Day: July 29, 2012
The zombie that haunts the Balkans
I promised yesterday a solution to Macedonia’s problems today, but to get there I am going to have to detour. The Macedonia “name” issue is unique. I can’t think of another situation, current or historical, in which a country wants a neighbor to change its name. It is also a zero sum problem: if Athens gains, Skopje loses, and vice versa.
It would be really nice if Athens came to the conclusion that rule of law requires it to give in on NATO membership for The FYROM (the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), even if it believes the December 2011 International Court of Justice decision finding it in violation of a 1995 agreement is wrong. A few potential investors might even be favorably impressed and open their wallets.
But I am not holding my breath for that. Zero sum problems without solutions require reframing. Why is the “name” issue important? Because it prevents Macedonia from entering NATO and getting a date to begin its EU negotiations. Why is that important? Because those are the paths on which Macedonia has to make progress to avoid aggravating its inter-ethnic tensions, which in their most extreme form might lead to claims of exclusive territorial control over parts of the country or calls for Greater Albania or Greater Kosovo.
Ah! That is a problem I recognize from elsewhere in the Balkans. It exists almost everywhere: Serbs and Croats in Bosnia want to govern themselves on their own territory, Albanians in Kosovo feel the same way (as do Serbs in the north), some Macedonians would like to establish exclusive control over a homeland. We’ve had analogous problems in Croatia in the past (Serbs in the krajina, or borderlands) and there are latent problems inside Serbia (Bosniaks in Sandjak and Albanians in Presevo, not to mention Hungarians, Slovaks and Croats in Vojvodina).
Many of the ethnic problems of the Balkans boil down to this: why should I live as a minority in your territory, when you can live as a minority in mine?
This question could lead to an unending series of partitions along ethnic lines, something some of my colleagues in Washington do not fear. I do. Ethnic partition is a proven formula for precipitating violence, death and destruction on a grand scale. All those folks who agree on governing themselves find it difficult to decide where to draw the territorial lines, which is what leads to ethnic cleansing and war. The question is how to stop it, because once it starts it will spread from Kosovo and Macedonia at least as far as Bosnia and even Cyprus, with de jure division of the northern Turkish Republic from the rest of the island.
That is what Greeks should be worrying about, not the name of its northern neighbor.
The international community has been wise to use existing boundaries in the Balkans and try to avoid drawing new ones. While some would like to portray the independence of Kosovo as an ethnic partition of Serbia, it was not. No ethnic adjustment of Kosovo’s boundary was made when it was upgraded to a border. The same is true throughout the Balkans: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro all gained independence within well-established lines. There is no reason to depart from this course.
We’ve reached the point that a concerted and explicit international campaign to stop ethno-territorial division of the Balkans is in order. Rather than each country fighting these battles on its own, I’d like to see Europeans and Americans joining with partners in the Balkans to declare unequivocally that no territorial adjustments in the Balkans will be made on an ethnic basis, that the widely known and accepted borders are permanent and will be demarcated bilaterally, and that all concerned will join in an effort to take the measures necessary to prevent any changes.
These measures should be explicit and far-reaching, including:
- implementation of the Ahtisaari plan in northern Kosovo, with additional details required worked out in talks between Pristina and Belgrade
- admission of Macedonia into NATO as “The FYROM” in accordance with the 1995 interim accord, with explicit guarantees to Greece on its border if Athens wants them
- negotiation of EU membership only within a framework determined by central governments (in particular in Bosnia and Kosovo),
- a fixed time frame for a negotiated end to the de facto division of Cyprus,
- a region-wide agreement that each state will ensure the highest human rights standards for its minorities, with periodic verification by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
It is time that Macedonia and Bosnia as well as their friends in Albania, Montenegro and Croatia (that group is known in diplomatic parlance as the Adriatic 5) as well as Kosovo make common cause against ethnic partition in the Balkans, instead of struggling against it each country on its own.
The A5 and Kosovo will need some strong European allies against ethnic partition. The best bets are Germany, whose chancellor has been vigorous in her opposition to Serbian state structures in northern Kosovo, and the United Kingdom, where the idea of ethnic partition of Bosnia is rightly despised. If Greece joins the effort, to inoculate itself against irredentist claims from Macedonia, so much the better. A vigorous diplomatic initiative that engages the United States in addition would stand a chance of driving a wooden stake through the ethnic partition zombie that still haunts too much of the Balkans.
They taught me in school that if I didn’t know the answer to a question, I should ask a better one and answer that. Killing the ethnic partition zombie that haunts the Balkans seems to me far more important than finding a name Athens and Skopje can agree on.
