Tag: Balkans
Bosnia and Herzegovina: time to stop the nonsense
Milorad Dodik, the Serb member of the tripartite presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been threatening withdrawal from the state’s army, its taxation authority, its intelligence and law enforcement apparatus, and its judiciary. Dodik also denies the authority of the international community’s High Representative, who under the Dayton agreements that ended the Bosnian war 26 years ago is responsible for their civilian implementation. If passed in the Republika Srpska (RS) parliament, or implemented without formal legislative approval, Dodik’s moves would amount to secession, even if no declaration of independence is issued. Dodik appears to have the support of both Serbia and Russia, though there is some dissent within Serb ranks inside the RS.
Last weekend in a visit to Belgrade Dodik ambiguously backed off his most extreme threats, as he has often in the past, but his overall goal remains clear: sovereignty and independence for Republika Srpska.
How should the US and EU react?
They should not be fooled. Dodik will be back with his threats. The West should not wait until Dodik gets the legislative approval he seeks or acts on his own. Prevention will be far better than cure when it comes to secession. Prevention requires a military move. The EU should move, as many have advised many times, all its 600 or so forces to Brcko, the northeastern Bosnian town that was the center of gravity of the last war and will be also of the next one. NATO should reinforce the EU with a few hundred US and UK troops, which in the Balkans is still an unequivocal signal of seriousness. Without Brcko, no RS move toward secession can succeed because the RS would be split into two disconnected wings and the land line of communication with Serbia cut.
Russia will try to prevent any move of this sort. Its best bet is to veto the UN Security Council authorization for the
“Althea” European forces in Bosnia required in November. The US, UK, and EU will need to be prepared to keep their forces in Brcko whatever happens at the Security Council. While Dodik over the weekend backed off from demands that the Althea operation end, that should not fool anyone: NATO needs to make it clear it will stay in Bosnia and Herzegovina no matter what happens at the Security Council, whether in November or in six months. This can be done under authority granted by the Dayton agreements.
But the military move to Brcko will not be sufficient to end secession or the threat of secession quickly. The notoriously corrupt Dodik, already sanctioned by the US, should also be sanctioned by the EU. So too should any and all RS parliamentarians who support his defiance of the Dayton agreements, the High Representative’s powers, or the authorities of the state (central) government. Republika Srpska owes its continued existence, after a war in which it faced imminent defeat, to the Dayton agreements. Its full cooperation with implementation of those agreements as well as the HiRep’s decisions should be a sine quo non.
The West will also need to be prepared to deprive the RS government of sustenance. A secessionist entity should not benefit from any sovereign financing, including money flowing from the IMF, the World Bank, the EBRD, the EIB, and other lenders. The IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument, the IBRD, and the EU are providing upwards of $600 million to Bosnia and Herzegovina to deal with the consequences of the COVID epidemic. They need to be prepared to make the RS portion of those (and any other funds not yet transferred) evaporate. It will be especially important to zero out institutional budgetary support to the RS. Corridor Vc, a major highway being built north to south through Bosnia, will have to be re-evaluated.
RS withdrawal from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s institutions would leave the country in constitutional and legal limbo. The only real options at that point would be reversion to the constitution of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, (which preceded the current constitution), implementation of the current constitution without reference to the RS, or reliance on the constitution of the 51% of the country governed as the Federation (which however has many features in common with the current dysfunctional constitution). I’m not enough of a legal beagle to know which would be best, but somehow the legal continuity of the sovereign Bosnian state would need to be ensured.
In the 1990s, Americans hoped for a Europe “whole and free.” The NATO intervention in Bosnia was intended to ensure that hope was realized in the Balkans. But Serbia with Russian support has decided that not even the Balkans will be whole and free. Moscow and Belgrade are working to split the region between autocracy and democracy, or at least to cause instability. Republika Srpska, northern Kosovo, and Montenegro’s Serb regions are all trying to peel off, with Russian and Serbian encouragement. If they succeed, they will eventually be absorbed into what Serbian President Vucic calls the “Serbian world,” better known as Greater Serbia. This would be a serious defeat for liberal democracy and a triumph for Vladimir Putin.
