Tag: Balkans
Peace Picks | July 27 – July 31
Notice: Due to recent public health concerns, upcoming events are only available via live stream.
- From Peoples Into Nations: A History of Eastern Europe | July 27, 2020 | 4:00 – 5:30 PM EST | Wilson Center | Register Here
Eastern Europe has produced more history than any region on earth, for bad and for good. But where is it? And how does a critical historian write its history? Nationalists argue that nations are eternal, Connelly argues that they formed recently: in the 1780s, when the Habsburgs attempted to make their subjects German, thereby causing a panic among Hungarians and Czechs that they might disappear from history. The region’s boundaries are the boundaries of a certain painful knowledge: that nations come and go, and urgently require protection.
Speakers:
John Connelly: Sidney Hellman Ehrman Professor of History and Director of Institute for East European, Eurasian, & Slavic Studies at University of California (Berkeley)
Christian F. Ostermann: Director, History & Public Policy Program, Cold War International History Project, North Korea Documentation Project, Nuclear Proliferation International History Project, Wilson Center
Eric Arnesen: Fellow, the George Washington University - Crisis in Northern Mozambique | July 28, 2020 | 10:00 – 10:45 AM EST | Center for Strategic & International Studies | Register Here
The recent escalation of violence in the Cabo Delgado province threatens the overall security of the region and has caused a substantial increase in humanitarian needs. Since 2017, the conflict in northern Mozambique has displaced nearly 250,000 people and killed 1,000 others, with violence escalating rapidly in 2020. The Islamic State has tried to capitalize on the chaos, and the Government of Mozambique has struggled to combat armed actors while also navigating climate shocks and the response to Covid-19.
Please join us for a discussion on the conflict in Mozambique’s northern provinces, the implications for regional security, and steps the international community can take to respond to the humanitarian needs.
Speakers:
Mamadou Sou: Head of Delegation, Southern Africa, International Committee of the Red Cross
Emilia Columbo: Non-Resident Senior Associate, Africa Program, CSIS
Jacob Kurzter: Interim Director & Senior Fellow, Humanitarian Agenda, CSIS - Western Balkans Partnership Summit | July 29, 2020 | 10:15 – 11:30 AM EST | Atlantic Council | Register Here
The Atlantic Council will host a Summit of leaders from the Western Balkans Six—Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia—as they agree on bold, practical actions to advance regional economic cooperation. These significant steps will help the region emerge from the devastating impact of COVID-19 with greater economic development opportunities.
The expected economic and social impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Balkans demand urgent regional action to avoid sustained economic stagnation and the potential instability that comes with it. This agreement will demonstrate leaders’ commitment to foster economic growth by pursuing the free movement of goods, persons, and services across the region’s borders. The measure will also set in motion a significant plan for attracting foreign investment and accelerating the effective deployment of COVID-19 recovery funds.
Building on its efforts and extensive networks in Southeastern Europe, the Atlantic Council convenes this Western Balkans Partnership Summit to facilitate and promote concrete steps among the leaders toward regional economic integration that can stimulate post-COVID-19 economic recovery, boost the region’s long-term competitiveness, and strengthen its attractiveness for investors. Tangible measures agreed at the Summit—linked to and embedded in existing regional initiatives and dialogues—will send an important political message about the Western Balkans’ Euro-Atlantic future at a time of heightened uncertainty.
Speakers:
Damon M. Wilson (Moderator): Vice President, Atlantic Council
H.E. Stevo Pendarovski: President of the Republic of North Macedonia
H.E. Aleksandar Vučić: President of the Republic of Serbia
H.E. Avdullah Hoti: Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo
H.E. Edi Rama: Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania
H.E. Zoran Tegeltija: Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina
H.E. Dragica Sekulić: Minister of Economy of Montenegro - Re-Orienting National Security for the AI Era | July 29, 2020 | 2:30 – 3:30 PM EST | Brookings Institution | Register Here
Artificial intelligence technology has already begun and will continue to transform the economy, education, people’s daily lives, and national security. The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) is an independent federal commission established to examine the state of the AI-national security landscape and determine what policies will maintain U.S. leadership in AI research, improve international cooperation, and advance shared principles for ethical and responsible use of AI. On July 22, NSCAI submitted their second quarter recommendations to Congress and the executive branch.
