, and not just fulfill their ideas. I believe that some stakeholders in Europe would not like it, but they could do no other thing than to respect this shift.

It just needs to happen!

 

This text was published in NIN, December 13, 2012

---

The President of Center for Liberal-Democratic Studies and Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade

No shortcuts to Europe

Here is a small letter I recently sent to NIN, regarding a comment in December, but I am not sure it will be published. It comments an idea Boris Begovic launched namely that Serbia should no join the EU, but instead join the European Economic Area. The original article is behind the NIN paywall, but this idea is also discussed in B92, Vecernjie Novosti and elsewhere.

Cartoon from Novosti, 29.12.2012

In his comment “U Evropu bez unije” on 13 December 2012 Boris Begović makes a tempting suggestion: Serbia should abandon the difficult accession process to the EU with its supposedly changing criteria for membership and instead join the European Economic Area (EEA), Europe’s large zone of economic integration that includes all EU members, Norway, Island, and Liechtenstein.

His idea might sound tempting, but is nothing but an illusion.

It is true that the EEA creates freedom of movement, free trade, free movement of capital and services among its members and thus offer a key component of EU integration to non-members. The idea that Serbia could join this agreement without EU membership is, however, rather absurd.

Countries cannot join the European Economic Area directly. The economic area was established in 1994 between the EU and the European Free Trade Agreement (EFTA) and most their members. There is no possibility foreseen for a country to join that is not either a member of the EU or EFTA. So let’s consider the only option Serbia would have to enter the EEA without joining the EU.

First, it would have to join EFTA. EFTA has only four members, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Of the four members, only three are part of the EEA, Switzerland rejected membership in 1992 in a referendum. Serbia would be an odd partner for some of the richest countries in Europe. Furthermore, no country has joined EFTA since 1991 when Liechtenstein joined. The previous accession was that of Iceland in 1970, all others were founding members in 1960s. Countries left EFTA rather than joined it in recent decades to become EU members (UK, Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Portugal were original members). Thus, EFTA is composed of a rather odd and small number of countries. Since no country has joined for such a long period there is no clear accession process, but membership would require agreement among all four member states. At the moment, there is little reason why Switzerland, Norway, Iceland or Liechtenstein would be interested in free trade with Serbia. Now for the second obstacle: A country joining EFTA is not automatically member of the EEA.  The EEA agreement states clearly in Art. 128 that “… any European State becoming a member of EFTA may, apply to become a party to this Agreement. .. The terms and conditions for such participation shall be the subject of an agreement between the Contracting Parties and the applicant state. That agreement shall be submitted for ratification or approval by all Contracting Parties in accordance with their own procedures. “

What this means is that a member of EFTA can apply to join the EEA, but there has to be an agreement between that country and the European Union and all its members and needs to be ratified by all of them.

If Serbia abandons EU accession and then would join EFTA in the unlikely case that Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Iceland find Serbia an attractive partner, the EU and its members would have to agree to join the EEA. It does not take a lot of imagination to see that the EU and its members are not going to eager to see Serbia access key EU benefits (such as freedom of movement of workers) by skipping the accession process and the conditions. The only scenario under which it would be imaginable for the EU to accept Serbia as a member would be if it had abandoned offering a membership perspective for the Western Balkans and saw this as a viable alternative. Still, Serbia would not be accepted without fulfilling numerous conditions, in particular in terms of adhering to the acquis communitaire, the EU legislation, that is relevant for the free movement of goods, people, services and capital before the EU and its members would be willing to accept Serbia. In brief, if Serbia decides not to opt for full EU membership and go for the EEA, it will still end up negotiating with the EU.

I am not going to comment in any detail the suggestion that an independent Kosovo is a problem of the EU, as if it had nothing to do with Serbia or the argument that the conditions of EU membership keep changing, or the suggestion that the financial contributions of the EU are “very, very small”. Croatia for example has 687.5 Million Euros set aside for the second half of 2013 alone, which is around 1.45% of the GDP of Croatia or some 4.2% of the Croatian state budget planned for 2013, hardly negligible amounts.