RS’s independence ambitions, Serbia’s territorial aspirations, and Russian destabilization efforts need to be countered. That will not be hard, if done sooner rather than later. It will require a few hundred troops in Brcko, tough sanctions, legal ingenuity, and a halt to RS financing. It is time to stop the nonsense.
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A serious nomination that doesn’t guarantee success
The Biden Administration has announced its intention to nominate Chris Hill as ambassador in Belgrade. This is a clear break with other recent appointments, which have put career officers still in service in Pristina and Sarajevo. Chris is a career officer who retired more than a decade ago, but he is also someone well-known to President Biden and Secretary of State Blinken from his service as ambassador in Iraq, South Korea, and Poland, if not also Macedonia. Chris is a heavy, that is more akin to a personal or political friend of the President and Secretary of State than all the other ambassadors serving in the Balkans currently or Gabriel Escobar, the recently named Deputy Assistant Secretary for the region. If anything, Belgrade is a step down for Chris from his previous positions.
This nomination signals a serious intention on the part of the Administration to try to resolve the remaining war and peace issues in the Balkans, which I would define as the still not universally recognized sovereignty of Kosovo and the dysfunctionality of governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both quandaries will require Belgrade’s positive contributions.
This won’t be easy. Today’s clash betweeen Serbia and Kosovo at the UN Security Council was awful. The two countries are pointed in different directions.
Serbian Foreign Minister Selakovic repeatedly accused Kosovo President Osmani of lying, claimed she represented no one but herself, and asserted she was somehow affiliated with World War II Albanian Fascists. Serbia has in recent years aligned itself far more with Russia and China than with the US and Europe, including through economic cooperation, arms purchases, increased powers for its president, and reduced space for free media, an independent judiciary, and anything but an ethnic nationalist opposition.
The 39-year-old Osmani displayed a map of Albanian mass graves in Serbia and demanded an apology for the Milosevic-era depradations against Kosovo, during which she was displaced and fled to Montenegro before getting degrees from the University of Pittsburgh. Kosovo has a new Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, committed to cleaning up corruption and maintaining the relatively free media and increasingly independent judiciary that he inherited. Kosovo aligns itself entirely with the US and Europe.
The situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is even worse, as the division splits the country internally. The leader of its Serb entity and member of the tripartite Presdency Milorad Dodik is freezing his loyalists’ participation in the country’s institution, trying to nullify its national laws, and threatening to take command of the Serb soldiers in its army. With Russian and Serbian support, he is inching towards the independence he has declared as his goal, hoping not to provoke an effective American or European reaction before the process is irreversible. He remembers what most Americans have forgotten: even during the unipolar moment, it took NATO 3.5 years to intervene in Bosnia and Herzegoina. The international community High Representative in Bosnia, German Christian Schmidt, is doing nothing visible to fulfill his mandate to protect the Dayton accords.
Neither situation is propitious.
But an ambassador who arrives in Belgrade with ready access to the President and Secretary of State has advantages. He can more effectively claim to speak for his bosses. He can far more easily mobilize all the resources of the US government and even the private sector than less weighty appointees. Chris was a protege’ of Dick Holbrooke, who was particularly effective at pulling all the levers of American power in the same direction at the same time. Chris is also well-known in Europe, which can bring far greater civilian resources to bear than the US. And he will have enormous leverage with Kosovo, for which he served as Special Envoy in 1998 and 1999, when the Rambouillet negotiations failed and NATO attacked Serbia.
I’m not predicting success. Chris knows as well as anyone that failure is a real possibility, as he has experienced it not only in the Rambouillet negotiations but also in negotiations with North Korea while he was an Assistant Secretary of State. His tenure in Iraq during a difficult period was not crowned with glory. But if he is able to solve either the Kosovo/Serbia conundrum or the Bosnia and Herzegovina Rubik’s cube, there will be good reason to applaud. Solving both would mean a standing ovation.
