Category: Daniel Serwer
Normalization abnormalizes
Drilon Gashi* and Ard Morina** prepared the following post. It should not be understood to represent my own views.
As always, I am prepared to publish other well-reasoned posts or comments on this issue.
A recent decentralization agreement between Kosovo and Serbia has stoked fears that the process of normalization of relations between the two countries implies the abnormalization of Kosovo.
On December 3, Secretary of State Kerry seemed to make an unexpected stop in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, meeting briefly at the airport with Kosovo’s leadership. Kosovo’s parliament has been dysfunctional in recent months due to the opposition’s tear-gassing of the chamber in six separate instances, most recently on Monday, December 14. The opposition led by Vetëvendosje (Self-Determination), a political movement that originated as a social activist group, has said the tear-gassing is the only way to oppose two recent Kosovo government agreements. The first, and most contentious, is an agreement with Serbia to create an Association of Serb-majority municipalities (mostly concentrated in the north of Mitrovica bordering Serbia and in other enclaves throughout Kosovo). The second is a border demarcation agreement with Montenegro to Kosovo’s west.
The use of tear gas has been widely condemned by the Western backers of Kosovo’s independence, with the European Union recently stating: “This kind of violent obstruction is neither acceptable nor will it solve any problem for the citizens of Kosovo.” The people in Kosovo, though, seem to offer a mixed reaction to the incidents. While many influential Kosovars have spoken out against the use of tear gas and against recent opposition protests, Vetëvendosje has seen growing support—a recent poll suggests the party is the second most favorable. The November poll results state that if elections were held today, 28% would support Vetëvendosje (up from 14% in June 2014) while 33% would support the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), the leading party in current coalition government.
This reaction highlights the people of Kosovo’s anxiety regarding the latest agreement resulting from the European Union-facilitated dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia. Apprehension about the agreements from the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue is not new, but an Association of Serb municipalities stokes fears of a dysfunctional Kosovo. Worse, Kosovars fear it may lead to the country’s division. Doubts on the agreement have also been cited by Kosovo experts. Commenting on the Association of Serb municipalities, Daniel Serwer stated: “It is ethnically–not politically or geographically–defined and could become the kernel of separate Serb governing structures in Kosovo. That of course is the fear: a separate Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina has rendered that country dysfunctional.” Serwer, however, believes that the Association could be implemented without compromising Kosovo’s territorial integrity.
Bosnia’s Republika Srpska, the Serb federal entity in the country, showcases an example of a failed territorial division based on ethnic lines, creating a legitimate cause for concern. Rather than trudging forward with the dialogue process, Kosovo, Serbia and the EU should focus more on sincerely addressing concerns raised and a deep crisis that could emerge from the agreement. Not doing so risks destroying the prospect of European Union membership for both Kosovo and Serbia, with the agreement leaving too many loose ends.
One important loose end is Serbia’s position towards Kosovo. Belgrade has not only shown its unwillingness to recognize Kosovo’s independence, but has aggressively campaigned to undermine it. The latest example was Kosovo’s attempt to join UNESCO, the UN science, education and cultural heritage body, where it lost the bid by two votes—due at least partly to Serbia’s active diplomatic affront to the candidacy. Serbia’s current foreign minister, Ivica Dacic, claimed that UNESCO membership for Kosovo was equivalent to “ISIS being admitted to the United Nations,” a statement that prompts the authors to mention that Dacic was a former political ally of Slobodan Milosevic, and is now one of Serbia’s most prominent leaders involved in the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue.
The objective of the dialogue led by the EU is “the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia.” The process is largely open to interpretation. While the Kosovo government’s position is that the endgame of the process is Serbia recognizing its independence and both ending up in the EU, Belgrade sees the dialogue as an opportunity to maintain and deepen influence in Kosovo. Foreign Minister Dacic declared in 2013, “We expect Pristina to agree to our proposal for establishing a Union of Serb Communities, and we would like the European Union to act as a safeguard. This would provide us with a viable provisional solution, until we arrive at some sort of final decision on the status of Kosovo.” Read more
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The Balkans in perspective
I’m taking off for the Middle East this evening, so rushing to put my affairs in order. I don’t know if I’ll get an opportunity to write today, but in the meanwhile here is an interview I did for Kosovo Radio and Television with Janusz Bugajski. It was broadcast on December 8 but recorded a few days earlier:
It seems to me Janusz, who knows the Balkans well, does a great job trying to get past the immediate headlines to deeper and broader issues.
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Trumpeting
Falling to second place in Iowa polling behind Ted Cruz, Donald Trump has resorted to his usual tactic: a bold, headline-catching statement, this time about not allowing Muslims into the United States. The proposition is ridiculous, immoral, impractical and odious, but so is its bozotic proponent.