It is true that enthusiasm for enlargement among its member state is decreasing and that individuals members might make sometimes unreasonable demands. However, this is largely linked to the current economic crisis inside the EU. By the time Serbia is close to joining, it is realistic to expect that crisis to have passed and member state taking a more positive view towards enlargement. If Serbia pursues EU membership, it will be have an easier time to join then. Of course, Serbia can decide not to join, but it is a dangerous illusion to believe that the EEA is a viable alternative or easy way to get some of the benefits of free trade and movement without joining the EU.

Republika Srpska for Kosovo?

A few days ago the platform of the Serbian government for talks with leaked in the Belgrade press and Daniel Serwer made the non-paper of the Serbian government available on his blog. Serwer called the proposal Fantasyland and Hashim Thaci rejected it as a 19th century plan. Of course in negotations there is no reason for the other side to respond positively to a proposal that presumably outlines the starting position for talks. So what does the platform actually propose?

Press in RS is drawing maps of the “new RS in Kosovo” according to the government plan

Observers have likend the structures that would be set up in it to Republika Srpska in Bosnia (mostly positive in Serbia and negatively outside). The platform itself explictly only refers to Katalonia as a model rather then to the RS, but some feature seem to evoke the RS.

In brief ,the platform proposes establishing an “Autonomous Community of Serbian Municipalities in Kosovo and Metohija,” with the nice-sounding abbrevision ZSO KiM  This would constitute a territorial autonomy of Serb majority municipalities in the North and in the South (including Štrpce, Gračanica) and would have competences in education, health care, sports, culture, public Information, environmental protection, urban planning, agriculture, as well as their own police and judiciary under formal authority of Kosovo and the ability to maintain direct ties to Serbia including funding and finally the use of own symbols.

In terms of institutions, this autonomous unit would have an assembly and government, liking it to an autonomous region. Although the plan calls this autonomous region “community” the plan does not contain any non-territorial forms of autonomy or feature of cultural autonomy (except for some semi-autonomous status of sub-municipal Serb settlements, but even they are understood territorially).

When looking back at the Ahtisaari plan, the differences between the decentralisation proposed therin and the competences requested by the Serbian government do not differ fundamentally. The plan forsees that municipal competences include “education at the pre-primary, primary and secondary levels; public primary health care; local economic development; urban and rural planning; public housing; naming of roads, streets and other public places; and the provision of public services and utilities, among others.” In addition some Serb municipalities received the right to organise higher education, hospital and secondary health care, cultural and religions affairs and an “enhanced role in the appointment of police station comanders. Furthermore, the plan does forsee the formation of “associations and partnerships with other municipalities in Kosovo to carry out functions of mutual interest” and the possiblity of “to cooperate with municipalities and institutions in Serbia, including the right to receive financial and technical assistance from Serbia, within certain clear parameters set by the Settlement.”

The main differences between the competences outlined in the Serbian government non-paper and the Ahtisaari Plan are the control over the police and judiciary and the establishment of seperate institutions, both of course substantial.

More significant are the differences in terms of the overall proposed structures of Kosovo in the non-paper. It suggests a bi-cameral parliament with an upper house called the “House of Regions and Religious Communities” and a lower house with guaranteed seats for Serbs. The idea of a “House of Regions and Religious Communities” does seem rather odd for a number of reasons: First, religion is a not a relevant category in the politicial divisions of Kosovo, ethnicity is. Thus, such a house, if at all, should represent national communities, not religions. The term might be a way to bring the Serbian Orthodox Church into the institutions, which in itself would be very problematic. Second, it might be a term to avoid the obvious parallels with the House of Peoples in Bosnia.

When it comes to voting the platform suggests that Serbs should not be outvoted “in matters that directly impact the competencies of the autonomous region and the rights of Serbs and other minorities. This is considerably less than voting rights of the RS in Bosnia where MPs from either entity can block any decision by a 2/3 majority, a power the RS has made extensive use of.

It would thus be misleading to equate the autonomy for Serb municipalities with the RS in Bosnia. First, the competences are large but less than those of the RS, secondly and more importantly, the ability of the Serb municipalities to block decision-making in Kosovo would be extremely limited in comparsion to the blockages the RS can and has been causing in Bosnia. This difference is of course not surprising considering that Serbs make up less than 10% of Kosovos population and the municipalities make up not much more of the territory of Kosovo.