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Serbia faces tough choices
Milan Marinković writes from Niš:
After some two months of postelection negotiations, the new Serbian government is finally formed and officially sworn in. With 142 out of 250 seats in the parliament, the ruling coalition enjoys a comfortable majority. That majority consists of the coalitions rallied around three main parties – the Serbian progressive party (SNS), the Socialist party of Serbia (SPS) and the United regions of Serbia (URS) – plus two parties that were part of the coalition led by the Democratic party (DS) and whose leaders (Rasim Ljajić and Sulejman Ugljanin) were ministers in the previous government, as well. Except for SNS, which has replaced DS, the composition of the new government is virtually the same as that of the old one.
Even so, many people fear the country’s pro-EU course might be reversed over the coming years.
All eyes are on prime minister Ivica Dačić (SPS), who in addition has retained the position of interior minister. Dačić can be best described as a combination of great political intelligence and immense personal ambition. How successful Dačić will be in his new role depends to a considerable degree on his ability to balance these two facets of his personality.
Dačić’s statements, especially those concerning his economic doctrine, are often mutually contradictory. Economists are warning that Serbia is going to experience bankruptcy should Dačić insist on fulfilling his promises from the election campaign.
Troubles are already at hand. The government will have to borrow about 3 billion euros by the end of the year lest it fail to pay its financial obligations. Negotiations with the IMF over a stand-by agreement were suspended a few months ago due to Serbia’s inability – or, rather, unwillingness – to satisfy required conditions.
For the negotiations to resume, the government will likely have to freeze pensions and public sector salaries. Even more opposed to such a measure than Dačić are his coalition partners from the Party of United Pensioners (PUPS), whose name speaks for itself.
Belgrade may try to find the money elsewhere but presumably under less favorable financial – and, perhaps, political – conditions than the IMF would demand. In a recent attempt Serbia managed to sell only about one fifth of the government bonds it had offered, even with an interest rate higher than 15%.
Serbia’s economic woes could present Russia with a unique opportunity to further strengthen its position in the Balkans. Russia’s trade surpluses allow the Kremlin to offer financial aid and loans at relatively acceptable interest rates to countries it looks to drag into its sphere of influence.
A potential risk to the debtors lies in the price of such arrangements. The Russians have openly expressed an interest in buying two Serbian state monopolies: the electric power industry (EPS) and Telekom. Russian behemoth Gazprom already owns Serbian oil company NIS, and many believe that the opening of a Russo-Serbian emergency center in Niš, a town in southeatern Serbia, a couple of years ago was just a subterfuge for a future military base. Ivica Dačić visited Russia – once according to him, twice according to some other sources – during the interregnum between the elections and government formation. Details of the visit(s) have so far remained largely mysterious.
Alongside the economy, concerns have emerged over management of the security sector. Aleksandar Vučić – who is now the defense minister, a deputy premier and the leader of SNS – is set to become the coordinator – de facto the chief – of all security and intelligence agencies. Pro-democracy opposition and nongovernmental organizations fear that too much authority concentrated in the hands of an individual – especially of a prominent politician – could easily lead to abuse of power.
Serbia’s economic situation may generate ample work for the security forces, who already face growing challenges from soccer hooligans, organized crime and political extremists. Whether Mr. Vučić is the right person for the job is another question. We’ll see.
Another fault line might occur in Serbia’s northern autonomous province of Vojvodina. The last election results in Vojvodina were notably different than in the rest of the country. In addition, the Serbian constitutional court declared a number of articles in the law on Vojvodina’s executive powers to be unconstitutional, thereby further depriving the province of its already negligible autonomy. People in Vojvodina suspect the court’s decision was politically motivated, especially as it came only a day after SNS and SPS announced they were going to form the governing coalition. All this has given rise to political tensions between Vojvodina’s capital Novi Sad and Belgrade.
Where some positive signs can be observed is in the area of media freedoms. The two most powerful figures in the new government, Ivica Dačić and Aleksandar Vučić, have pledged to repeal a highly repressive media law enforced by the previous government, whereas President Nikolić called on journalists to criticize his actions whenever they see fit in order to help him avoid as many mistakes as possible during the presidency. Meanwhile, some of former president Boris Tadić’s close aides seem to be trying to retain effective control over most influential mainstream media outlets.
What is beyond doubt is that tough times are ahead of Serbia. The resumption of the talks with Kosovo, fiscal consolidation and pension system reform account for just a small part of the tasks awaiting the government. The usual September political season might arrive earlier than usual.
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