On July 29, Brookings will host a conversation with NSCAI Chair Dr. Eric Schmidt and Vice Chair Mr. Robert Work on the current state of artificial intelligence in the national security environment, and the commission’s latest recommendations to spur progress on the responsible development and deployment of AI technologies.
Speakers:
John R. Allen (Moderator): President, Brookings Institution
Eric Schmidt: Chair, National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence
Robert O. Work: Vice Chair, National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence - The Future of Trust & Sense-Making | July 30, 2020 | 12:30 PM EST | Atlantic Council | Register Here
Trust – between people, between populations, and between human and machine – is an increasingly challenging convention as we navigate the “post-truth” era and the unprecedentedly complex information age. The concept of trust is arguably humanity’s most empowering trait, enabling cooperation between people on a grand scale and in pursuit of our most complicated endeavors. Our ability to build trust with machines has accelerated our exploration and will push the bounds of human cognition as we learn to augment our thinking with computers. In an unfathomably vast information environment, humans will be repeatedly forced to preserve trust in our observations against a deluge of data. We will have to learn to trust computers to make sense of it all.
How will we negotiate these situations given the challenges posed by misinformation, disinformation, and technically enabled deceptions like deep fake images, video, and audio? Will our predilection for conflict, power, and force projection disrupt this journey? Will we successfully graduate from our present trials by nurturing the concept of trust as we develop new methods to preserve ideals of objectivity, truth, and cooperation?
What might we witness in the coming years with respect to trust in devices, people, and institutions? What is the future of trust, and what are its implications for sense-making? What do all these things imply about our future digital lives?
Speakers:
Dr. David Bray (Moderator): Director, GeoTech Center, Atlantic Council
John Marx: Liaison Officer, Air Force Research Laboratory
Stephen Rodriguez: Non-Resident Senior Fellow & Senior Adviser, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security
Alex Ruiz: Founder, Phaedrus Engineering
Dr. Tara Kirk Sell: Senior Scholar, Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security
Sara-Jayne Terp: Co-Founder, CogSec Collaboration - From Dissent to Democracy: The Promise & Perils of Civil Resistance Traditions | July 31, 2020 | 9:30 – 10:45 AM EST | United States Institute of Peace | Register Here
Nonviolent protest has proven to be a strong driver for democratization, and recent years have shown a rise in protest movements globally—from Hong Kong to Algeria to Sudan. Yet, popular uprisings don’t always lead to democratic transitions, as seen in the Arab Spring revolutions in Egypt or Yemen. Why do some transitions driven by movements end in democracy while others do not?
In his new book, “From Dissent to Democracy,” Jonathan Pinckney systematically examines transitions initiated by nonviolent resistance campaigns and argues that two key factors explain whether or not democracy will follow such efforts. First, a movement must sustain high levels of social mobilization. Second, it must direct that mobilization away from revolutionary “maximalist” goals and tactics and towards support for new institutions.
Join USIP as we host activists and scholars of nonviolent resistance for a discussion of the book’s broader lessons on how to support democratization efforts around the world. The conversation will explore new insights into the intersection of democratization and nonviolent resistance, as well as actionable recommendations for activists and policymakers working toward democratic transitions.
Speakers:
Maria Stephan (Moderator): Director, Nonviolent Action, U.S. Institute of Peace
Erica Chenoweth: Berthold Beitz Professor in Human Rights & International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Zachariah Mampilly: Marxe Chair of International Affairs, City University of New York
Hardy Merriman: President & CEO, International Center on Nonviolent Conflict
Jonathan Pinckney: Program Officer, Nonviolent Action, U.S. Institute of Peace
Huda Shafig: Program Director, Karama
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Geopolitics in the Balkans
I prepared this lecture for a presentation earlier in the summer, but circumstances conspired to prevent me from giving it. So I’m letting it sit here, for anyone who might be interested:
It is a pleasure to be with you remotely, even if I do wish we were all in Dubrovnik. It was not a stop on my many flights into Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia. I was lucky even to see Split, where my UN flight landed once when the Serbs were making it impossible to do so in Sarajevo.
