TIRANA, Feb. 23, 2022 – The German government has announced that it has appointed a special envoy for the Western Balkans, part of a recent trend of key Western powers appointing special envoys to the region.
Manuel Sarrazin, a former Green Party German MP, has been selected for the position.
Sarrazin becomes the fourth special Western envoy to the Western Balkans, joining Gabriel Escobar of the United States, Stuart Peach of the United Kingdom and Miroslav Lajcak, who is EU’s special envoy on the Kosovo-Serbia talks and other issues in the Western Balkans.
Albert Rakipi, chairman at the Albanian Institute for International Studies, said that the new German government seems to want to give a message of engagement in the Western Balkans through the appointment of a special envoy.
“We have to wait to see the results of a commitment at the governmental level, not only by the German government, but also by the others, the United Kingdom, the United States, without forgetting EU’s envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue,” Rakipi said. “On the other hand, it seems like there is a kind of competition among Western powers, but also a tendency for a proxy policy of the Great Powers in the Balkans, in a way, to verify their power status.”
This, Rakipi explains, is happening at a time when the Western Balkans and the Kosovo-Serbia frozen conflict in particular, require a united front between Europe and the United States.
According to Rakipi, in addition to the new envoy Germany already has a robust network of embassies in all Western Balkan states and has always had a special official dedicated to the Balkans and Turkey at its foreign ministry, a position currently occupied by Ambassador Susanne Schütz, an experienced career diplomat with a vision for the future of the region.
Sarrazin now takes on a newly-created role, dedicated entirely to the Western Balkans.
Fellow Green, MEP Viola von Cramon, the rapporteur for Kosovo in the European Parliament, congratulated Sarrazin on the new post in a statement.
“The Western Balkans need strong and principled support from the European Union and [there is] no better person among Greens in Germany to take up this post since he’s a staunch supporter of EU enlargement to the region,” she said.
It was a sentiment echoed in Albanian political circles.
“I’m glad that Manuel Sarrazin has been appointed as German government envoy for the Western Balkans. He is knowledgeable and committed to deserved EU enlargement,” Genc Pollo, a former Albanian government minister and MP, wrote on Twitter.
