What happened, what now?
Marin Dushev of the Bulgarian weekly “Capital” (www.capital.bg) asked some questions, which I’ve tried to answer:
Q: During my research I’ve been trying to understand what exactly were the disagreements between the Serbian and the Kosovar side which lead to the failure of negotiations. One can find quite a lot of words like “ultimatum” or “blackmail” coming from Serbian officials but nothing more concrete. So what happened there in Brussels? What in the offer was so unacceptable but still worth 8 rounds of negotiating and 12+ hours of discussing last Tuesday?
A: The discussion in Brussels appears to have reached an ad referendum agreement (that’s an agreement subject to approval by higher authority). The Serbian delegation said they needed some time back in Belgrade to sell the deal, which I understand included detailed arrangements for implementing the Ahtisaari plan with respect to police and courts (issues of particular importance to Belgrade). What appears to have happened is that the Serbian delegation, on returning to Belgrade, found that President Nikolic was not on board.
Q: Why this reaction in Belgrade – rejecting the deal but still willing to continue negotiating? What is their goal? Will they achieve it or will they ultimately agree with the proposals?
A: President Nikolic has no interest in an agreement that de facto ends Serbian sovereignty over all of Kosovo. But at the same time, Belgrade is trying hard not to be blamed for failure. The goal is not to be punished and to keep open the possibility of getting a date to start EU accession negotiations. Some in Belgrade also hope to reopen the issue of land swaps (partition).
There is still a possibility Belgrade will announce early next week that it has gotten more concessions and therefore will reluctantly sign, but that will only happen if the EU and US remain solidly behind the existing proposal.
Q: How will the failure in negotiations affect the Serbian government? Many are seeing new parliamentary elections coming there. Which party there is most likely to win from the current developments?
A: Failure of the negotiations will hurt Dacic, who was in charge of them, and help Vucic and Nikolic. The Progressives are riding high in the polls and may be tempted for early elections.
Q: How will the Serbian EU bid be affected?
A: Failure in the negotiations will cause a significant delay–I would guess at least two years, if not more–in opening negotiations on Serbia’s accession to the EU. Who knows what winds might prevail two years from now? A much longer delay is possible.
Q: How will a possible slowing of the EU integration of Serbia and Kosovo affect the region?
A: The region would like to see Serbia move ahead, as that will help others who are behind them in the queue and help to fill the hole between Bulgaria and Greece and the rest of the EU. The US and EU would also like to see Serbia in the accession process. That said, delay for Serbia gives Kosovo an opportunity to narrow the gap by being assiduous in applying the acquis communitaire.
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He forgot one question: what does this mean for Vojvodina?
The Democrats are saying that the demonstrations scheduled in Novi Sad for today are intended (by the parties in power) as a distraction from a possible agreement on Kosovo. Just as in the days of the Anti-Bureaucratic demonstrations organized by Milosevic, SNS party members are being bussed in from all over Serbia to show grass-root support for curtailing Vojvodina’s rights under the Constitution. (The term astroturf could have been invented for the phenomenon. – Do they have astroturf in Serbia?) It won’t be another Yogurt Revolution, one of the locals says – they’ve been robbed to such an extent they can’t even afford yogurt to throw at the out-of-towners.
Amer,
Serbs always find themselves in contradictory situations. They ask more autonomy for three municipalities in northern Kosovo with just 40 thousand people while denying the same for 2 million people in Vojvodina, an entity which had same powers in former Yugoslavia as actual independent states Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and even Serbia. Only the name was different.
Yes, people in Vojvodina have been robbed terribly by Serbia. I have been serving military service there on 1987-1988 and know that Vojvodina had the highest living standard in former Yugoslavia, over-passing even Slovenia. If Vojvodina would be independent it would be one of most successful EU members.
Fadil_H,
If you were doing your military service in 1987-1988 you must be old enough to remember the demonstrations Milosevic staged on his way to power. Yesterday I followed the comments coming in to the B92 story on the “Stop the Breakup of Serbia!” rally in Novi Sad. What a difference a few years makes! People from the city reported the details that the paper’s own story ignored – the recruiting SMS sent out by the SNS, the pay for attending (500 – 1000 dinars, a sandwich, and a non-alcoholic drink), the license plates on the buses (BG and the south), estimated crowd size based on street dimensions, the absence of students (supposedly the organizers) and the (illegal) presence of Obraz … The SNS is fighting back today with what have to be out-and-out lies, claiming 30,000 people from Novi Sad marched against their own local government, demanding early elections. Vucic wisely did not attend – apparently he was a regular presence at the Milosevic rallies, and he may realize that times have changed: people remember how it all turned out after the original Yogurt Revolution, and today they have camera-phones and the internet to counter the official characterization of events. The most common unofficial version is it’s all a farce designed to distract attention from the loss of Kosovo, if not merely the SNS returning to its Radical roots now that it’s safely in power.
