Tag: European Union
Enough time
After the progress Serbia recently made toward improving its relationship with Priština, the country’s political leadership has brought forward an unrealistically ambitious platform for its future Kosovo policy. Even a superficial glance at the document suggests that Belgrade is looking to create another Republika Srpska with the potential to destabilize Kosovo at any time. Unsurprisingly, the Kosovo government has dismissed the platform as unacceptable; the Europeans for now seem to be rather cautious.
One reason for the ambitious platform is the praise that Serbian prime minister Ivica Dačić has received from the West for his pragmatic conduct in the negotiations with Hashim Thaçi. Encouraged, Belgrade is likely hoping that Brussels and Washington could be willing to put pressure on Priština to consider at least some of the ideas outlined. A difference compared to the usual practice is that in this platform Kosovo Serbs who live south of the Ibar river have for the first time been taken into account by a Serbian government.
Parts of the platform can be understood as an attempt to somehow accommodate divergent views and interests of various stakeholders. One of these is undoubtedly the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), whose leadership has already blasted the government for Dačić’s constructive approach to his ongoing talks with Thaçi. Given the level of influence and popularity that SPC enjoys among Serbs, domestic politicians would hardly dare to openly defy it.
The platform also helps two main parties of the ruling coalition – the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and Dačić’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) – create the impression that they are not going to “surrender without fight.” While they are both nominally pro-EU, a large portion of their voters are opposed to European integration.
Serbian opposition parties have reacted to the platform in a more or less expected fashion. Dragan Đilas, the new president of the formerly ruling Democratic Party (DS), considers most of its content to be out of touch with reality. Vojislav Koštunica of the conservative nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) is basically satisfied with the platform, albeit with some reservation. The clearly pro-Western Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) insists that the government must finally “tell people the truth about Kosovo” instead of prolonging the agony.
Unlike the Church, politicians, media and far-right extremists, ordinary people appear to have for the most part remained unmoved. This is potentially good news for leading government figures, allowing them to remove a number of controversial elements from the paper. Dačić has already stressed that the platform is not a “Holy Writ” and therefore can be amended. Likewise, SNS first deputy prime minister Aleksandar Vučić stated shortly after the platform was announced that Serbia must at all costs remain on the path of European integration if it is to avoid economic disaster.
The next round of talks between Dačić and Thaçi is scheduled for January 17. There is time for the platform to undergo revision before then, but a lot will depend on dynamics within the government itself. Judging from their recent statements, Dačić and Vučić are anticipating changes will be made in time.
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Fantasyland
Anyone who thought, as The Economist and others have reported, that Serbia was softening its position on Kosovo and would yield to sweet reason has to be disappointed today. The Belgrade platform for negotiations on Kosovo represents a giant step backwards in Serbia’s position, as it pretends to meet international community demands for dismantling of illegal Serbian institutions in Kosovo by legalizing and unifying them, with the entire “autonomous” province under Serbian sovereignty. Serbs in Kosovo would gain not only separate and equal institutions, but also a legislative veto, their own justice and police systems and many other powers. This would apply not only to the northern bit of Kosovo still under Serbian control, but also south of the Ibar river to communities that have at least partially accepted and integrated into Kosovo government institutions.
What Belgrade has failed to do is come to terms with the independence and sovereignty of Kosovo. This is not surprising, but it is still important: it means that Kosovo will need to equip itself for a future in which Serbia continues to claim sovereignty over the entire territory. I don’t envy Pristina. To my knowledge, no two countries that fail to recognize each other and establish a clearly demarcated border have an untroubled relationship. Serbia is Kosovo’s most powerful and threatening neighbor, its largest potential market and its historical metropole. Good neighborly relations would be a big plus for Kosovo. It isn’t going to happen based on the platform Belgrade has written for itself.