- The world has changed dramatically since then. So have the Western Balkans.
- Let me start there. You will hear from many people who live in the Western Balkans, especially in Bosnia and Serbia, that nothing has changed.
- This reflects their disappointment in what has happened in the last 25 years. I share that disappointment. I would like to have seen far more progress.
- But it is not objectively true that things haven’t changed. Per capita GDP is on average at least twice as high as it was before the 1990s wars. Apart from Covid-19, it is safe to travel throughout former Yugoslavia, regardless of ethnic identity or national origins. You can say pretty much whatever you want in all the former Yugoslav republics and in Albania, even if organizing politically and publishing are still not entirely free in several countries. Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims worship freely, often in renovated churches and mosques.
- The question is how this progress was achieved, and why does it appear to have come to a halt sometime in the middle of the first decade of this millennium.
- The 1990s, we know now, were truly the unipolar moment, when the US had no rivals and together with Europe could do what it wanted in the Balkans and much of the rest of the world.
- With a lot of help from Croatia, NATO used force to end the Bosnian war and compel Serbia’s withdrawal from Kosovo in 1999. The US and EU also negotiated the end of an Albanian rebellion in Macedonia in 2001, with NATO backing.
- Washington and Brussels then together invested massive financial and personnel resources in Bosnia and Kosovo. The former was eventually run by a European with US support and the latter became a UN protectorate run by Europeans with American deputies. Their mandate in Bosnia was to install a sovereign, democratic government. In Kosovo, it was to build self-governing democratic institutions, with a view to eventually solving the sovereignty question.
- Macedonia remained self-governing, but with European and American monitoring and sometimes financing of its 2001 Ohrid agreement.
- The unipolar moment began to end with the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 and the US responses in Afghanistan and Iraq, which the Balkan successes encouraged.
- But the joint US/EU state-building processes in Bosnia and Kosovo had significant momentum and continued. So too did the peace implementation in Macedonia.
- The process stalled in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2006, when the parliament failed to approve by the required two-thirds constitutional changes the Americans and Europeans wanted.
- In Kosovo, the UN first imposed a program of “standards before status” and “later standards with status,” leading eventually to supervised independence in 2007, after which progress slowed.
- In Macedonia, political and economic reform lasted a bit longer, perhaps through 2008, but the financial crisis that hit Europe and the US hard in that year made the going much slower.
- The Balkans have not had an easy time of it since. All the Balkan states are heavily dependent on EU economic growth. The Greek financial crisis and economic collapse, the flood of immigrants after 2011 from the greater Middle East, and the Brexit referendum in 2016 gave Europe more urgent and higher priority problems than the Balkans.
- These developments also made Europe more cautious about the prospects for enlargement.
- Brussels began to slow roll accession, which in turn slowed the necessary economic and political reforms. Would-be autocrats faced much less challenge than they would have in the 1990s.
- In Bosnia, some politicians returned to the virulent ethnic nationalist rhetoric of wartime, with little constraint imposed by Washington or Brussels. The country is now stalled in its own constitutional contradictions, imposed by Washington and Brussels.
- In Kosovo, the economy has done relatively well, after an initial spurt the authorities managed to limit Islamist radicalization, the courts began to prosecute some high-level corruption cases, interethnic crime dropped dramatically, the army is now getting support from NATO, and there have been several peaceful, if sometimes turbulent, transfers of power.
- Kosovo now faces its greatest post-independence challenge: the pending indictment at the Specialist Chambers in The Hague, a nominally Kosovo court run by the Americans and Europeans, of the President, the head of the political party he founded, and eight other still unnamed Kosovo Liberation Army fighters.
- In Macedonia, a one-time economic reformer unable to deliver reform after 2008 or so gave the country a political nightmare that was finally dispelled with help from U.S. and European muscle, leading eventually to an agreement with Greece to change its name to North Macedonia and allow it to become a candidate for EU accession as well as a member of NATO.