This time, the other Republican candidates are roundly denouncing Trump, hoping to use the occasion to push him off the hilltop and begin his slide to oblivion, where erstwhile number 2 candidate Ben Carson already is headed. Getting rid of Trump now would allow Cruz and Rubio–the only two Republican candidates who have any chance of competing for Hispanic votes–to duke it out for the nomination. That’s what the Republican establishment wants to see.
However that turns out, Trump remains significant, not for what he says but rather for the people he represents. His crowds are enthusiastic about blocking Muslims from the United States. They are the same crowds who have cheered his disdain for Mexicans, his proposal to build a wall on the border, and his coded but clear racism.
Folks with similar views have just given Marine Le Pen a big municipal election victory in France and have sought to block refugees from settling in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and other newer European Union countries. A few more terrorist successes could generate a tidal wave of illiberalism and zenophobia throughout the Western world.
That of course is precisely what the Islamic State would like to see. I may share some of the dissatisfaction with President Obama’s “no drama” reaction to recent ISIS attacks, but he is certainly correct that over-reaction is also perilous. No one wants American boots on the ground more than ISIS, since that would provide it with even more recruitment and hostage/kidnap potential than it has today. As the Turks are finding in northern Iraq, force protection is a serious proposition when coming close to ISIS.
Protecting civilians at home is also a serious challenge. It won’t help much to tell Americans that their odds of being a victim of international terrorism are infinitesimally small. The impulse to overreact to threat, and to do so quickly, is deeply ingrained, as Daniel Kahneman and others have demonstrated. And there is always the possibility that another attack on the scale of 9/11 will disrupt American life. I watched the Diane Keaton/Morgan Freeman film Five Flights Up on the way home from Zagreb Sunday. It involves a tanker truck abandoned menacingly on one of the bridges into Manhattan. It’s miraculous it hasn’t really happened, yet.
So what is to be done?
Zal Khalilzad offers the following prescription for the Middle East:
In the short-term, a comprehensive strategy will involve a U.S.-led no-fly zone to protect civilians, ground forces to defeat ISIS—which a majority of Americans now support—and heavier arms transfers to the Kurds. Longer-term, the United States will need to take the lead in transforming the Middle East politically and geopolitically, just as we did in Europe and East Asia after World War II. While military operations might generate tactical successes, the defeat of ISIS and other similar groups will require sustained partnerships with local allies to mobilize the people of the region against radical Islamism. It will also require convening regional forums and dialogues to tamp down sectarianism and encourage a positive vision of tolerance for the greater Middle East.
None of that sounds much better than the current effort, which includes many of the things Zal cites, though perhaps not to the degree he would like to see them pursued. Another effort to transform the Middle East doesn’t sound so great to me either. Last time we tried that it didn’t work so well. Note also that he is vague about where the ground forces would come from and doesn’t consider the implications of a no-fly zone with the Russians in the air. Zal gets even vaguer in discussing what to do for homeland security. He manages to offer the Communist threat as an analogy to ISIS. That doesn’t pass the laugh test.
Trumpeting is not limited to Trump. The fact is the President’s critics don’t have a lot of good ideas. I don’t think there are any that will bring a quick end to ISIS’s frightening but still small attacks. And there are lots of ways we might make things worse.
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When is it okay to associate?
One of the serious pleasures of blogging is that you occasionally hear from serious people you have never met or even heard of who enlighten, entertain and even delight. That was the case yesterday, when I heard from John Cipperly, currently at the International Institute for Sociology of Law in the Basque Country of Spain doing an MA/PhD program while on sabbatical leave from the International Programs Division of the National Center for State Courts (NCSC), where he normally works with US government funding.
He sent a paper on “Transitional Constitutionalism and Minority Rights in Kosovo: Making Sense of the Association of Serbian Municipalities” that contains his own views (not necessarily those of the US government) and elucidates the issues before the Kosovo Constitutional Court as it considers the proposed Association, which has been much in the news lately in Serbia and Kosovo. John, whom I have never met, has clearly given these issues a lot of thought, so I hope others will find his paper (published here with his permission) enlightening, as I did.
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What to do about Bosnia and Herzegovina
Here are the notes I prepared for my participation in a conference yesterday on Jahorina, a mountain outside Sarajevo, on 2020 Vision for BiH:
1. I want to say first how glad I am to be back in Bosnia and Herzegovina after being absent for a couple of years and to thank the organizers and the US embassy for making it possible.
2. I’m also delighted to hear the very real enthusiasm that Bosnians are expressing for the Reform Agenda promoted by the EU, the World Bank and the IMF.
3. Nothing I say should be taken to suggest that they are not doing the right thing. They are.
4. But I don’t expect it to be sufficient.
5. Bosnia runs on a political economy that limits political competition, especially across ethnic lines, and enriches not the state but whoever controls its elaborate apparatus at various levels through political parties in which cronyism is the rule rather than the exception.
