The third law of holes
The first, well known, is that when you are in a hole, stop digging. The second, less known, is to fill it in to keep it from becoming a hazard.
The third: a hole not filled in will cause more damage in the future than it would cause if you took care of it now.
Europe needs to keep the third law in mind as December approaches. That is when the European Union, already facing an existential challenge from the euro crisis, is to decide on Serbia’s candidacy for membership. The EU can choose to ignore what is going on in northern Kosovo, where local Serbs are insisting on remaining part of Serbia, and go ahead with candidacy. Or it can insist on a clear and enforceable commitment by Belgrade to accept integration of the north with the rest of Kosovo, in accordance with the Ahtisaari plan. If it fails to do the latter, it will be violating the third law of holes.
Europe does not need another candidate for membership in this difficult moment. Serbia has done well in meeting many EU requirements since the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, but Serbia’s small population and its aging demographic make it a marginal addition to the Union, at best. At worst, it could become a financial burden on the other 27 or 28 members (Croatia is already slated to become the 28th). While certainly not a candidate for the euro zone, Serbia’s economic performance is not going to contribute much to European vitality: the latest IMF projection is 2% growth in 2011 with 11.3% increase in consumer prices. Next year the IMF is projecting 3% growth and 4.3% increase in prices, which sounds unlikely in both dimensions.
The counter-argument is this: getting Serbia irreversibly on track for EU membership will ensure that problems like Kosovo and Belgrade’s relationship with independence-minded Republika Srpska (the Serb-controlled 49 per cent of Bosnia and Herzegovina) fade rather than grow. These issues will evaporate as Serbia gets closer to EU membership. Besides, Serbia has parliamentary elections next year. It would be better if Boris Tadić’s pro-Europe Democratic Party were to win once again. Giving Serbia EU candidacy will help.
I repeat these arguments for the sake of completeness. I don’t know of any evidence that they are true. Tadić has had more than ample opportunity to choose Europe over Kosovo, something he has steadfastly refused to do. Maybe someone with less tarnished nationalist credentials would be able to accept what everyone knows: Kosovo is lost. But this unsubstantiated pro-Tadić reasoning provides ample justification for kicking the can down the road, which is where most of the 27 EU members would like to see it. They don’t have any stomach for worrying about additional bits of Balkan real estate when their common currency is on the verge of going down the drain.
I am hoping that there is at least one EU member that will see the situation differently and invoke the third law of holes. This is one of those odd situations–like the Dutch insistence on turning Ratko Mladić over to the Hague Tribunal–when a single EU member can have a profound impact by standing on principle. That’s what the third law of holes requires.
I know you are wondering: no, there is no fourth law of holes. That’s it!
PS: I’ve corrected in the above text a mistake in the original that said presidential elections will occur next year. In fact, parliamentary elections will occur next year (the rumored date is May 5–certainly there is no reason to rush candidacy for that deadline) and presidential elections will occur in 2013.
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Boris Tadic today sounds today like he’s just noticed the size of that hole. He’s calling for the people to leave the barricades – they’re not defending Serbia, they’re not heroes, they’ve been duped by others playing their own game, they’re only provoking ever stronger action by Kfor, somebody’s going to get hurt …
And, by the way, they’re threatening Serbia’s chances of receiving candidacy status in December. Maybe for a while there it looked like those piles of rubble would strengthen the Serbian side in the negotiations in Brussels, but it doesn’t seem to have worked, and even the candidacy status they thought was in the bag is now in doubt. The Serbian government has learned something since Milosevic’s day – don’t let the locals pick a fight Serbia can’t win. And whatever you do, don’t let those locals start attacking members of the armed forces from the countries whose Union you want to join (if only to ensure that pensions will be paid in the future). Germany’s spine is probably a little stiffer today after the latest incident, but there are Portuguese and Hungarians out there in harm’s way as well. As for Russia – well, they’re not jumping at the chance of getting involved in defending their “little Serbian brothers” any more than they were the first time. Time to go home, winter’s setting in, and Kfor is destroying the warming tents.
There’s a corollary to the 2nd Law: if you start looking for a shovel to fill in that hole, you can usually find one.
The leader of the KSerbs has announced that they were all unpleasantly surprised by Tadic’s call for them to remove the barricades, since they had had his complete support up until the day before. The local leaders cannot, of course – he says – take the responsibility for such a major move on their own, so there will be meetings of the Assemblies of the four towns, where they will come to a decision that will be acceptable to Tadic and to the international community. (Literally, he said “that Tadic and the international community will accept,” but I don’t think there was any “like it or not” implied.) And, I suppose, salaries will continue to be paid.