- In the meanwhile, Croatia, became a member of the EU, Serbia began to normalize its relations with Kosovo, and Montenegro managed to get into NATO and put itself in pole position for EU membership.
- In short, things are a lot better in the Balkans than they were in the 1990s, even if progress is slow and serious trouble spots remain.
- Today’s world is however dramatically different from the one that existed in the 1990s.
- While still globally dominant, the US faces regional challenges from China, Russia, Iran and even North Korea that take priority in Washington over the Balkans.
- The Balkans in general, and Bosnia and Kosovo in particular, were the objects of top-tier attention in the 1990s. They now get much lower priority.
- That is true in Europe as well, where Brexit, Ukraine, Syria, Libya, and illegal immigration are issues that, each in its own way, cast a shadow over Balkan aspirations to join Europe.
- At the same time, Moscow and Beijing are paying more attention than ever before to the Balkans.
- The Russians are interfering blatantly by both violent and nonviolent means in the region: assassination, media manipulation, renting crowds, and financing political parties are all being used to slow if not halt Balkan progress towards NATO and the EU.
- The Chinese are using their financial strength to loan, build and buy. Caveat emptor of course, though Beijing’s behavior is a lot more salubrious than Moscow’s and likely to produce some positive results for those Balkan countries and companies that know how to do business.
- It comes however with political strings attached: the Chinese will expect those who get their money to toe the line on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Uighurs, and Covid-19.
- Turkey—also a strong force in the Balkans for historical, geographic, and cultural reasons—has taken a dramatic turn in a more Islamist and autocratic direction.
- The secular Turkey that contributed well-trained forces to NATO interventions in the 1990s has all but vanished. Erdogan’s Turkey is building mosques, capturing Gulenists, and encouraging political Islam while still trying to maintain its previous good relations with non-Muslim countries in the Balkans.
- How does all this affect the Balkan countries?
- The Turkish influence is direct and palpable.
- In Bosnia, it is exercised mainly through Bakir Izetbegovic, now head of the leading Islamist political party.
- Though still largely secular in orientation, Kosovo is far more Islamic than it once was and has cooperated with the capture and rendering of Gulenists. President Thaci treasures his relationship with President Erdogan.
- China has focused its attention mainly on Serbia and Montenegro, the former by buying assets and the latter by building an important highway.
- Most Kosovars might welcome more interest in investment from Beijing. I wouldn’t fault them for that but only urge caution about the financial and political conditions, which can be onerous.
- But Beijing doesn’t like break-away provinces. Perhaps because of that, Japan is showing some interest in Kosovo and should be able to provide far better deals.
- Russia is still far more politically important to Serbia than China, because it holds the veto in the Security Council over Kosovo membership in the UN. Belgrade has tried to continue its non-aligned hedging between the West and East, even though it claims the ambition of joining the EU. It buys arms from Moscow but trains more with NATO.
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The virus is not the only epidemic
A friend in Serbia has called this statement by the European Movement International to my attention. Parts of it apply as well to the United States, as well as elsewhere:
Ever since the start of the COVID pandemic, regimes in Europe and around the world have used the current crisis to compromise democratic principles. Recent events in Serbia are consistent with that trend and constitute a negative development for democracy and civic space in a country that has been on the path to EU accession for a while but where democracy has been in rapid decline for years.
The Serbian government’s management of the health crisis has raised many questions. Its decision to hold large public events and go ahead with the national elections, in the peak of a health crisis, confounded many and made the imposition of draconian lockdown measures right after the elections seem politically motivated. In a country ablaze with suspicion that the data on infections and deaths caused by COVID-19 has been manipulated by those in power, trust was already low.
In such an atmosphere, it is citizens’ fundamental right to hold their government to account. The wave of protests instigated by young people and joined by citizens from all walks of life, is a manifestation of the Serbs’ wish to voice their legitimate concerns about the government’s handling of its response to the pandemic. Their right to protest should neither be denied, nor met with violence. Trying to silence protesters and journalists through the exercise of force is a violation of fundamental rights. Similarly, the freedom to protest should not be highjacked by a small minority of protesters’ intent to soil that right with the use of violence.