6. I don’t believe that is a state that can govern effectively and in accordance with European standards, so sooner or later broader political reforms are going to be necessary.
7. Let me be clear: whatever is done will have to be done by and with Bosnians. I do not anticipate that the internationals can do anything more than support those who are interested in creating more effective and functional governance.
8. Let me tell you what I would be thinking about if I were a Bosnian. In fact, I am cribbing shamelessly most of what I am about to say from Srdjan Blagovcanin and Boris Divjak, whose paper on the Bosnian political economy published by the Center for Transatlantic Relations I recommend highly.
9. I would be thinking there is no silver bullet: no single thing that can fix all that ails the political economy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
10. I would therefore be thinking about trying several things and seeing if they can’t be woven into a coherent strategy.
11. First, I would be thinking about building a constituency against corruption and in favor of accountability, one that would demand internal democracy in political parties, preservation of the open-list electoral system, single-member electoral constituencies, an end to political appointment of executives in state-owned enterprises and privatization and procurement conducted in strict accordance with EU rules.
12. Second, I would be trying to get parliament to cut red tape, freeze government hiring, and require state-owned enterprises to publish budgets and financial reports.
13. Third, I would be trying to convince the Europeans to condition future assistance on appointment of judges solely on the basis of professional qualifications.
14. Fourth, I would be encouraging prosecutors to focus on large-scale and high-level corruption cases, with asset freezes and travel bans implemented by the Europeans and Americans where need be.
15. Fifth, I would be encouraging nongovernmental and media exposure of malfeasance by requiring an end to media subsidies, open competition for government advertising and civil society funding, and strengthening of the role of ombudspeople, auditors and regulatory agencies.
16. Sixth, I would be asking hard questions about the size and weight of the government structures in Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a view to clarifying responsibilities and eliminating as many duplicative bureaucracies as possible. The central state has to have the authority to negotiate and implement the requirements of EU membership. The coordination mechanism between the two Bosnian “entities” in my view is no substitute for proper authority at the state level.
17. Ultimately, I think there is no avoiding fundamental constitutional reform. In order to become a member of the EU and NATO, Bosnia will require a shift away from the Dayton order of group rights to a more Western concept of individual rights. There is no escaping the broad implications of the Sejdic Finci decision.
18. How can these things be accomplished? We’ve seen in Romania what a motivated citizenry can accomplish in a remarkably short period of time.
19. Bosnians are less inclined to large-scale street demonstrations, but unless the politicians hear directly and loudly from voters, either in the streets or at the polls, they are unlikely to risk Sanader’s fate.
20. The Reform Agenda is a good start. But it is not the end.
I heard quite a few ideas from others during the day-long conference. Here is a sample:
- Public hearings on nominees to important government positions in order to emphasize merit over clientalism
- Evaluations of the effectiveness of legislation, either by civil society organizations or a parliamentary body
- Intensive voter education
- Mandatory electronic voting
- A more independent judicial system capable of quicker decisions
Towards the end of the day, one Bosnian emphasized big improvements since the war on two dimensions: freedom of expression and entrepreneuralism. The former is clear. I would add freedom of movement, which is now well-established throughout the country (or so Bosnians of all ethnicities tell me). The latter I still have my doubts about, but I hope it is true. More opportunity in the private sector and less focus on government would do wonders to improve the mood in a Bosnia at peace but still struggling with the issues that caused the war.
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Kosovo’s rough patch
Arbana Xharra of Pristina daily Zeri asked some questions. I answered:
Q: Mr Serwer, you were familiar with the political developments in Kosovo for the long time. What where your expectations 16 years after the war and 7 from declaring independence for Kosovo? How do you see the recent confrontation within the Kosovo parliament?
A: I don’t really remember my expectations in 1999, but I did not then believe that independence would necessarily be the outcome. It was Serbian failure after the war to do anything whatsoever to “make unity attractive” that made independence inevitable. For me, the failure to count the Kosovo Albanians on the voter rolls in its 2006 constitutional referendum, in order to meet the 50% threshold for voting by registered voters, was the final straw.
As for the situation in the Kosovo parliament, I deplore the violence and disruption, which has no place in a democratic institution.
Q: Where does this situation leads Kosovo? There is a barricaded opposition that seems is not going to resign from their requests?
A: The opposition is entitled to its opposition. But it cannot block the functioning of Kosovo’s institutions.
Q: What do you thing about the Association of Serb Municipalities. Does this agreement define ethnically those municipalities? As we know a separate Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina has led to a dysfunctional state.