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So far so good, but we’ll need to wait and see
I’ve gotten more praise than criticism for yesterday’s piece on Serbia under President Vuvic, but my friend Ylber Hysa, Kosovo’s former ambassador in Macedonia and Montenegro, is super talented at posing questions. Here go my answers:
1. Do you see the EU really ready and open for any enlargement soon towards the Balkans?
No, I don’t, but I don’t see any aspirant that will be ready any time soon, especially given the tightened criteria. Under its previous government, Montengro might have been ready before the end of this decade. Kosovo has the legislation mostly right, but not the implementation. Macedonia is better, but also suffers from a lag in implementation. Bosnia and Herzegovina can’t get it right because its constitutional system is faulty. Albania is making progress, even if it has not yet opened accession negotiations, but it isn’t quick or easy.
2. With Merkel gone, and Macron with a tough election ahead, is there any leadership there for “Europe One and Free”?
No, but entry of Western Balkan states into the EU and NATO should not depend on that. Enlargement should now be seen in the context of strengthening the European counterweight to Russia and China. There too leadership has been lacking and it is not clear Biden will be able to mobilize Europe to the kind of efforts required.
3. Do you believe that Trans-Atlantic unity is better with this administration, or much better than we all hoped for…?
It’s better, as illustrated in the agreement between Serbia and Kosovo on license plates. The Americans and Europeans acted in unison and got a reasonable result. Now they need to extend that practice to bigger issues. Gabriel Escobar and Miroslav Lajcak need to be joined at the hip.
4. Do you really see the Biden Administration seriously engaged in the Balkans after Afganistan?
The Biden Administration has the right approach to the Balkans: strengthening the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democratic legitimacy of all the states. But it has not yet developed detailed plans for how to do that. That requires hard work and serious engagement that they are now pursuing. I wish them success.
I didn’t see the Biden Administration engaged at a high level in the Balkans before the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Certainly the messy withdrawal has made pulling US troops out of Kosovo less likely. What is needed now is a clearer program that will advance the European perspective.
5. Do you see any progressive, liberal and serious opposition in Serbia?
No, and that’s what I said in the piece. I know lots of individual progressive liberals who are in opposition, but they have failed to construct a viable alternative to Vucic with mass appeal. We should be helping them do that, but the time before next year’s Serbian election is short. I expect Vucic will win another 5-year mandate as a committed ethnic nationalist and friend of Russia and China.
6. Do you believe that in the last “licence plates war” in Northern Kosovo Kurti demonstrated any strategic thinking (or that he picked the right time for war games)?
I can’t say I saw strategic thinking, but Albin applied the principle of reciprocity and got a reasonable outcome that I hope will lead to a satisfactory final agreement on license plates. That’s not strategic, but it’s not a bad start in the right direction.
Now he needs to show some of the same grit inside the dialogue and produce results he can vaunt. Doing that will give him what he needs to get the Europeans to give Kosovo the visa waiver. That would be closer to strategic: opening Europe to young Kosovars without a visa would put his country on a far clearer European path. So too will asking for Kosovo membership in NATO’s Partnership for Peace and ensuring that the Kosovo army is fully functional by 2027, which will open the question of NATO membership.
7. Do you really believe that Kurti is a real liberal, democratic and visionary leader?
Albin has at least for now what a good prime minister needs: strong support in the population, which is tired of the nepotism, ineffectiveness, and corruption of the more established governing parties. In my experience, he is a vigorous proponent of individual human rights and an opponent of the group rights dear to ethnic nationalists, including Kosovo’s Serbs. But he also enjoys strong support among Albanian ethnic nationalists, many of whom want union with Albania. That’s a vision, but it is not a liberal democratic one or even a Kosovo patriotic one.
We’ll just need to wait and see whether Vetevendosje sticks with liberal democratic ideals or falls victim to the temptations of power and the Balkan tendency towards default ethnic nationalism.
PS: Ylber asks in addition:
8. Do you believe regional initiatives can substitute for EU Enlargement: Open Balkans, Berlin Process, Partition and border changes i.e “Jansa nonapaper” etc.
I am dead set against border changes, which will lead to mass displacement and likely death and destruction. We know this from the experience of the 1990s when Milosevic tried to change the borders of Serbia. I see no reason to believe the consequences would not be bad also today, not only for Kosovo and Bosnia but also for Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia, all of which have minorities who will want union with a neighbor. Not to mention the negative consequences for Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, where border changes in the Balkans would be regarded as a license for Russia to annex more territory.