Belgrade has also failed to apply a simple but critical equity test to its own propositions: how much of what it proposes would it be ready and willing to offer to Albanians in southern Serbia or Bosniaks in Sandjak? Almost none of it. It is profoundly sad, and risible, that Belgrade claims for Serbs who have left Kosovo (including their descendants) the right to return when such rights have been blatantly violated by Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I’ve heard few in Belgrade bemoaning that (I hasten to add that those few are wonderful people).
International community reaction at this point is important. There will be an enormous temptation for the European Union and the United States, having waited long for this platform and no doubt tried to influence its contents, to try to see at least parts of it in a favorable light, or at least as a basis for negotiation. That would be a mistake. This platform stops just short of a declaration of war on Kosovo’s institutions and on the international community’s at least partially successful efforts to build a democracy in Kosovo. There is precious little in it that I would advise Pristina to discuss. Washington and Brussels should be profoundly disappointed and say so.
So what now? Belgrade is unhappy with the technical talks that it pursued with Pristina for more than a year, as they view them as having encroached on political issues. They are correct. While Belgrade celebrated each and every agreement as a Serbian triumph, the technical talks were gradually establishing Belgrade and Pristina as equal negotiating partners. That was the intention in both Brussels and Washington. But the talks were also reaching the limit of what could be achieved without deciding on Kosovo’s status: is it an autonomous province of Serbia, as Belgrade continues to want to claim, or is it a sovereign state, as half the UN General Assembly now recognizes? There really is no doubt about the answer to this question, but the EU has to tiptoe around it because of its five members who don’t recognize Kosovo.
Pristina should of course continue to be willing to meet with Belgrade on an equal basis and expect all agendas to be reciprocal in both letter and spirit. If Belgrade wants to discuss governance in northern Kosovo, it has to be willing to discuss governance in southern Serbia. That’s a non-starter, so there is no need for Pristina to discuss Kosovo’s own internal political arrangements with Belgrade. They are spelled out clearly in the Ahtisaari plan for a Comprehensive Peace Settlement that both the EU and the U.S. adhere to. Pristina has shown good faith in trying to implement them.
A note to non-recognizers of Kosovo: if you thought that your non-recognition was in any way helping to soften Belgrade’s stance or promote a negotiated solution, Belgrade’s platform for the negotiations should be enough to convince you otherwise. The best possible response to this gross overreach is to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with Pristina.
A note to Albanians: I can well imagine how angry this Serbian document will make those of you who have worked hard to establish serious democratic institutions capable of treating Serbs and other minorities correctly. The right response is a peaceful one, no matter how strong the passions. Anything else will play into Belgrade’s narrative that the Balkans won’t be safe from violence if Kosovo is sovereign and independent.
A note to Serbs: Kosovo is lost to Belgrade’s sovereignty. Protection of Serbs in Kosovo is still a legitimate interest. That’s what the talks with Pristina should be about, not about Kosovo’s status, which has been decided in a political process foreseen in UN Security Council resolution 1244. You did not like the result, but that will not change it. You can block UN membership for Kosovo, but it would be a mistake to try to change the facts on the ground. The effort to ensure that Serbs are governed only by Serbian majorities on their own territory has led Belgrade into war several times in the past. It is a profound error to stick with it. Go visit Kosovo: see for yourselves the reality. Then come back and tell me whether you want to continue living in Fantasyland.
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The EU kicks the can
Carl Bildt, Sweden’s long-time and much-followed Foreign Minister, tweeted earlier this week from the General Affairs Council of the European Union:
Finally everything done. Cyprus presidency, Stefan Füle and Cathy Ashton moved all EU enlargement issues successfully forward. Off we go.
I wondered at the time what this meant. Now I know.
It meant nothing: no date for Serbia or Macedonia to begin accession talks, no date for Kosovo to negotiate a Stabilization and Association Agreement. Croatia’s membership next year is expected to proceed on autopilot (with some corrections in Zagreb’s course requested) and Montenegro will continue accession talks. Albania still awaits for a date to start accession negotiations.