The proposal could thus be considered to ask for an autonomy between a full entity-like structure in Bosnia and the propose Ahtisaari plan. This is not to say that there are some problems with the platform. First, the idea of a tw0-chamber parliament and the representation of religious communities seems unreasonble considering the size of minorities and the limited competences such an upper chamber would have. Considering cases like South Tyrol or the Aaland islands, both enjoy territorial autonomy, but no specific parliamentary representation in Italy or Finland respecitvely. Instead there are other mechanisms in the relationship between the autonomous region and the central government to protect the autonomy of the region.

The second problem which Dan Serwer in his comment mostly focused on is the idea in the platform that the entirety of Kosovo would remain part of Serbia and the constant references to the “Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija” seems rather anachronistic and is definetly detached from reality. The platform does not outline what Serbia would be willing to offer Kosovo in exchange for agreeing to establishment of the autonomy arrangement. The platform suggests that the Kosovo authorities could receive the official authorisation by the Serbian government, but within the framework of the Serbian constitution, i.e. without recognition of independence. There are two ways of looking at this. If this reflects the substance of the Serbian position, this platform offers little for Kosovo to agree to any of it: The proposal largely formalised the status-quo and thus Kosovo would have no incentive to accept any part of the propsal without a clear Serbian accepetance of Kosovo’s independence, if not outright recognition. However, if the platform is also made for domestic consumption and about the symbolic assertation of sovereignty over Kosovo, then it has better prospects.

The suggestion that the Serbian government could formally transfer the competences of the autonomous province to the institutions of Kosovo might sound absurd, but they would constitute a way for the Serbian government to argue that the current Kosovo institutions are authorised by the Serbian constitution  and thus provide for a manner to official and formally cooperate with Kosovo institutions while maintaining the legal fiction that Kosovo is part of Serbia. Although it would be preferable for the Serbian government to fully acknowledge the reality of Kosovo’s independence, this opening might provide for the tool to live with Kosovo’s independence. A second positive feature of the agreement is the apparant abandonment of partition as a goal. By linking the municipalities in the North and in the South into one unit, partition would be less likely and presumably the more numerous Serbs in the South would dominate such an institution.

The platform of the Serbian government is, as I have argued above, far from ideal and as any negotiating position per definition not a compromise, but the goal of one party. Still, I would take it is a reflection of the more pragmatic line of the Serbian government, rather than as just an effort to create a new Republika Srpska in Kosovo.

Don’t let the Roma represent themselves, they can’t be trusted

Some interviews are best without any comment. Here is an interview with Bela Kurina, who represents the Roma Democratic Party in the Novi Sad assembly. The party caught some attention in May already for not having a SINGLE Roma representative among the six candidates it received after winning 6.4 % of the vote in local elections. Kurin, a former official of JUL and DSS, noted that there are Herzegovinians, Slavonians and Montenegrins on the list, but Roma could be too easily bought to be put on the list.  It isn’t clear who the president of the party is as Blic notes that the president is Tomislav Bokan, who also used to be a DSS official and for the SRS and put three family members on the party list [comment by Kurin: if there were 78 Bokans, they would all be on the list of the party].  There have been some suggestions in Danas, that its electoral success might have been helped by, how shall we call it, some financial assistance to voters.

Now Kurin gave an interview a la njuz.net for the Vojvodina show politbiro that was re-broadcast on RTS in the talk show “Da mozda ne” on 13 December 2012.

Here are some highlights in English:

“Imagine that we would have Roma on the list of candidates for councilors. This is something I could not allow. You know what happens, not just here, but also in general in Serbia in parliament that the seat [of an MP of councilor] belongs to the person and not the party and that he can decide with whom to be. We simply did not want to have people in the party who will sell themselves… The only party that until the end of the four year mandate [he has a bit of hard time getting that straight], the Roma Democratic Party cannot be manipulated with and not one councilor can be bought because these are people with a material basis and serious, and I think that there is no price for buying councilors of party.”

“We asked from them for the city cleaning considering, as you know, this is Roma business, or rather Roma mostly work there… we were promised this by [the DS] and when we asked for this after the formation of local government, this [option] was for a reason I don’t know eliminated.”