The Berlin Process in my way of thinking is part of the process of preparing the Western Balkans for EU membership, in particular by encouraging neighborly relations. Open Balkans is not clearly defined for me yet, but if it can remove non-tariff and tariff barriers to trade that would be a good thing, provided it is done on a reciprocal and equal basis. Certainly a more prosperous Western Balkans would have a greater stake in peace and stability. But the devil is in the details, and I haven’t seen a lot of details.
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No one should be fooled: Serbia is lost for now
Colleagues I know and respect think that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic aims a) to get neighboring countries to treat their Serb populations correctly, and b) thereby avoid any mass migration of Serbs, as occurred in the 1990s when they left Croatia and Kosovo.
I beg to differ. I see no evidence of these two claims and lots of contrary indications.
Let us count them:
- In Kosovo, Vucic controls the Serbian List, which occupies all the Serb seats in the Kosovo Assembly. The Serbian List does not cooperate with other political parties to improve the lot of the Serbs but instead has conducted itself as a spoiler, boycotting parliament often. Belgrade has threatened and harassed Serbs who join Kosovo’s nascent army, and recently deployed army units, as well as the Russian ambassador, to the boundary/border with Kosovo in response to a dispute over license plates (sic).
- Vucic has toyed with the idea of trading Albanian-majority municipalities in Kosovo’s south for Kosovo’s Serb-majority municipalities in the north. But the majority of Serbs in Kosovo live south of the Ibar river. This “border correction” scheme would end the viability of those communities and lead to their eventual, if not immediate, abandonment.
- In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the now Vucic-allied Serb member of the tripartite presidency (Milorad Dodik) has tried to undermine the state institutions in preparation for secession and independence of Republika Srpska (RS), which occupies 49% of the country’s territory. Dodik objects to any strengthening of the state’s judiciary, police, army, and parliament.
- Vucic has taken up the cudgels in favor of a “Serbian Home,” that is a state that would annex the Serb populations of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Montenegro. The idea is indistinguishable from “Greater Serbia” and “all Serbs in one country,” the slogans that led Milosevic to four wars in the 1990s, all of which were lost and led to the mass migration of Serbs to Serbia.
- In Montenegro, a new Vucic-aligned government dominated by people who identify as Serbs is welcoming Russian and Serbian dominance and undermining the independence and sovereignty of NATO’s newest member, while also mistreating the country’s minorities.
It is hallucinatory to think that the Serbian Home and the behavior of Vucic-allied Serbs in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montnegro is intended to improve the lot of Serbs in neighboring countries or to avoid mass migration. This is no doubt a line Vucic uses with Westerners, as he knows what they want (and don’t want) to hear. But that doesn’t make it true.
In addition to threatening his neighbors, Vucic is taking Serbia in a definitively autocratic as well as Russia- and China-focused direction. Belgrade’s foreign policies are only 60% or so aligned with the European Union, the lowest ratio in the Western Balkans. Serbia has joined the free trade area of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, which is incompatible with EU membership. Belgrade has declared itself “neutral” with no intention of joining NATO (unlike all its neighbors). Its media are not free, its judiciary is not independent, and its economy is largely state-directed, with big investments from Russia and even bigger ones from China. Belgrade’s recent arms purchases are likewise largely from Moscow and Beijing.
Vucic faces an election, albeit not a free or fair one, next year. There is no viable liberal democratic alternative. The only current threat to his dominance comes from ethnic nationalists. He sees no hope of joining the European Union within his next five-year mandate and is behaving accordingly: grab what you can from Russia and China, promise to protect Serbs in other countries, look for opportunities to bring them and the land they occupy into Serbia, and stave off the the Europeans and Americans by telling them that you are anxious to avoid mass migration and improve the lot of Serbs in neighboring countries.
