By Berat Buzhala
By blocking Kosovo’s independence, Russia reminds the world of its new power; it creates a gulf between Serbia and the West and slows the integration of Southeast Europe into the EU and NATO.
Serbia may end up paying a high price for its efforts to save its sovereignty over Kosovo – gradually surrendering much of its own sovereignty in the process.
It could well prove impossible for Serbia to continue keeping one foot in Brussels and the other in Moscow while Russia and Europe, from a political and diplomatic standpoint, move further and further apart.
While trying to retain Kosovo, Serbia must decide whether to continue on the road towards deeper integration in Euro-Atlantic structures, or, as Europe’s expansion commissioner, Olli Rehn, recently said, enter the bear’s womb.
The question is who stands to benefit most from the latter scenario – Serbia or Russia – and also whether Russia is really so adamantly against Kosovo’s independence, or is merely unwilling to see Serbia join a club that it is increasingly at odds with.
In fact, Russia current position allows it to deal with both those issues. Strategically, the current impasse over Kosovo is highly favourable for the economically resurgent Russia.
After years of economic gloom, rising oil prices on world markets are allowing Russia once again to project the image of a superpower.
Under these circumstances, and without needing to invest a single penny, Russia has the chance to take a stance that will bring it substantial rewards without incurring any cost.
By blocking Kosovo’s independence it can show the world how much its gas production has given it back its former international muscle.
At the same time it is rekindling the lost admiration of the Slavic states in the Balkans, which turned their backs on Moscow after the collapse of communism.
Finally, perhaps most importantly, Russia has succeeded in upsetting the EU wagon by putting a steel spoke through its wheels, and so causing maximum damage where it hurts the most to the integration process of the ex-communist countries of Southeast Europe.
It is all very different from 1999, at the time of the NATO air war against Serbia over Kosovo, when Boris Yeltsin’s Russia was unable to help Serbia over Kosovo, or prevent the deployment of western troops here.
This time, help comes at a cheaper price, and things that Serbia cannot achieve by its own force, Russia can.
However, Serbia should realise that in the end, Russia has neither the ability nor the intention to stop anybody from recognizing Kosovo as a sovereign state outside the context of the UN. For Vladimir Putin, it is important only to satisfy Serbia by not letting Kosovo gain a seat at the UN. On the other hand, Serbia will then be in Russia’s debt for this contribution.
Thus, anytime that Russia is in the position to say no to Kosovo’s independence, it will do so – whether in the so-called Contact Group, or back in the UN Security Council. The reason is easy and understandable: by doing so, it is creating a gulf between Serbia and EU, which will be hard to bridge in the near future.
Therefore, Moscow will not hold back its rhetoric of support for Belgrade. Indeed, this rhetoric will gain in power and rhythm every time good news from Belgrade is received in Moscow, such as the sale of a Serbian airline to a Russian one, the granting of permission to Gazprom to undertake full and unlimited operations in Serbian land, or other such contracts.
Serbia is not a big enough state to satisfy the needs of all the world’s companies at the same time. Accordingly, every time Serbia needs to give a “yes” to a Russian company, it will have to say “no” to a Western one.
This way, as well as politically, Serbia will also become economically tied to Russia. And once such a deep relationship of interdependency as this is cultivated with a state such as Russia, Belgrade will find it very hard to abandon the chosen path.
Belarus made just such attempt last winter, with almost heartrending results. This dictatorial state – long under the guardianship of Moscow – in January 2007 tried to challenge its great ally by enforcing certain conditions on the proposed Russian gas pipeline route running through Belarusian territory.
The response from Moscow was simple: they would bypass Belarus altogether and build other pipelines through other countries. Belarus’s dictatorial President, Alexander Lukashenko, had no choice but to back down, having long ago cut his ties to Brussels. Such attempts at blackmail are almost invariably exposed as bluffs, of which nobody in Russia is afraid anymore. It was perhaps this that pushed Olli Rehn to warn Serbia few months ago that it was in danger of being suffocated within the womb of the proverbial Russian bear.
So far, however, such threats have not impressed anyone in Serbia. On the contrary, a few days ago Tomislav Nikolic, the vice-president of the opposition Serbian Radical Party, the country’s largest single party, openly declared that Serbia could not continue to maintain relations with NATO and at the same time seek Russian help over Kosovo.
When he asked for the country to take a clearer position on the matter, he meant taking a more pro-Russian stance.
Berat Buzhala is editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Express. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.