Admittedly it is difficult to get too excited about anything in the Western Balkans these days. Syria is imploding. Egypt is turning its judicial system over to religious supervision. Iran is making progress towards nuclear weapons. North Korea is successfully launching a longer-range ballistic missile, disguised as a space-launch vehicle. Afghanistan and Iraq are teetering. Al Qaeda is setting up shop in Mali. The euro is going down the tubes. Who cares what the Greeks want to call Macedonia or whether the former belligerents who run Serbia and Kosovo get dates to begin negotiations (Belgrade for accession, Pristina for a Stabilization and Association Agreement) with Brussels?
The people who live in those places do, that’s who. However insignificant the Balkans look these days from Washington, which is busy with its own domestic quarrels above all else, the region is important to those who inhabit it and has the potential to make life difficult for the rest of us, as it has proven repeatedly over the past 100 years.
A closer reading suggests that things might unfreeze in Brussels in the spring. Macedonia at least can expect a framework for negotiations then, provided it delivers on reforms in the meanwhile. Likewise Serbia, which is asked specifically for
…irreversible progress towards delivering structures in northern Kosovo which meet the security and justice needs of the local population in a transparent and cooperative manner, and in a way that ensures the functionality of a single institutional and administrative set up within Kosovo.
Also important is
…the agreement of the two Prime Ministers to work together in order to ensure a transparent flow of money in support of the Kosovo Serb community…
While couched in the EU’s usual obscurantist language, we see emerging here a detailed understanding of the real challenges that have so far blocked reintegration of the north with the rest of Kosovo. Bravo to the EU for acknowledging them!
Some of the same perspicacity is evident in the discussion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the EU finds the need to reiterate
…its unequivocal support for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU perspective as a sovereign and united country enjoying full territorial integrity.
It’s not good news when Brussels kicks off this way, though I’d be the first to admit that its subsequent suggestions of what needs to be done to fix the problem are thoroughly inadequate.
Pristina gets a pat on the back for its engagement in the talks and language identical to that addressed to Belgrade on northern Kosovo, plus a recommendation to develop an outreach plan.
Don’t get me wrong: it is correct for the EU to insist on specific reforms and benchmarks in dealing with the Western Balkans. Unfortunately, it is still true that conditionality is what moves things forward in many of these countries. In most of them, I expect the EU carrot will bring real changes, albeit in fits and starts. The most concerning is Bosnia, where the EU acknowledges the challenges to sovereignty that Milorad Dodik and Republika Srpska pose but fails to offer adequate responses and continues to quarrel with Washington over whether the High Representative should stay or go.
The EU has kicked the can down the road. The best we can hope for is a spring thaw.
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Keep pedaling
My friends in Macedonia will expect me this morning to share their fury at the European Council, which yesterday once again postponed a decision on when accession talks with Skopje can begin. Spyros Sophos* wrote to colleagues and friends:
the Brussels outcome is shortsighted and disgraceful. It has the potential to undermine the stability of Macedonia and to reward the forces of nationalism and hatred in all the countries and communities involved.
He is right.
But I am not going to join the chorus denouncing the European Union, which ironically collected its Nobel Peace Prize this week. Instead, I am going to ask, what is this all about? what can be done to solve the problem?
It is about identity more than anything else. Macedonians claim to be distinct: to have their own language, culture and history. Bulgaria, one of the two countries blocking an EU consensus to open accession talks, has a problem with this. Sofia wants Skopje to acknowledge the common history, culture and language of the two now separate countries.
Greece, the other country blocking an EU consesnsus, has a different identity problem. It claims that Macedonia has no right to use an unqualified appelation that belongs to Greece, historically, culturally and linguistically. It also fears, or some in Athens say they fear, Macedonian claims to Greek territory. While I have seen no evidence for that claim, it is certainly true that Skopje would like Greece to acknowledge the existence of a Macedonian minority within Greece. That is not the only minority Athens refuses to acknowledge, as it claims its citizens are Greek, tout court. No hyphens in the land of Alexander.