The invariable pattern of behavior of all Serbia’s political leaders and leaderships during last 20 years – except for late former prime minister, Mr. Zoran Djindjic – is to wait until the very last moment to do what they have known from the very beginning will be necessary. And, of course, when the necessary is finally done, it would soon prove that it was too little, too late.
After yesterday’s incident in which criminal elements among the log-revolutioners shot at KFOR soldiers, President Tadic of Serbia for the first time publicly called on the Serbs to remove all the barricades. His appeal, however, has been to no avail, since the official Belgrade cannot effectively control what’s going on there (in other words, the northern Serbs are willing to listen to Serbian government, but only so long as the government supports them in whatever they are doing; otherwise, they will ignore any plea, order or whatever).
No doubt, securing candidate status for Serbia – which now seems increasingly unlikely – is important, but to stabilize the situation in the north of Kosovo as soon as possible is even more so in the context of overall dynamics in the region. By funding parallel Serb institutions in the north for more than a decade, Serbia has been trying to preserve its influence there in a vague hope that it could somehow regain its sovereignty over the former province (or, at least, part of its territory), but in doing so Serbia has at the same time created the impression in the international community that it actually controls those institutions and their political representatives.
But unlike their fellow nationals south of Ibar, Serbs in the north are feeling far more confortable in that the entire area they inhabit adjoins Serbia so that they can relatively easily flee to their motherland if it happens that KFOR at some point loses patience and takes a more decisive action, especially if incidents such as that of yesterday take place again.
Now, both Mr. Tadic and (a part of) his government are desperately trying to wash their hands of the ongoing events in the northern municipalities, but – as I already wrote – it’s too little, to late. And in fact, the only way for Belgrade to assure Brussels that its hands are tied regarding the events in the north is to cut off all financial aid to the disobedient northern Serbs, whatever the political price of such a move they’ll have to pay domestically. Yet, given that the time of pre-election campaign is always the worst possible moment for taking brave and radical steps, I am not much of an optimist for that matter.
Well, you may say I am a dreamer, but I am still hoping that Europe will eventually consider the first law of democracy: people are equal. Do the Kosovo Albanians want their independent state? Let them have it. Do the northeners want to remain in the state where they are born? Let them stay in Serbia.
What about the Albanians of the Presevo Valley? They’d much prefer to live in Kosovo. The Albanians of Macedonia would, as well – to be part of the majority, rather than the permanent minority they are in their current country. And then there are the Hungarians of the VOjvodina – they were handed over to Serbia with not so much as a “do you mind?” There’s talk of a Republic of Vojvodina going around recently. The Muslims in the Sandzhak would prefer to join Bosnia …
There was a Czech movie a long time ago called “Moving Day,” back when finding an apartment was a major bureaucratic hassle (under the Communists). Some enterprising sort spent the film arranging for an elderly person to move to a tiny flat while the occupant moved to the country while a young couple moved to the elderly person’s place … And then, one day, everybody shifted places, with not a single one-for-one direct swap on the list. Maybe you have something like that in mind? The Vojvodina goes to Hungary, the north of Kosovo goes to Serbia, western Macedonia goes to Kosovo …
No, I don’t have something like that in mind.
I just share what has been said and written many times: Kosovo is a peculiar case.
But if Kosovo is peculiar, also its northern part is. People there – in north Kosovo – were born and grown as being in Serbia. As far as I understand, they want to *keep* living in the country they were born in; for them what one can call integration in the rest of Kosovo is occupation of their piece of country by a foreign and hostile power.
They don’t want it, I think it is clear for you too. My point is that there are countless good reasons to care about what people – even these people – want and what they don’t want. Yours is different, ok, it happens.
Its funny with all these Americans telling the EU what to do with Serbia. Oh well, we’re just an arrogant lot I guess.
More substantively, the first flaw in the analysis here is that there is “a clear and enforceable” way for Belgrade to simply accept “integration of the north with the rest of Kosovo.” To be “enforceable” it would have to be acceptable to the northern Kosovo Serbs, who have demonstrated that they will not accept just anything.
The second flaw is that implementing the Ahtisaari Plan vis-a-vis the north would be straightforward. As it stands now, it contains elements that would cause continued conflict between the north and Pristina. It needs some important clarifications (as I’ve noted elsewhere).
There is a third problem but I can’t remember it just now… 😉