By Ambassador Michael Schmunk
I. The Challenges
At the beginning of 2009, the Economist carried an article with the head line:
“The Western Balkans: A stuck region. How troubles in Bosnia and elsewhere obstruct the Balkans’ path to Europe”. Likewise, in a recent publication of the U.S. based Democratization Policy Council the executive summary reads: “Euro-Atlantic policies towards the Western Balkans have reached the limits of their effectiveness, as countries throughout the region hit a brick wall in the reform and European integration process”.
Shortly thereafter, President Obama’s new Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair, presented to the media a threat assessment in which he came to the conclusion: “Despite positive developments in the last year (ũ, the Balkans will again pose the greatest stability threat for the old continent”.
These analyses echo many similarly pessimistic, if not gloomy, opinions found in European and American publications about Bosnia’s bizarre finger-wrestling for a new constitutional-territorial division, Croatia’s border dispute with its Slovenian neighbor, and the first anniversary of Kosovo’s independence.
The Southern European region, branded by history as the “Balkans”, has served since the nineteenth century principally as a metaphor for fragmentation and instabilityؤue to political developments for which the majority of its peoples, long patronized by a variety of communist regimes, carried only limited, if any responsibility.
It was only after 1989/90, with the end of the East-West confrontation which was the outcome of the second World war, that full ownership was returned to the people of the region to shape their future through free political participation. This revolutionary transformation, however, did not take place peacefully everywhere.
In particular in the key region of the Western Balkans, due to the devastating series of wars, violent intra-state conflicts and bloody power struggles, the newly emerging countries have had a hard time establishing functioning states, democracies and a rule of law worthy of this characterization. Ever since the initial shots were fired in June 1991 that started the series of conflicts in former Yugoslavia, which led to the collapse and unravelling of Tito’s former empire, the geo- and enlargement-political relevance of the region has been shoved under the Euro-Atlantic community’s nose. Thus began for the EU, NATO and the U.S. a painfully slow, setback-marked, but unwavering process towards assisting, reforming and preparing these societies for successful membership.
Considerable progress has been made in areas of key importanceةncluding the security situation. Most importantly, all the Western Balkan countries are now based on democratic constitutions and ruled by freely and fairly elected governments. Nevertheless, both the Western Balkans’ newly emerged states and, even more so, the Euro-Atlantic community members have been haunted by nagging doubts about whether these processes are irreversible. Or, as this conference’s “Rationale” puts it: “Is it now safe to say that the region is reaching the point of no return?” More concretely: Have we seen, in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo the last wars in the Western Balkans?
The short answer and the predominant view is “yes”حeaning: both inter-state and intra-state wars are history even in the still fragile and conflict-ridden Western Balkans. The explanations given include that:
– the last wars have been so dreadful and destructive in each and every respect that their deterrent power will last sustainably
– the status of their already attained rapprochement into the Euro-Atlantic structures provides both individual states and the region as a whole with a certain immunity against recollapsing into armed conflict, and, finally
– the perspective of more inclusion, if not full membership with all the accompanying benefits serves as a potent deterrent.
However, against the background of numerous unresolved territorial, ethnic, constitutional and border confrontations, even the most optimistic minded have been harbouring both doubts and fears when it comes to the security and stability perspectives of the Western Balkans. Why is that so?
There has been wide agreement among practitioners and scholars that today’s most serious security and stability threats are:
– weak statehood or even state failure
– ethno-nationalist tensions or frustrations from dealing with the legacies of the past
– unsolved territorial or border questions
– corruption/weak rule of law
– organized crime/weak rule of law
– economic underdevelopment (incomplete privatization; high unemployment)
– and, at least to a certain degree, the lack of perspective and mobility of youth.
My personal experience in this regard, after having served in several post-conflict societies is clearly that the lack of a strong, efficient rule of law matters most when it comes to the inner stability of countries concerned. Between countries, territorial quarrels matter most. Although the danger of new intra-state or inter-state armed conflicts threatening an individual or a group of countries seems to be practically excluded, there has been vast agreement that the before-mentioned threats, especially in combination, could not only destabilize individual countries and/or the region, but also the Euro-Atlantic community altogether.
II. The Opportunities
The mood in the EU concerning the Western Balkan countries’ aspirations to become full members can best be described as ‘sceptical reluctance’ combined with the sobering insight that it might beاiven the otherwise remaining security and stability gapةnevitably necessary to include them. Doubts remain though, that both the outstanding transformational deficits and the conflicts inside or in between the Western Balkan aspirants will be solved even once full membership for all of them is granted. Some analysts however, are convinced that final transformation can be reached only through integration. They cite the positive preventive and appeasing forces of the EU, and hope that NATO’s security framework and mutual assistance obligationsخot to mention its esprit de corpsطill do the rest.
Unfortunately it seems today, that the lure of EU integration, already tempered by confusing signals of enlargement fatigue, is not as powerful as many had envisioned. In some of the countries of the Western Balkans, or portions thereof, EU integration has not beenةn particular when it comes to rivalling so-called national interestsءs high a priority as the EU had imagined. Take the Republica Srpska, for example. Time and again there have been statements from RS politicians to the effect that, if forced to make a choice, they would always prefer the relative independence and integrity of the RS to a membership of BiH in the EU. Similarly, according to a new poll, Macedonians answered overwhelmingly that the name of their country is more important to them than EU membership. That is particularly surprising, as up until now, trends have indicated that the broader public, in particular in those countries concerned, has been much more in favor of a fast rapprochement towards Euro-Atlantic structures and a more profound and sustainable “Europeanization” of their societies than their political elites.