After years of steady descent away from European democratic norms, the current political unrest that has engulfed Serbia is not a symptom of the health crisis. It is the result of deeper, much further-reaching structural and democratic shortcomings in the country.
It is imperative that measures adopted by the Serbian government during the health emergency remain proportional to the threat of the crises and that they respect democratic values. Citizens require openness about the decisions that affect them and wish to be involved in the response to a health crisis that has cost far too many lives. Civil society and the media should be given a strong, independent role in keeping in check the country’s path towards recovery.
Beyond the pandemic, democratic and structural reforms, that will safeguard inclusive and transparent decision-making, strengthened by an independent media and permitting dialogue with civil society, are vital to regain citizens’ trust and keep a trajectory towards a European future.
The transformative power of European integration has at its core the need for demonstrating respect for the rule of law and fundamental democratic principles in Serbia, according to the EU’s founding values. The EU must ensure that the Serbian government lives up to its responsibilities in the context of the accession negotiations.
The European Union is a community of values based on fundamental and human rights. The EU and its institutions as well as member states and non-state actors must make a stronger and more targeted effort to uphold and promote European values and fundamental rights in member states and candidate countries.
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Restarted, but…
With the US initiative for White House talks between Serbia and Kosovo aborted, the European Union last week reconvened its own dialogue with Kosovo Prime Minister Hoti and Serbian President Vucic participating. They reportedly discussed two things: accounting for missing people and economic issues.
This was wise. The talks had to be convened quickly, in order to maintain momentum and EU credibility. But neither side is ready to discuss the tough political issues that the dialogue aims to resolve.
Missing people is an issue that concerns both Belgrade and Pristina, as both governments are under pressure to show that there is some tangible benefit to talking with the adversary. It should have been done long ago, but that doesn’t make it less necessary now. Families on both sides want the identification and return of the remains of their loved ones. Completing that process requires extensive collaboration that can increase confidence and open up further issues for joint action.
The economic issues are more fraught. Vucic has already got what he wanted: an end to the tariffs Kosovo had levied on Serbian goods in retaliation for its so-called “de-recognition” campaign. Hoti has a long list of economic issues he wants discussed: “compensation for war damage, succession [of ownership of former Yugoslav property], state debt, pensions, savings in banks, the lost wages of laid-off workers, damage to private property and other issues.” Vucic isn’t interested in discussing those items. No doubt he’ll have his own list of damages and debits when the time comes.
The talks are now adjourned until September. That’s also wise, not only because Europe takes August off but also because no one is really ready for serious progress on the big issues. I’ve written recently about the preparations that have not yet been put in place. To summarize:
- The EU needs to make sure its member states are more unified and provide the visa waiver for which Kosovo is qualified by September and at least a pledge of diplomatic recognition by five non-recognizing member states at the conclusion of the dialogue. A statement to that effect from the five is in order.
- The US needs to get back into a supportive role, which won’t be possible so long as the American negotiator is a vocal critic of the EU interested only in President Trump’s reelection prospects. Ric Grenell, who has failed at more jobs in the last year or two than anyone should have, needs to go.
- Kosovo needs a broader government that backs Hoti and can implement in parliament what is agreed in Brussels.
- Serbia needs a decision to drop its “sitting on two stools” (East and West) policy and go hell bent for EU accession, with willingness to pay the price of normalization with Kosovo.
Those vital pieces to a political solution are not in place. Nor are they likely to be in place by September, by which time American attention will have refocused on the November 3 election.
That’s not the only problem. The EU seems still unwilling to do the right thing on the visa waiver, and Serbia seems uninterested in committing to good neighborly relations, which would include a clear commitment to Kosovo membership in the United Nations as well as exchange of ambassadorial-level representatives. Ironically, Kosovo has the best chance of meeting the preconditions: whatever happens in the dialogue, it will need a stronger majority if President Thaci resigns in order to choose his replacement.
