TIRANA, Feb 21 – The Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) held on Saturday the 4th Annual International Conference on Security, sponsored by NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division and the United States of America Embassy in Tirana. This year’s topic of the Conference was “Desecuritization and Resecuritization of Western Balkan Inter/Intrastate relations”.
Although the Western Balkans is a region where the de-securitization process is still accompanied with re-securitization, it is now safe to say that the region is reaching the point of no-turning back. In fact, key recent events have made the holding of this conference not only timely but necessary, in order to explore the significance and possible implications of these changes.
Securitization of relations between states refers to the process by which issues leave the sphere of normal bargaining and enter a realm of emergency and primacy. This has indeed been the nature of relations between states as well as between significant social groups within states in the Balkans for many years, where the other has been perceived as a threat to one’s own survival. Securitized relations are very much played out at the peak of the security dilemma between two units where every single accumulation of power of one unit is perceived as an equal decline in the power of the other. Desecuritization, therefore, refers to the opposite process by which relations between states withdraw to a normalized political and bargaining mode.
The year 2008 has been crucially important for the de-securitization of the Balkans’ inter and intrastate relations. Albania and Croatia were invited to become members of NATO, although, unfortunately this did not happen for FYROM. Furthermore, the political map of the Western Balkans changed with the independence of Kosovo at the beginning of 2008.
As far as interstate relations are concerned, FYROM, Albania and Montenegro have recognized the new state of Kosovo, but the relationship between Serbia and Kosovo portends a frozen conflict in the Balkans. In addition, all of the countries have made steps forward in their integration paths, whether toward NATO or the EU. The only long term, sustainable solution of de-securitization remains to be integration based on deep reforms seeking to strengthen democracy, rule of law and state functionality. However, progress in these areas, if not threatened, has been at the least slowed down by the resurgence of populism and nationalistic sentiments in the region.
It is in order to analyze the challenges of the further de-securitization of both intra and interstate relations in the Western Balkans that the Albanian Institute for International Studies (AIIS) organized this Conference in Tirana. The conference was held on the eve of two great events, the 60th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as well as its expansion with two new Balkan members, Croatia and Albania.
Leskaj praised AIIS’s realistic and non-partisan stand on integration issues. Leskaj said that new NATO members from the Balkans, Albania and Croatia, “is very important for its near and far history as being one of the hottest spots.”
Leskaj said that their NATO membership not only increases the region’s security but also sets them as factors of such a security. She also stated Albanians have been overwhelmingly in favor of a NATO membership.
“Albanian politics should demonstrate maturity and capacities to bear such responsibilities,” she said, adding that the challenges of corruption, organized crime, law enforcement and independent institutions were long-term.
“Albania’s NATO membership is not only a great achievement but at the same time an extraordinary responsibility first of all of its politics so that it is not purely a number at the Alliance but an added value and that is a historic responsibility,” Leskaj said.
Through the contributions of renowned scholars, decision-makers, diplomats, and civil society representatives, the Conference successfully accomplished its objective to analyze and enhance the understanding of the parallel processes of desecuritization and resecuritization in the relations between and within states of the Balkans.
NATO’s prospects in the region
The Conference began with the opening remarks of AIIS Executive Director Albert Rakipi and of former Foreign Minister Besnik Mustafaj who gave a brief overview of the context that gave the impetus for this Conference. In the opening session speeches were held by the Albanian Deputy Prime Minister Genc Pollo, Albanian Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha, opposition Socialist Party Parliamentary Group head Valentina Leskaj and US Ambassador John L. Withers II.
They provided briefings on the current situation and developments in the Balkans from the perspective of each of the speakers. All speakers shared the understanding that recent regional developments comprised watersheds and that the prospects of NATO and EU integration represent strong desecuritizing forces for all countries of the region.
Rakipi also elaborated on the current developments in the region, focusing on their implications for inter- and intrastate relations. Rakipi argued that opening up the state is essential for a comprehensive (in)security account as well as for accurate policy predictions and propositions. Opening up the state to allow the domestic sphere to inform the traditional security analysis reveals that the main threat to security nowadays is the weak state, understood as lacking in domestic capacity to guarantee its citizens basic political goods, starting with law and order. State weakness is endemic in the Western Balkans and the ways to address it should not be only of a top-down nature, but combine policies of institution and capacity-building with strategic economic investments.
General Secretary and Director of Research of the Centre for Strategic Studies and International Politics in Rome Germano Dottori and Zagreb Institute for International Relations Researcher Sandro Knezkovic were two other participants in the debate. Knezkovic gave a detailed evaluation of the region’s progress looking at each country individually. He purported that as far as reforms and transition is concerned in the region, the nineties were lost. The EU began to serve as a great catalyzer for democratic transformations in each country only after it openly articulated the link between each country’s reforms and a European perspective during the Zagreb Summit in 2000.
