Controversial developments
The evolution of the political and security situation in the Western Balkans has been marked by contradictory developments. It has been true in 2008, and it could be so also in the current year.
However, some progress were undoubtedly made.
First of all, Albania and Croatia have been invited to join the Atlantic Alliance during the Bucharest Summit, a step which will certainly contribute to stabilize the region as a whole.
Not less important, despite many dark forecasts, Kosovo was able to proclaim itself a sovereign and independent State without igniting any immediate interstate clash in the Balkans. There were only street riots in Belgrad1.
Even more surprising, given such an emotional issue on the table, on May 11th, 2008 the people of Serbia voted and expressed a clear mandate to engage EU. And as a consequence of these electoral results, Serbia and EU signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement that should be viewed as a turning point in the complex history of the euro-serbian relations, even if a Dutch and Belgian veto prevented it to actually enter into force, for the alleged lack of cooperation with the International Court for the Crimes in Former Yugoslavia on the part of the Serbian authorities.
However, each of the above positive achievements has been met by negative and disturbing developments. If Albania and Croatia have been invited to join Nato, for instance, Fyrom was barred from getting such a success by the opposition of Greece, which is rooted in the still unsettled controversy over the official name of the Macedonian Republic.
The complex heritage of the Nineties surfaced also elsewhere, with similar disappointing results. Despite the pro-atlantic and europeanist stance showed by both Croatia and Slovenia, a bitter and old sea border dispute between Lublijana and Zagreb broke up again, and the outcome of that diplomatic crisis was a sudden halt to the ratification process of the accession Treaty, which put in danger its completion before the Nato Summit of Strasburg and the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Atlantic Alliance.
Kosovo proclaimed itself independent, but it has been recognized as such only by 55 States out of the 192 represented in UNO. A not negligible number, higher than that of the two States recognizing Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia until now, but nonetheless still representing a mere 23-24% of the International Community at large. It is not time to despair, of course, but it is clearly too early to claim the universality of that recognition. The process to get it will take time. It should be also noticed that the UN General Assembly deferred the issue to the International Court of Justice, and that even the EU split over the independence of Kosovo, for that only 22 member States out of 27 recognized the new Republic, and there are still five Countries opposing the step: Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Romania, and Cyprus2. So the Western Balkans are still a source of political division and antagonism, both inside and outside the EU, as they used to be a century ago.
As far as intra-state relation is concerned, inside Kosovo it is still open the issue relating to the future of the Northern corner of the new State, the area north of Ibar and the Northern side of Kosovska Mitrovica, where the hyphotesis of a de facto partition of the Country – backed by Belgrad and viewed by many independent analysts in Italy as an useful tool to strengthen the more Europeanist wing of the Serbian political system – enjoys strong support among the locals.
The unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo prompted also the authorities of Republika Srpska to consider plans to organize a referendum to break away from Bosnia-Herzegovina, so putting at risk the completion of the stabilisation process now in the hands of the EU. It is also noteworthy that Eufor Althea should have been withdrawn by the end of 2008, and it is still in place.
Last but not least, the political and diplomatic struggle over the recognition of Kosovo sparked a wider debate on the right of ethnic communities to constitute themselves into independent States, with significant extra-regional spill-overs, for instance in the Caucasus, where Russia played a decisive role, linking Kosovo to the frozen conflicts between Georgia and its breakaway Republics of Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.
The need for long term
structural solutions
So far the situation we inherited by the past year. But what about the future? The present contribution to this International Conference is mainly about the Western European perceptions on the matters.
The prevailing view is that on the whole security conditions have improved in the Balkans, even if we are still confronted with some unsettled territorial disputes having a potential to evolve into open conflicts in the future. The perceived situation is one in which pushes for de-securitization and re-securitization persist side by side.
If by de-securitization is meant a less urgent need for international troops on the ground, that trend is felt by the West, perhaps too much. Domestic pressure for substantial reductions of the detachments deployed in Bosnia, Kosovo and around is on the rise in many EU and Nato Countries. Military forces are required elsewhere, first of all in Afghanistan, and the actual threat of a new inter-state war between Serbia and the new Republic of Kosovo is considered quite remote.
However, a demand for re-securitization is getting stronger relating to the intra-state dimension of the Balkan politics, both inside Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the Confederal political institutions are seriously pressed by both the Serbs, and the Bosnian Muslims and Croats. However, while the International Community, the Atlantic Alliance and the EU are still committed to preserve the multiethnic nature of the new Balkan States, they currently prefer to pursue their aims by deploying light police forces, and even providing them with assistance in realm of Justice, the new Eulex mission operating in Kosovo being a case in point.
Most of the analysts are also fully aware that the Balkans are and will remain in the next future a playground for some kind of power politics between the Russian Federation and the West, and possibly even among the main EU member States.