“We also asked for half of the gardening services…in the end we ourselfs said, don’t give us the gardening services, just give us the cleaning services. If we manage this, we can see what we can do, but they did not give it out, they want to control everything.”

And thus the incorruptable Roma Democratic Party broke with the Democratic Party and joined the Progressive Party in their new city government. Now they got their control over the cleaning services, as well as Urbanism (including tourism). And thus the benevolent non-Roma can unselfishly employ some more Roma in Novi Sad.

[thanks to Dušan Pavlović for drawing my attention to this interview]

Normal Name, Strange University: The Global Network of the European University

After writing about private universities in the Balkans last year and the “Oxford” award that a number of universities in the region have received (here, and here), there is another institution that caught my attention. It did not make it into my top ten list, because its name is less interesting and nothing immediately caught my eye, but eventually it did. There is a university in Belgrade, called European University.

Not only by name, it appears to be a very European institution:

So the founder and rector Milija Zečević, who features prominently on the main website (and most other pages here, and here , it is the university’s version of where is waldo?), has a long list of honors, which give the impression that he is in the elite of European Academia, he is a president, an academician, doctor hc, Grand Doctor of Western Philosophy and a Commander of the World Order Science. Wow. That all sounds very impressive. So let’s look at these honors and achievements:

He has an honorary doctorate from the Albert Schweitzer University in Switzerland. Never heard of it? You should, it’s a truly international institution. Its website is in English and Spanish and its president is in Madrid, its rector in Argentina and other functionaries in Warsaw, Spain and Alabama. Very international, but its seems that neither rector or president or any other leading official is based in Switzerland. As the university points out, “ASIU does not grant academic degrees,” but it does seem eager to grant honorary degrees.

And courses does it teach? Well, it seems to offer no courses of its own (“Traditional academic classes will in fact be but a small part of our activities”), but it does refer to a number of institutions, including the London Diplomatic Academy (which among its publications offers the Royal Book of Diplomacy and Science which ”gives biographical data on our members and lists the most important addresses of the diplomatic missions accredited before United Nations. It is a publication of quality and distinction” and some important documents that are hard to obtain elsewhere such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New in the 2004 edition) and can be purchased for 100 Euros or in the luxury edition for 170 Euros)…. and the European University in Belgrade.

The rector also has a “Grand Doctor of Western Philosophy” and is Commander of the World Order Science from the European Academy of informatization. Now I have never heard of a “grand” doctor, but presumably it is bigger than a regular Doctor. The European Academy of Informatization does not have its own website. There are, however, some sites and online fora  suggest that this might not be an entirely serious institution. According to an article in La Libre, a Belgian publication, this Academy also granted a title to the late dictator of Turkmenistan Saparmurad Niazov for his achievements.

Now, the rector is also President of the European Academy of Science. The European Academy of Science is not to be confused with the European Academy of Sciences, or the European Academy of Sciences and Arts. The European Academy seems at least to have the same webdesigner as the European University and is an NGO based in Vienna. It is an exclusive club of just 16 members, according to the website. As one member helpfully points out, being an academician is a great honor as, “one Academician per million people”. This gentleman also happens to be or have been the Director of the London Diplomatic Academy; President of the Albert Schweitzer International University, Geneva and Vice-President, International Center of Informatization in Brussels which might just have something to do with the European Academy of Informatization. Four other members are from Belgrade. Another member is Eduard Evreinov, who is also responsible for the European Academy of informatization and something called the World Distributed University (aka World Information Distributed University), and has been associated with a number of universities and institutions  that are suspected on internet fora to be diploma mills (see here , here , here).

Now, if you are impressed with this dense network of academicians and scholars, here is something else. According to the Serbian accreditation of the European University, this university has the following “members” abroad (Чланице Европског универзитета из иностранства):

European Academy of Science, Vienna

European Academy of Informatization, Brussels

MIM – The Center for European Master and Doctoral Studies, Budapest

Institut Franco-Americain de Management, Paris

Sales Manager Akademie, Vienna

London Diplomatic Academy – London

Albert Schweitzer International University, Geneva.

It would seem that the European University in Belgrade thus a prestigious network of “members” abroad that have been honoring the rector of the university they are part of with all these outstanding honors.

And now I think I have earned a Grand Doctorate.