A lost geopolitical case
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by Veton Surroi
In the race between convention and geopolitics, Europe chose neither. It has shown that it can simultaneously talk about global challenges in Ukraine, Gaza, US-China relations, artificial intelligence and the like, and not act geopolitically with a much smaller but still important gesture, such as membership would have been. of Kosovo in the Council of Europe. And by not doing this, it is subject to natural questions: if a geopolitical decision of this nature cannot be made, how can decisions of significantly greater weight and importance be made?
1.
As I write these lines, there is more certainty that the vote for Kosovo’s membership in the Council of Europe will be postponed than that Kosovo will join this organization this week. And, if it is postponed, it may even be postponed to May 2025.
I see basically two ways to analyze this event. One is in a conventional form: Kosovo will not be admitted to the Council of Europe, because it did not fulfill the requirements presented to it.
The other is geopolitical. In this form of interpretation, the Council of Europe, a fundamental institution of the union of Europeans after the Second World War, will not cover under its shelter a European state with a pronounced European feeling, Kosovo.
In the race between convention and geopolitics, neither won. Kosovo fulfilled the requirements and the recommendation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe for membership was voted. This convention was met, and when it was met, a series of demands were made by another negotiating body. In essence, the very predictability of the convention was contested – it passes this road map and arrives at the destination, and when it arrives at the destination, no supplementary map is presented. This does not reflect a sound and strategic communication between European and Kosovar authorities.
In geopolitics, Kosovo’s membership could be a simple finding that Europe has the capacity to build states of law, democracy and to give a vision for the development of tolerant societies just when in its East Russian barbarism is showing the opposite – that over the state of law, democracy and the development vision of tolerant societies there is the power of the tank and the fist of the diktat.
2.
This decision was purely geopolitical, it was not part of the convention. But geopolitics cannot escape the conventionality of the EU. Next month, the EU may invite these three countries to start negotiations for EU membership. And here, geopolitics will collide with the convention because at the same time when Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia should start negotiations – with the opening of negotiation chapters as the Czech Republic, Austria or Portugal once did – these countries are either in active war, like Ukraine, or in unfinished conflicts like Georgia, or with part of the occupied territory like Moldova.
At the same time as these states must discuss fishing rights or reforms to the civil code, nearly 20 percent of the territory of Ukraine, Georgia and 8 percent of Moldova are administered by Russia. And this situation is not going to change with the opening of the negotiation chapters; they are European conventions that Russia does not give a damn about. In paraphrasing Stalin’s barsolete when he asked the Pope how many tank divisions he had at his disposal, Putin may be mocking the EU’s 34 negotiating chapters.
3.
No, Europe doesn’t have 34 tank divisions and can’t act like it does. There is even a real and still unplanned and unwanted possibility that mixing the convention (opening of negotiations) with geopolitics (the membership of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia) will bring stagnation in both. These states in their current state will not be able to fulfill the conventions (because they are at war or in an unfinished conflict) and therefore will not be able to join the EU. Conversely, these states will continue to be disturbed by Russia so that they cannot prepare for EU membership.
It is a vicious circle and it stems from another geopolitical context, the Western Balkans. Unfinished conflicts have either prevented faster progress towards the EU or created new ongoing identity conflicts. The idea that the conventionality of joining the EU will dramatically change the situation in the Western Balkans has not turned out positively. The idea that only a little more time is needed for the transformation to happen has also resulted in less; the concept has been the same for almost a quarter of a century, and a quarter of a century more this approach will not produce more results.
Moreover, at the moment when the accession negotiations of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia to the EU open, a new link can be created between the geopolitical convention between these states and the Western Balkans in a floating column in which the speed is dictated by the fastest ship. large and heavy, that of Ukraine, whose future borders should be the dividing line between the transatlantic world and the Euro-Asian one.
4.
Josep Borrell, the outgoing European foreign policy chief, gave a speech at Stanford in which he gave the most succinct explanation of changing times. His former predecessor, Javier Solana, at the end of his term said “Europe has never been so safe, in peace and calm”. Borrell, when he presented the Strategic Compass, a few weeks before the start of the war against Ukraine, said: “Europe is in danger and we must increase our capacity to face difficult challenges”.
The transition from one collective mental state to another is difficult and extremely challenging. The EU became Ukraine’s biggest supporter with almost 100 billion euros in aid since the start of the war, a support that is not stopping, but rather strengthening. And being empowered, new challenges will arise for which there are no conventions, the main of which is how to negotiate with a state that does not know where the borders end? Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova may have them marked at the beginning of the negotiation process, but not necessarily under their control, temporarily or permanently during the negotiations or at the end of them.
In this adaptation to the times of geopolitics, Europe, with the extraordinary weight of the EU member states, has not shown that it can simultaneously talk about global challenges in Ukraine, Gaza, America-China relations, artificial intelligence and the like. act geopolitically with a much smaller and yet important gesture, as Kosovo’s membership in the Council of Europe and its 75th birthday would have been. And by not doing this, it is subject to natural questions: if a geopolitical decision of this nature cannot be made, how can decisions of significantly greater weight and importance be made?