No one should be fooled. It is time for Washington and Brussels to wake up and smell the coffee. The geopolitical challenges from Russia and China have dashed hopes for early realization of a Europe “whole and free.” Serbia is lost to the liberal democratic world so long as this Vucic is president. He is a chameleon. For now, he has surrounded himself with autocrats and ethnic nationalists. Courting his favor won’t get us anywhere. Supporting serious liberal democrats inside Serbia and in the region might get us something. But we’ll still need to wait six years or more for a serious alternative.
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Reciprocity is right, and making it stick is vital
Kosovo in recent days has imposed on cars coming from Serbia a requirement to use Kosovo license plates. This mirrors a Serbian requirement that cars coming from Kosovo use Serbian plates. Serb residents of northern Kosovo are protesting by blocking roads. Kosovo police have so far not cleared them.
Reciprocity is correct from the Pristina perspective. It is a basic principle of relations between sovereign states. That is also precisely why Serbia rejects it. Belgrade regards Kosovo as Serbian sovereign territory. Reciprocity is not a principle that governs relations between a sovereign and part of its own territory, even if that part has its own goverrnment, police, and in this case security forces.
From my perspective, Kosovo is a sovereign state: its declaration of independence breached no international law, Serbia has recognized the validity of Kosovo’s constitution on its entire territory, and it has its own democratically validated parliament, prime minister, and president. Serbia does not contest this and claims the territory but not 90% of the people. But if Kosovo Albanians are not citizens of Serbia, then they must be citizens of something else, which is the Republic of Kosovo for all practical and legal purposes.
So demanding reciprocity is consistent with Kosovo’s sovereignty, but that doesn’t mean applying that principle to license plates is smart. Once you do that, you need to anticipate what Belgrade will do in response, like blocking the roads. If you can leave them blocked without any serious economic harm, or if you can clear them without creating a mess, you could come out on top, but only if Belgrade yields. You have to also think about what else Belgrade might do next: create trouble in the Serb communities south of Ibar, complain to the European Union and the Americans, or make a show of military force on its side of the border, which is what it has done in addition to the complaints. It doesn’t suffice to be right about reciprocity; you have to make it stick.
There are other areas where the principle of reciprocity might be invoked, perhaps with greater effect. Certainly Kosovo should ask of Serbia, which wants an Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo, an Association of Albanian-majority municipalities in Serbia, with equivalent functions and powers. It could also ask for guaranteed Albanian seats in Serbia’s parliament, as 10 seats in Kosovo’s are reserved to Serbs. It was a mistake not to insist that the Specialist Chambers now prosecuting Kosovo Liberation Army leaders in The Hague also be able to prosecute crimes committed on the territory of Serbia, not just Kosovo.
But to do these things successfully, Pristina needs to line up unequivocal international support in Washington and Brussels. Both have instead adopted an attitude of impartiality. This is a mistake. Serbia is no long “sitting on two stools.” It has committed itself to Russia and China, which have reciprocated with arms and investment. The EU and US need to open their eyes and realize that the current geopolitical competition requires a much firmer commitment to pro-Western forces throughout the Balkans, not only in Kosovo but also in Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
President Biden, who has expressed unequivocal support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the countries of the Balkans, needs now to put his thumb of the scale in favor of democracy throughout the region. That will mean favoring some over others, rather than retreating to a “Europe whole and free” mantra that was appropriate for the unipolar moment but now faces concerted Russian troublemaking and Chinese influence-peddling throughout the continent. Serbia has made itself handmaiden to those efforts.
Kosovo is America’s most loyal friend in the region. It is time for Washington to recognize it as a strategic partner in countering Russian and Chinese influence and to support unequivocally its sovereign equality with Serbia. With that support, reciprocity will stick.
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Some ideas are better than others
I have been puzzled by some Balkan economic initiatives. So I turned to Demush Shasha, Executive Director of the Pristina-based thinktank EPIK and former Secretary General of the Ministry for European Integration, for answers. While I think Demush has done an admirable job of analyzing the situation, I’d be glad to hear from others who may have different views of the merits and demerits of the initiatives discussed. Demush writes:
First let’s try and delineate the discussion surrounding these issues. So, these are two separate, though related, conversations.