So it was good to restart the dialogue process, but it is going to have a hard time proceeding apace. Berlin’s ambition of concluding before the end of Germany’s EU presidency is likely to be disappointed. Unless someone comes along with a bundle of money to settle Hoti’s economic claims and Vucic’s equally ample appetite, things are likely to stall. My recommendation: spend the next 5 months preparing for serious talks in 2021, starting on January 21. That prospect should concentrate minds in Belgrade, which has the most to lose from a new US Administration committed to Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. It might even lead to earlier movement on Belgrade’s part.
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Macedonia is a good story
The New York Times is bemoaning a muddy election outcome in North Macedonia. I beg to differ.
The outcome is no muddier than previous Macedonian elections, which have consistently left the Albanian political parties as the dealmakers and breakers. That is true this time as well, with the added complication that no single Albanian party may be able to give either of the main parties enough votes in parliament to gain a commanding majority. So government formation is likely to be a messy and perhaps lengthy process, but that is often the case in parliamentary systems that have more than two parties or electoral coalitions.
To focus on that is to miss the main point: both the winning Socialists and the opposition Macedonian ethnic nationalists did well in a serious and well-run electoral competition. With the country still in the midst of the Covid-19 epidemic, former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev survived after agreeing with Greece to change the official name of the country to North Macedonia. The ethnic Macedonian ethnic nationalists led by Hristijan Mickoski survived the downfall of its former leader and prime minister, who somehow escaped from prison and remains in exile.
Assuming Zaev is successful in government formation negotiations, Macedonia* faces a future with a pro-EU and pro-NATO government. That government will face a vigorous opposition, one that would now be well-advised to refocus its attention away from opposition to the Prespa Agreement towards EU membership.
Even if Zaev fails to gain a majority in parliament and Mickoski succeeds, the latter would need to govern in alliance with one or more pro-NATO and pro-EU Albanian political parties who back the Prespa Agreement. Nothing like that reasonable outcome would be possible today in neighboring Serbia, Montenegro, or Bosnia and Herzegovina. Macedonia is fortunate indeed.
A word too about the electoral process, which is arguably more important than the outcome. The competition appears to have run more smoothly than at times in the past. Yes, the website of the electoral commission was hacked, but so too yesterday was Joe Biden’s Twitter account. I can imagine who might have done it, but I have no evidence. The hack was overcome and the election results are clear. The OSCE has judged the election was “generally administered effectively,” despite Covid-19. Concerns focused on legal changes made too close to the election in OSCE’s judgment, even though some were made to meet OSCE recommendations:
It would be unwise to expect everything to go smoothly now in a Balkan country that has seen its share of turbulence. But Macedonia has stepped back from the brink many times in its almost 30 years since independence. The path ahead is likely to be bumpy–meeting the requirements of the EU’s acquis communautaire in a multi-ethnic democracy will be no mean feat. Macedonia faces bigger challenges than EU members Slovenia and Croatia did, not least because the requirements for rule of law have been significantly tightened. But EU accession is the country’s strategic goal. If both government and opposition keep the focus on that, North Macedonia’s future will be bright.
* Please note: the Prespa Agreement that changed its official name explicitly protects the right of ordinary people to call the country what they want.
PS: Here is the interview I did for VOA on the election. Sorry, I was unable to embed it here.
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Be prepared
After the calamitous failure of the Trump Administration’s attempt to take over the economic aspects of dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade, the European Union reasserted its primacy in a flurry of meetings last week between Serbian President Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Hoti with French President Macron, German Chancellor Merkel, and EU High Representative Borrell. Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak is putting the dialogue, which aims at achieving in months rather than years comprehensive normalization between Serbia and Kosovo, back on track within the European context, which is where it belongs. The Europeans are open to working in tandem with the US, which is necessary for success.
But haste can make waste. Preparation for negotiation is often more important than what is said at the negotiating table. I see lack of preparation in all four major capitals: Pristina, Belgrade, Brussels, and Washington.
Pristina
With President Thaci sidelined by a pending indictment, the Prime Minister will lead Kosovo’s negotiating team. His government has a razor-thin majority in parliament. It needs to strengthen that to more than two-thirds, and preferably 75%–before engaging seriously with Serbia. That would ensure that whatever he agrees in Brussels can be implemented in Pristina. It will also blunt the role of the Serb representatives, who are controlled by Belgrade, and enable election of a new President, if the indictment is confirmed and Thaci resigns.