NATO and world peace
Deputy Assistant Secretary General of the Strategic Communications Services of NATO’s Public Diplomacy Division Michael Stopford delivered an insightful presentation on NATO’s achievements and challenges at the age of 60. Stopford noted that NATO had successfully contributed to the enhancement of peace and security in the world since its inception and this is reflected in public perceptions and support for the Alliance. He then elaborated on the changing nature of security challenges in the world with the end of the Cold War. Threats to peace and security now emanate from non-traditional sectors too. Terrorism and non-state actors, economic interdependency, ethnic conflict, and energy supply are some of the many cases in point. New challenges and opportunities also come with the technological advances of our age, as on the one side, information systems become more vulnerable and penetrable, belligerent actors gain access to potentially destructive technology, and on the other side the gap between citizens and the Alliance is reduced and opportunities for more openness and transparency, and therefore legitimacy for the Alliance’s operations arise.
Kosova, its independence and the Balkans
The Second Session was totally dedicated to Kosovo and its situation and effects, impact one year after independence. Renowned Kosovar politician and leader of ‘Ora’ political party, also ex-lawmaker Veton Surroi analyzed the three controversial realities of the new country: its simultaneous independence, protectorate status and dividedness. Surroi purported that Kosovo must start to act more like a state and less as a protectorate and divided. The key obstacle identified to that end is related to the institutional and human resource gaps of the new state.
Renowned British expert, prolific author on regional affairs and special correspondent of The Economist Tim Judah compared outside perceptions and expectations of disaster after the declaration of independence and the actual situation one year on. He expounded on the main fears that accompanied the declaration of independence – a Serbian exodus, an upsurge of violence in Kosovo spilling over to its neighbors, and the fall of Serbia into radicals’ hands – the rationale behind them and the reasons they did not materialize. Judah’s presentation was an insightful analysis, using analogies and making links with several issues that considered aspects from the significance of cooperation with the ICJ, to public resonance of political events in the Balkans and their domestic articulations, and to their international implications. Concluding that the major challenges ahead, for Serbia and Kosovo, but the rest of the region also, will be largely due to the international financial crisis, he indicated that the ‘book of Kosovo’, especially in regards to its sovereignty, had not actually finished with independence.
Lulzim Peci of the Kosovo Institute for Policy Research and Development in Prishtina gave an account of the situation of Kosovo Serbs one year after independence also providing a fresh perspective. Peci argued that contrary to popular expectations, the declaration of independence had served to diffuse radical, nationalistic emotions and has thus facilitated the acceptance of Serbs as an integral part of Kosovar society. He went on to identify and analyze the three profiles of Serbs that had emerged during this one year: (1) political leaders boycotting Kosovo institutions, but at the same time opposing Serbia’s policies; (2) Kosovo Serb political parties participating in Kosovo institutions; (3) political and other leaders directly controlled by the Government of Serbia. He interestingly remarked that these divisions transcend the Ib철River. A detailed and multifaceted analysis of the situation in Mitrovica followed, arguing that with pressures from Serbia neutralized, a more orderly and coherent international presence, and confidence-building measures by the Kosovar government would enable the gradual restoration of normality in Mitrovica.
Western Balkans, NATO and EU
The third part of the Conference focused on how each Western Balkan country and the region will succeed in utilizing integration for the further de-securitization of inter/ intra state relations. In this section, the speakers from the Western Balkans presented and debated the local agenda, while speakers from NATO and the EU shared the outsiders’ perspective and contribution.
A lively presentation from Momcilo Radulovic of the European Movement of Montenegro followed, arguing that the (in)security situations of the Western Balkans countries are directly and positively related to progress in the integration process of each. Radulovic saw the lack of orientation of the countries of the region in the nineties, accompanied by the lack of determination and a consistent approach of the EU, as having led to the fall of order throughout the region. Tracing the evolvement of a more solid EU approach towards the region, he identified the moment that an EU membership perspective and roadmap is clearly pronounced as the key turning point for the security situations as well as overall reform processes of the countries. Furthermore Radulovic pointed out that the interference, the penetration of a foreign actor in the region is not marked this time by the notorious policy of ‘divide and rule’. On the contrary, the two processes the EU is trying to promote, internal democratic change and regional cooperation, create integrative forces in the region.
A view from Macedonia was presented by Veton Latifi of the South East European University of Tetova. Latifi gave a detailed account of the facets and functions of international community intervention in FYROM, its indispensable role in preventing or halting escalations of conflict as well as in the building process of the multi-ethnic state. Latifi’s emphasis was however put on the need for ownership of the integration process in all the region’s countries as the only sustainable way to democratization, peace and stability.