1. CEFTA vs SEFTA;
2. Mini-Schengen vs Berlin process.
Former is more specific and economic discussion, later is more general and political discussion. To put it differently, the former is about “free movement of goods” – so almost exclusively a trade discussion. Later is about more than trade, it is about ALL types of freedoms in Western Balkans – people, capital, goods, establishment of companies, recognition of academic and professional qualifications, etc.
With that out of the way, a few words on differences between competing proposals.
CEFTA vs SEFTA
Kosovo proposed that CEFTA is succeeded by SEFTA. There are two reasons for this: (1) When CEFTA was launched Czechoslovakia was part of it 😊. So, the first argument is that agreement was designed for a different time and place, and it needs simply an update to new realities. (2) Kosovo is not a party to CEFTA as a sovereign country, but through UNMIK. This is because of Serbian veto within CEFTA mechanisms and procedures. So, Kosovo believes that with the launch of SEFTA, as a new mechanism, this issue can be addressed. Serbia on the other hand, for obvious reasons is against the proposal.
Mini-Schengen vs Berlin process
The Berlin process was launched in 2014 by the EU as a political mechanism to spur political cooperation in the region, allocate funds for important infrastructure investment, and ensure that the region gradually increases its competitiveness and prepares itself for EU Single Market. Since the launch, all 6 WB [Western Balkan] countries + 10 EU countries have been part of the process. So no brainer, everything was running great and smooth, until…
Mini-Schengen was launched in 2019 by three WB countries, without serious international political support, it failed to ensure inclusiveness of all WB countries and without any financial resources. Immediately, after a few first meetings it was obvious that this is not a serious undertaking, but rather a platform from which frustrated WB countries can get together and communicate their displeasure with the EU. Albania and North Macedonia were not being allowed to start accession talks, and Serbia’s accession process practically stalled, without any new negotiating chapter being opened.
In this light, Kosovo decided that it will continue to support Berlin process initiative and stay out of the Mini-Schengen. This decision is based on several factors:
1. Berlin process goal is regional cooperation in view of EU accession. Mini-Schengen goal is to create a mechanism that “will take the fate of the Balkans in our own hands”. You can imagine why in the Balkans, and in particular countries like Kosovo and BiH [Bosnia and Herzegovina], this kind of language makes people edgy.
2. The Berlin process is led by Germany, and supported by its key EU member states. Mini-Schengen is led by Serbia.
3. Mini-Schengen goal is to undermine the Berlin process and EU influence in the region, since it is a duplication of the Berlin process. Mini-Schengen would create a political forum where out of all participating countries, Serbia would be a natural leader of the group. This raises eyebrows with regard to creating an opening for Russian influence in the region through Serbia and Mini-Schengen.
4. The Berlin process has at its disposal 9 billion EURO funding, for 2021-2027, allocated by the EU in the forms of grants, which the EU has assessed will generate additional 20 billion investments in loans. Mini-Schengen has zero.
On US position: No high level US official ever took part in Mini-Schengen meetings. Mini-Schengen is mentioned in Washington KS [Kosovo]-SRB [Serbia] letters of intent, but it was never followed-up in any serious and structural manner by US administration. My reading is that the US supports any initiative that contributes to regional cooperation, and additionally on Mini-Schengen I think they understand the politics of it and they are simply allowing those 3 countries (Srb, Alb, NM) for the moment to vent some (justified to an extent) displeasure with the EU.
On EU position: Despite that the initiative in its title had the word “Schengen”, and aimed to transpose four fundamental freedoms of the EU, the EU never supported the initiative. They have continuously communicated that the Berlin process is the way forward. However, noting the current lack of enlargement momentum they really had little moral capital to be more aggressive publicly.
In a nutshell, I think it is one of those things that is not on the priority list of the US/EU, so they refrained from going publicly against it. They recognize that the initiative has no teeth, nor future. However, I believe that behind the public eye, they have strongly advised Kosovo, Montenegro and BiH to stay outside of the initiative.
PS: At this event earlier this week, Jim O’Brien of Albright-Stonebridge gave a vigorous and detailed defense of “Open Balkans,” which is a rebranding of mini-Schengen:
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