Hoti has laid out a reasonable platform for his opening position, but I haven’t seen signs yet of serious preparation on the many issues that will be on the agenda, including major political items: will Kosovo aim for bilateral recognition by Serbia, or will it be content with UN membership? How can that be achieved? Will Kosovo allow formation of an Association of Serb Municipalities in accordance with the Constitutional Court’s requirements? How will disputes over property issues be settled in the aftermath of normalization? How will Serbs, Serb religious sites and other property in Kosovo be protected?
Belgrade
President Vucic has what Hoti lacks: more than two-thirds support in parliament, thanks to an election boycott by most of his opposition. He dominates the media and the courts in ways that any autocrat would admire. He also has an enviable best alternative to a negotiated agreement (BATNA): he can live with the status quo, at least until the EU decides to make it painful for him or presents a more attractive alternative.
But he is trapped in that comfortable position. While most Serbs care far more about jobs and Covid-19 than Kosovo, Vucic has done nothing to prepare his citizens for acceptance that Kosovo is lost. He has instead repeatedly suggested that he would only give up Kosovo, which is no longer his, if he gets something in return. There isn’t much to be given. When former Finnish President Ahtisaari wrote the plan that led to Kosovo’s independence declaration, he gave Serbia everything it really wanted, because he thought Belgrade would recognize the new state.
Vucic, or some future leader of Serbia, needs to set out to convince its citizens that they would gain more from good, normalized, neighborly relations with Kosovo than from the current situation. Belgrade’s current stance–that Kosovo may not be under its control but that is no reason to give it up–is counter-productive for the Serbian economy and Serbia’s EU ambitions.
Brussels
Brussels has helped to kill the idea of a land and people swap between Belgrade and Pristina, which is what Vucic was hoping for. Now it needs to think about what it can offer as either carrots or sticks to get Vucic out of his comfortable stance. The carrots could include Covid-19 recovery aid, Green Deal funding, and a regional reconciliation fund. I can also imagine sticks: Serbia’s progress in accession talks with Brussels should be strictly conditional on its performance in the dialogue with Pristina, including implementation of existing agreements, renewal of prosecutions of war criminals, and willingness to accept essential elements of normalization like cooperation with the Kosovo army and intelligence services.
On the Pristina side of the equation, Brussels also has a lot of work to do:
- Resolve member state objections to admitting Kosovo into the EU’s visa waiver program, the conditions for which Pristina long ago satisfied.
- Invent a serious mechanism, if possible jointly with the US, to monitor and ensure implementation of existing and future agreements emerging from the dialogue.
- Convince the five EU members that have not recognized Kosovo to pledge to do so not on accession, which is far in the future, but rather on achieving candidate status.
These moves would give Brussels the kind of credibility it needs, and currently lacks, in Kosovo. Of course it would lose that credibility quickly if any carrots offered to Belgrade are not also provided to Pristina.
Washington
Richard Grenell, still President Trump’s special envoy for the Belgrade/Pristina dialogue, is not a credible interlocutor for either Europe, which he has gone out of his way to offend on numerous occasions, or Kosovo, whose territory he would have happily traded away. He may continue his parallel, mostly uncoordinated effort to achieve economic agreements between Belgrade and Pristina, but the odds are long for anything substantial. He is already refocusing his attention on the election campaign, which all along was one of his motives in pursuing a diplomatic spectacular with Pristina and Belgrade.
Vice President Biden has made clear that he would return the United States to its normal posture in the Balkans: support for democracy, the rule of law, Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and normalization between Pristina and Belgrade. While Biden is far ahead in current polling, there are still more than three months left before the election, and six before inauguration day. It is hard for me to picture anything good coming from official Washington before Trump is out of office, though participation in an implementation monitoring mechanism should be feasible. Brussels, Belgrade, and Pristina should all be trying to ensure that if Biden is elected, they will be ready to welcome more serious American engagement.
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