For this American (unhyphenated by the way), all this is pretty indigestible and hard to take seriously when there is death and destruction in Syria, a satellite launch by North Korea, constitutional chaos in Egypt, progress towards nuclear weapons in Iran, a stalled Middle East peace process and several dozen other current problems that seem far more important. But that is precisely the point: however intractable Balkans identity problems may be today, they are not deadly to large numbers of people, as they were in the past. The EU is maddeningly slow and ponderous, but it has also managed to dampen the fighting spirits that generated war and slaughter only a decade or two ago.
The charm may not last. The bicycle analogy is pertinent: only forward motion keeps the Balkans from falling over into violence. The EU’s non-decision will generate nationalist passions inside Macedonia, strain relations with its large Albanian minority and further exacerbate relations with Bulgaria and Greece. If you ignore people because they don’t resort to violence, they might just learn the wrong lesson.
To continue to merit its Nobel Peace Prize, the EU needs to get beyond the current stalemate. I hope it can do that in six months time, when Macedonia comes up for consideration once again. The necessary instrument is lying close at hand: the Interim Accord that Athens and Skopje agreed in 1995 should allow Skopje to enter NATO as “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and to begin EU accession negotiations with that name. This is acceptable to Skopje and is not, it seems to me, offensive to either Bulgaria or Greece, which the International Court of Justice has found in violation of the accord.
Please, EU, keep pedaling to prevent the Balkans bicycle from falling over. The time for a definitive solution will come with Skopje’s accession.
*Apologies to Spyros Sophos: in the first posting, I mistakenly attributed this quote to someone else.
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A new idea
I don’t often hear new ideas from the Balkans. Most of what passes for innovation there is rehashed from the detritus of failure and packaged in insincere compliments to the international community. So it was with real pleasure that I spent an hour Monday listening to Bosnian Federation President Živko Budimir, whom I knew in the aftermath of the Bosnian war as the deputy commander of the Federation armed forces.
The General had a commanding brief. He outlined the many weaknesses of the post-war transition in Bosnia, including:
- The structural asymmetry between the cantonalized Federation (the Croat and Muslim controlled 51% of the country) and Republika Srpska (the Serb controlled 49%).
- The ethnic homogenization down to the municipality level caused by the war and the failure to fulfill promises that displaced people and refugees could return to their homes (except for Serb returns along the Croatian border in Herzegovina).
- The continued strength of the entity (Federation and RS) level of governance, despite international efforts to beef up the “state” (i.e. central) government.
- Ethnic dominance of political parties, the civil service, interior ministries, police and the judiciary.
- Widespread corruption.
- The failure of economic recovery and consequent 40% unemployment.
- Determined and blatant RS efforts to precipitate the dissolution of the state.
This unflinching analysis already made the hour worthwhile. But Budimir offered solutions as well. Some of them were well known: protection of individual rights, redistribution of entity responsibilities to the central government and to the municipalities, tougher international attitudes, acceleration of the EU accession process.
But he surprised me with a new idea: he proposed that the relative success at Brčko, a northeastern Bosnian town where reintegration and economic revival worked well under American tutelage, be expanded by creating a “Posavina district” encompassing seven municipalities, including Brčko.
I don’t imagine this is going to happen tomorrow, but it is clever to build on the one place where reintegration has been successful. There can be no dissolution of Bosnia (or of the RS) so long as the Posavina corridor, which links the eastern wing of the RS with its more populous western wing, is under multi-ethnic control. This is why I have repeatedly suggested that the EUFOR troops in Bosnia be concentrated there. President Budimir’s idea is better: expand the area under multi-ethnic governance, keeping the populations of Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs more or less equal to ensure that no one group dominates the area.