Oh, and there was another grenade attack in northern Kosovo, this time on the house of a Serb working for USAID.
On the unsolved attacks in Kosovo: http://www.b92.net/eng/news/comments.php?nav_id=85683
Amer,
Of course I remember such events. The “yogurt revolution” was absolutely organized even from military high ranking officers and commanders. Even at military called JNA (Yugoslav people’s army) on 1988 they would send us watching TV and see Milosevic’s speeches asked afterward (by military officers) “what do you think for him”?
Serbs at that time organized massive and hysterical propaganda about “pressure” from Albanians in Kosovo and “raping” of Serbian women while according to Yugoslav official statistics Kosovo had the lowest rate of raping in Yugoslavia. These kind of events somehow opened eyes of Slovenians and Croats (because they knew the truth) and successfully stopped “yogurt revolution” in their Republics.
Back to Vojvodina. As I said most of them can remember high living standard they had on 1980s. Why not. In a family with 3 or 4 people, at least 3 of them worked or had good pension, had good salaries plus had 30 or 40 hectares of very quality land which was processed with modern machinery and they had additional money (more than their salaries). Prices of food were very low and income very high so they lived better than most of EU countries. Why they should support those who took all of this from them??
No issue with Vojvodina autonomy.
And I have an issue with government, mainly with SPS and SNS. They should not represent Serbia nor president should be Nikolic.
I personally know one victim of Albanian rape from Prizren. Muslim girl (her cousin said they are Montenegrins). Rape occurred in July 1988 and the rapists (Albanians) thought that she was Serbian as she did not speak any Albanian.
The New York Times
November 1, 1987, Sunday, Late City Final Edition
SECTION: Section 1; Part 1, Page 14, Column 1; Foreign Desk
27. In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict
BYLINE: By DAVID BINDER, Special to the New York Times
DATELINE: BELGRADE, Yugoslavia
“Fadil Hoxha, once the leading politician of ethnic Albanian origin in Yugoslavia, joked at an
official dinner in Prizren last year that Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential ethnic Albanian rapists.”
The New York Times, April 20, 1981,
Monday, Late City Final Edition, Section A; Page 2, Column 3;
Foreign Desk, 1350 words, By Marvine Howe, Special
to the New York Times, Pristina, Yugoslavia, April 19
“However, some local officials of Albanian background suggested that the growth in Kosovo had been too fast. They said that people, particularly the young, were suffering cultural shock. ”We thought it was sufficient to give them material progress and education but we have failed to give them an ideology,” an official said.
The authorities said that old claims of ”Serbian domination” were unjustified. They said that ethnic Albanians have gained access to key jobs at every level in the provincial administration, the ruling Communist Party and the economy.
”I am an Albanian and I can say we have complete independence except for a few trappings of a state like shooting off a cannon,” a senior official in the provincial administration remarked. ”We make our own decisions and run things without interference from the republic.”
Mr. Bakali insisted that none of the demonstrators’ grievances or claims were justified. He said that ”a handful of hostile elements,” mainly youngsters of Albanian origin, had incited the crowd with popular slogans and then turned the demonstration into a nationalist incident.
”It was an organized, well-conceived, nonspontaneous action,” the Communist Party leader asserted. He declined to to identify the ”hostile forces” behind the demonstration except to repeat what officials in Belgrade have already said, that they included both leftists and rightists from here and abroad.
He said that perhaps the authorities had been at fault for having tolerated these nationalists. But he stressed that the Communist Party has excluded a score of members who took part in the demonstrations”
Trouble started by Albanians much before Milosevic came to power.
You found a case with Gorani girl (nothing related to Serbs or Montenegrins) and you claim something?? You fail for sure saying anything in statistics of state Yugoslavia. Quoting ex communist leaders in Kosovo is more than ridiculous.
Albanians in 1980s were disadvantaged people in Kosovo regarding employment, education, health care, military. Although Albanians in Kosovo were 85-90% of population, Serbs were privileged in Universities at 25% so many young Albanians could not attend Universities and High schools because of so called “ethnic key” of 75% for Albanians and 25% for Serbia speaking people. Employment in Kosovo was totally in favor of Serbs and Montenegrins. In all institutions of health care, police, military Serbs were almost dominant even though were minority in Kosovo.
Note the date on the 2nd article: 1981. Many Albanians remember the post-1974 years as a golden age in Serbian-Albanian relations, even now. But after autonomy was revoked in 1989, using ethnic tensions as an excuse, relations deteriorated rapidly.
This was not Gorani girl, she was Muslim but they were Montenegrins.
What I am saying trouble started much before 1987. In those years Albanians were the oppressors. Luckily for you, Joseph Dioguardi started lobbying for your cause 1985.