In relation to the processes of the Stability Pact and now the RCC, experts have come to the conclusion that parts of the political elites in the Western Balkans seem to have engaged in both pro-EU activities and regional cooperation first and foremost in order to “fulfill” perceived expectations from the EU and sometimes from the U.S. This makes those familiar with the intensity and depth of some of the more fundamental territorial and ethnic conflicts rather pessimistic. Pointing, for example, to the Cyprus, Greece/Macedonia or Slovenia/Croatia problems, they warn that this type of ethnic-nationalistic conflict will remain immune to the EU’s self-healing powers. Thus, it can not be excluded that such new members would introduce political fractures fundamentally unfamiliar to the EU. In conclusion, looking operationally at this development, they state that the membership applications have been put forward at an inopportune moment.
Analysing this phenomenon more systematically, however, one cannot help but note that the EU’s and even NATO’s key principles of solidarity and institutionalized assistance to members may have been weakened by a newدr rather ‘old’شype of Realpolitik inspired by an egotistical “Neo-Nationalism”, in part imported to the EU from Southeastern Europe. Although we thought that the Euro-Atlantic experience of the last 50 to 60 years had put such notions to rest, it could be, that the violence of recent history has rekindled old fears which had yet to be adequately reconciled.
Some of the more pessimistic rhetoric tends to overlook the fact, however, that it has been at the core of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy to bring to and guarantee peace especially in its Southeastern regions. Here, the buzz word has been ‘enlargement’, both an EU- and a NATO strategy when it comes to possible remedies for the Western Balkans security and stability conundrums. Enlargement, resolutely linked to the destinies of the Lisbon Treaty and the future common constitution, still seems to be the most promising strategic answer to the Western Balkans’ problems. No better tool is yet available to effectively influence the necessary reforms and transformation processes in the regionةn combination with offers from the former Stability Pact and today’s Regional Cooperation Council.
Statistically, size-wise, so to say, the absorption task seems to be manageable. Altogether, somewhere between 24 and 27 million citizens live in the seven countries of the Western Balkansءbout five percent of today’s EU inhabitants. The territory of the seven comprises roughly 260 thousand square kilometresء bit less than six percent of the overall EU territory. To paint a more concrete picture: the whole Western Balkans is just a little bigger inhabitants-wise, and size-wise than Romania.
But will this enlargement of the EU and of NATOحanageable in sizeءlso be sufficient to overcome the root problems and conflicts mentioned above, given the obviously diminishing attractiveness of the perspective of EU membership in at least the more critical aspirant countries?
The answer, to my mind, is ‘no’. Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovenia, just to mention members from the Southeastern part of the EU, have demonstrated that full membership cannot necessarily be equated with ideal EU behavior, whatever that might be in the end. Some of them have not yet managed to fully meet EU standards in some crucial areas; others have been blocking the membership of potential new members. The lesson-learned should be that the time before full membership must be used, from both the EU’s (and NATO’s) and the applicant’s side to sustainably solve and overcome conflicts and deficits be they intra-state or inter-state.
If, as mentioned before, the danger of another war seems to be excluded, this might not necessarily be true for other potentially damaging conflicts or disasters. Continued state disfunctionality and failure can lead to local violent conflicts, secessions, or territorial disputes; power vacuums filled with structures of misappropriation, corruption and organized crime; terrorism out of ethnic-political frustration; continued manipulation by nationalistic elites; limited freedom to travel; economic stagnation; and/or many other serious problems.
Preventing such renewed violent conflict is possibleذrovided the EU and NATO are determined to offer the countries concerned several crash courses even before membership becomes effective. It should be possible to tailor partnership programmes to specifically address problem situations such as, for example:
– constitutional (and human/civil rights) matters
– territorial and border questions
– improving the structural efficiency of state institutions, including the rule of law
– the role of certain political elites versus broader political inclusion and participation of citizens, including an improved status for civil society organizations.
– the conclusion of non-aggression agreements between intra-state groups, but also between neighboring states with inherent conflicts.
Such partnership-wise organized crash course task forces could demonstrate conflict prevention and membership preparation at its best. The Western Balkans are not like all the otherةn a neutral senseעnormal” or “average” applicant countries. The Western Balkans developed from a complicated historical situation and through many wars and civil-wars. Thisطith a view to their place in the Euro-Atlantic partnershipحust be taken into account much more seriously to get things right.
A true partnership of the EU and NATOآoth gifted with lots of that “smart power” praised by Harvard’s foreign policy guru Joseph Nye طith the Western Balkans may eventually lead us all into the envisioned Pax Euro-Atlantica.
Ambassador Michael Schmunk is the German Foreign Offices Special Representative and Ambassador at Large for foreign and security policy related cooperation with universities, foundations and think tanks and has served as Ambassador to many countries, including Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The paper was presented at the Fourth Security Conference of the Albanian Institute for International Studies, “De-Securitization and Re-Securitization of the Western Balkans’ Inter/Intrastate Relations”, held in Tirana on 20-21 February 2009.