A: I am not a fan of the Ahtisaari provisions on the Association of Serb Municipalities. But Kosovo accepted the Ahtisaari plan as the basis for independence and needs to implement it faithfully. I think that can be done in a way that avoids the threat to the Kosovo state that a “Serb entity” would represent. The ethnic veto provisions in the Bosnian constitution are far more extensive than anything in the Kosovo constitution.
Q: Did Ahtisaari leave the door open for the Serbian government interference in Kosovo?
A: Serbia has a legitimate interest in the welfare of Serbs in Kosovo. The Ahtisaari package left the door open to ways in which that interest can be exercised. Kosovo should be aiming for analogous mechanisms by which it can ensure the welfare of Albanians in Serbia.
Q: How is Kosovo moving toward the Euro-Atlantic integration? Kosovo remained the only isolated country in Balkans with no visa liberalization. Why?
A: You’ll have to ask the European Union why. I think it is clearly a mistake to leave Kosovo as isolated as it is. But of course Pristina needs to demonstrate its willingness to fulfill the obligations that come with visa liberalization and other EU privileges. The current refugee crisis will no doubt make the EU even more exigent than normal in requiring fulfillment of those obligations.
Q: How long it will be a journey of Kosovo to the EU?
I don’t think it needs to be long–look at Montenegro, which has made remarkable progress in a short time. Kosovo has the advantage of building EU-compliant governance from scratch. The big challenge will be implementation of the acquis communitaire. Rule of law is likely to take longer than many other things. But Kosovo could be well on its way within 10 years.
Q: Why has Kosovo failed to become a member of UNESCO? Is Belgrade pressure getting the support of international politics?
Belgrade wielded all the leverage it could to block membership in UNESCO, which required a two-thirds majority in the UNESCO assembly. That threshold proved too difficult. But there will be other occasions, including in other international organizations. Belgrade may have gained some leverage from what happened at UNESCO, but it lost an opportunity to solidify the considerable commitments Kosovo made during the process.
Q: Does Kosovo have an advantage of being able to build its security force from the ground up to meet NATO requirements’?
A: Yes, I think that is an enormous advantage, one that could lead to quick NATO membership once the security force is created.
Q: Corruption and organized crime is one of the biggest problem in Kosovo, also according to the international reports. Did EULEX mission failed on dealing with “big fishes” in Kosovo?
A: I have not been impressed with EULEX, but what is the alternative? I think it hard to argue that more “big fish” would be prosecuted if there were no international rule of law mission in Kosovo.
Q: There were rejections from most of the political parties regarding the establishment of Special Court. What are your expectations toward this additional international project?
A: I think the Special Court is a lot better than the alternatives: extending the mandates of either ICTY or the ICC. The fact is that crimes were committed against both Serbs and Albanians after the 1999 war in Kosovo. They need to be investigated and perpetrators prosecuted. Without individuals being held accountable, the blame falls on the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Q: Islamic radicals are seen recently as a great threat for the secular constitution of Kosovo. More than 300 people from Kosovo are believed to have joined ISIS or Al Qaeda in the Middle East. What is the US stance on the reason that lead to this big problem for the newest country in Europe?
A: I don’t provide a “US stance.” Speaking personally, it seems to me that we are seeing a dramatic increase in Kosovars willing to fight for a cause I find heinous but they find attractive. Lack of job opportunities, isolation, foreign funding of extremists, disappointment in the benefits of independence, disillusion with corrupt governance–all these play a role in inspiring Islamic State recruits.
Q: Kosovo used to be more secular state; do you notice the change of the society toward religion?
A: I haven’t visited Kosovo in a few years now. But Kosovars visiting me in Washington report a big change. Kosovars used to be very secular and even anti-religious. That is apparently changing. That doesn’t worry me–people are entitled to pursue whatever religion they want. It is the appeal of violent extremism that worries me.
Q: Kosovo was poor also during the Milosevic regime, is it believable to say that because of the economy bad situation Kosovars are joining this new Islam ideology?
A: Kosovo was also brutally repressed during the Milosevic regime, and the global environment did not present many examples of success by violent extremists. Then was then. Now is now.
Q: We hear recently that for the US, Russia poses the greatest threat….How do you see Russian attempt to gain ground in the Balkans? Do you think that Russia’s role in the Balkans is increasing?
A: Russia is doing in the Balkans what it is doing elsewhere: trying to block what it views as NATO expansion into its sphere of influence. It has good reason to worry about that: Slovenia, Croatia and Albania are already members of NATO, Montenegro, Macedonia and Kosovo want to be members, and Bosnia and Serbia are likely to follow eventually. Many of Russia’s moves are counter-productive. The annexation of Crimea and the seizure of part of eastern Ukraine as well as the “independence” of South Ossetia and Abkhazia illustrate all too clearly what happens to your country if it happens to lie near Russia and is not a NATO member.
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