What is badly needed is a clear and viable structural solution for the area. When, a year ago, on February 21st, 2008 the then Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Massimo D’Alema, explained before the Parliament the rationale for the decision made by the Prodi Government to recognize the independence of Kosovo, he envisaged a comprehensive strategy, according to which the stabilization of the Balkans should have been achieved through the full Europeanization of the region.
Only the complete integration of the Balkans into the EU – so the argument was going – could actually provide the area with a definitive tool to deprive of any meaning the territorial claims still on the floor, as it happened decades ago among Germany, Italy, France and Great Britain, restoring also the economic unity of the region.
The proposal made by D’Alema, and well before him also by Limes, the Italian Review of Geopolitics3, sounds logic, since the EU disbands the borders among its member States through the Schengen Agreement, which is part of the aquis communitaire.
But the problem with such a vision is a lack of support inside the EU for any prospects of further large and challenging enlargements. It is probably both too late and too early for such a move.
The opposition is not coming by the Governments. Most of them could actually support such a strategy of inclusion for the Western Balkan States, and even force their national Parliaments to accept it.
It is the EU common people to stand against. The last round of the enlargement process, which brought into the EU Bulgaria and Romania, has been perceived as a bitter failure by a significant percentage of the European population, and especially in Italy, Spain and France, where higher are the costs paid in terms of domestic insecurity and low wage competition. Relevant groups of EU taxpayers are also starting questioning the real outcome of the 2004 big round of accessions.
The dramatic economic and financial crisis under way will make the situation even more difficult to manage, spreading fears and engendering growing support for new isolationist and protectionist policies, to be pursued both inside and outside the EU. In January 2009, the British workers went on strike just asking their Government to protect their jobs from the competition of cheaper foreign colleagues, coming not from Poland or the Baltic States, but from Italy and Portugal, and brought in by a multinational firm like Total. They were also successful, getting a compromise solution by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown.
In the meantime, common people could not easily understand anymore the need for an enlargement of the EU to the Balkans also because the memories of the wars fought in the Nineties are fading. While such a prospect would be resented by all the political forces opposing even the idea of a possible future accession of Turkey to the Union.
So it seems quite difficult that the wide enlargement needed for the stabilization of the Balkans could occur before a long period of time.
Prospects for future
This is not to say there is nothing we can do now. It is true right the opposite. A workable strategy to improve the security conditions in the Balkans over the next 5 to 15 years is more than ever necessary.
An enlargement of Nato could provide such a bridge solution, bringing enhanced stability to the region, encouraging investments by both local and foreign firms, and supporting in the end an accelerating economic recovery.
US could lead the Alliance towards that achievement, as it is already doing, while there won’t be significant opposition on the part of the “old” European Nato members States. The Treaties of accession to the Atlantic Alliance contain no transfer of national sovereignty to supranational bodies: and they will continue to be ratified by Parliaments without any popular consultation.
It will be Nato to provide the Balkans with a transitional strategy to improve regional stability, making easier and less dramatic any future EU advance in the area. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic already set a happy precedent, joining the Atlantic Alliance in 1999, and the EU five years later. Also Bulgaria and Romania benefited by such a two step approach, getting Nato membership in 2004 and the EU one only three years later, perhaps even too early.
Of course, there will be still the problem of Serbia.
It is plain to assume that Belgrad won’t be interested in getting an invitation to join the Alliance in the near term, even if the memories of the 1999 bombing campaign should have faded long ago. In 1949, after all, Italy was among the founding members of the Atlantic Alliance, joining its former enemies shortly after the defeat.
However, the Serbian public opinion is not yet ready for such a step. That is the reason why, while expanding Nato and waiting for the EU arrival in the Western Balkans, it will be important to find a way to engage Serbia.
May be it won’t be easy, because the price to pay could be emotionally relevant to most of the regional players, and even an unbearable one to some, but it is nonetheless worthy, unless we want to make of Serbia a geopolitical black hole in the midst of the Balkans, a potential pray of every kind of extremism and adventurism.
1 During the riots, on February 21st, 2008 protesters raided several Embassies, including the US one, as well as Western shops and banks, including the Italian Unicredit.
2 However, in some of these Countries the official attitude against recognition began to be openly criticized. On February 16th, 2009, for instance, the progressive daily newspaper El Pais published a column by Jos衉gnacio Terrablanca stressing the opportunity for Spain to align herself in that regard to the position assumed by the Western most advanced democracies, including Canada, France and UK, whose Governments granted full diplomatic support to independent Kosovo despite their domestic problems with Quebec, Corse, and Scotland.
3 See Lucio Caracciolo and Michel Korinman, Progetto Euroslavia, Limes, Italian Review of Geopolitics, No. 4/1995, pp. 7-10.
Speech held Feb.21 at the 4th Albanian Institute for International Studies Security Conference titled “Desecuritization and Resecuritization of Western Balkan Inter/Intrastate relations.”
* General Secretary and Director of Research of the Centre for Strategic Studies and International Politics, Rome, Italy