How to get this done? Budimir insists on the international community playing a strong role, both with sticks (especially in opposing dissolution of the state) and carrots (in particular NATO and EU membership), in particular to block corruption and promote reconciliation. But he also proposes the founding of a new multiethnic political party in Bosnia to reinvent its politics. This would require a good deal of courage and commitment, of which the general showed ample supplies in bringing his idea to Washington. Now what he has to do is get them to fly at home.
PS: Here is Budimir’s text. Here is his powerpoint presentation.
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Good news, and bad
As world leaders meet in Doha for the climate change conference, IEA officials presented the World Energy Outlook 2012 at a Carnegie Endowment for International Peace event. Jessica Matthews, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, labelled the year “paradoxical.” Some of the fundamental facts of world energy are changing, especially in the United States, which is on track to becoming the largest oil producer in 2020, passing even Saudi Arabia. This development, brought on by the unconventional oil and gas revolution, in combination with recent improvements in efficiency, suggests a bright energy future for the U.S. But Matthews reminded the audience that the Outlook ultimately concludes the U.S. and the rest of the world are not on track for a sustainable energy future. If trends continue, the world will become 3 degrees Celsius warmer by mid century and 4-6 degrees Celsius warmer by 2100. Such warming will have catastrophic implications.
Daniel Poneman, the Deputy Secretary of Energy, seconded Matthews’ point that more oil and gas in the U.S., and in turn, more independence, is a result of higher production and decreased demand. Production of shale gas began slowly, but it now accounts for about 35% of annual gas production. If trends continue, the US will overtake Russia in 2015 as the largest natural gas producer. Increasing natural gas production in the U.S., Canada, and Australia will globalize the natural gas market, according Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and overseer of the World Energy Outlook. New producers will diversify the market and traditional gas exporters will face lower exports and prices.
At the same time, energy consumption is shifting from the West to the East. By 2035, OECD countries will use only about 30% of total energy production. Ninety percent of oil from the Middle East will go to Asia. This is partially due to rising standards of living in China, India, and the Middle East. About 20% of the global population (1.3 billion people) still have no access to electricity, however. Birol calls this an energy, economic and moral issue. Despite electricity generation growth in India, electricity consumption per capita in 2035 India will equal per capita consumption in 1947 America.
Iraq is another game changer. Right now it is the third largest oil producer. Its production is expected to increase as exploration discovers greater reserves. Iraq will produce 6 million barrels per day in 2020 and 8 million by 2035, noted Maria van der Hoeven, the IEA’s Executive Director. Iraq will account for 45% of growth in global oil production from now until 2035, passing Russia and becoming the second largest oil exporter in the mid 2030’s. By 2035 almost 50% of world oil production will come from OPEC countries. Iraq will be a significant contributor, with much of its oil going to China. Thirty percent of growth in Iraq’s oil exports will come from Chinese-owned oil fields in Iraq.
The prospects for climate change are sobering. Progress has been made on energy efficiency, but energy demand is growing due to many factors, including population increase and movement away from nuclear power in some countries. Fossil fuel subsidies, which Birol calls the greatest threat to climate change, are a serious problem. Fuel subsidies are up 30% to $523 billion in 2011, with the Middle East and North Africa in the lead.
According to Birol, the global goal of a 2 degree Celsius rise in temperature or less will not be met with current policies. For the first time a decline in renewables is expected in 2012. Much of past and future renewable growth is dependent on subsidies. If it were possible to halt building of new infrastructure for the next 20 years, we would still use up 80% of the emissions permitted to keep the global temperature change under 2 degrees Celsius. We are not remotely doing all we can to improve efficiency. Two-thirds of the economically viable potential for improving efficiency is not being used. We have until 2017 to make serious changes, which will likely require a legally binding international agreement. If we don’t make changes by then, there will be no way to keep the planet from warming two degrees Celsius or more. If we become more efficient now, we might have until 2022 to make serious changes. The longer we wait, the more costly changes will be, which will make striking an international agreement harder.
The Outlook forecasts good news on energy production, but still bad news for climate change.
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