Tag: European Union
My advice
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU High Representative Katherine Ashton will be in the Balkans together this week. Their common objective is to maintain peace and stability there and to hasten integration of the region into Euro-Atlantic institutions, especially the EU itself. A visitor Friday suggested I tell them what to say. Here is what I would advise, though I hasten to add that I have no reason to believe anyone is listening:
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina are a mess. The European Union is unhappy with Bosnia’s progress towards candidacy for membership. The country’s proudest cultural institutions are closing shop due to lack of funding. Constitutional reform at the central government level is stalled. The Americans have launched an apparently open-ended effort to change the Federation constitution, the 51% of Bosnia governed by a Croat/Bosniak entity. The President of the other entity, Republika Srpska (RS), passes up no opportunity to declare the country is falling apart and is trying hard to make it happen. The RS’s founder, Radovan Karadzic, is busily denying war crimes in The Hague.
The big threat to Bosnia is the EU itself, which ironically describes the peril this way:
Some political representatives are questioning Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capacity to function as a country and are calling for an Entity-level EU agenda separate from the Bosnia and Herzegovina state.
If Brussels gives into this temptation, Bosnia will break up, with the RS pressing for early entry into the EU as an independent state and the Federation thrust into a struggle that can only end in a breakup into Croat and Muslim mini-states. There is no two-way partition of Bosnia. The three-way partition risks leaving an Islamic state with uncertain borders somewhere in central Bosnia, a threat to both its Croat and Serb neighbors. It is not difficult to picture the Bosniaks of Sandjak seeking to join this Islamic state, thus threatening the territorial integrity of Serbia and requiring Belgrade to act vigorously to protect itself from the threat of losing yet another province.
So the joint message from Clinton and Ashton should be this: Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to put its own house in order and create a government in Sarajevo that can act authoritatively in implementing the Stabilization and Association Agreement already signed with the EU and in eventually negotiating EU membership. The EU has already said this in its typically opaque terms:
Establishing an effective coordination mechanism between various levels of government for the transposition, implementation and enforcement of EU laws so that the country can speak with one voice on EU matters, remains an issue to be addressed.
Clinton and Ashton should make it clear there will be no partition and no separate EU negotiations with the RS and Federation. If the current mess continues, Bosnia will be left to stew in its own juices while the rest of the Balkans moves ahead. Aid will be cut and diplomatic exchanges curtailed. Those who are most responsible for the mess will find themselves barred from travel to the U.S. and EU and cold-shouldered in European and American visits to Bosnia.
Serbia
Belgrade has a new president and government whose help on Bosnia Ashton and Clinton should seek. Serbia today understands the risks partition in Bosnia would cause for stability in Sandjak, its own territorial integrity and its own EU prospects. President Nikolic and Prime Minister Dacic have no brief for RS President Dodik, who was a favorite of the previous administration in Serbia. Before he manages to compromise the new president as he did former President Tadic, the Americans and Europeans should let it be known they will greatly appreciate Belgrade’s help in strengthening the central state in Bosnia and ending Dodik’s increasingly strident tirades against it.
Kosovo is the other big issue in Belgrade. Clinton and Ashton need to tell everyone they meet that there will be no partition of Kosovo, something Dacic in particular has sought in the past. Serbia, as the EU put it recently, has to accept the territorial integrity of Kosovo, whatever its status. There is no basis in UNSC resolution 1244 or anywhere else for Serbia to hold on to the north, which it still occupies (even if it does not fully control the various enterprises there). As Chancellor Merkel has made eminently clear, this means dismantling the parallel structures in the north and integrating it with the rest of Kosovo, in accordance with the wide-ranging self-governance provided for in the Ahtisaari plan. The other issues Dacic has expressed an interest in can and should all be handled in the bilateral dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade.
There is more: Kosovo will get an armed security force next year, in addition to its police. The NATO-assisted design of that security force depends on the threats Kosovo faces. If there continues to be a threat to Kosovo’s territorial integrity from Serbia, the Kosovo security forces will have to be armed and trained to meet that threat, in combination with guarantees and backup from NATO. If, however, Belgrade establishes a more cooperative and business-like relationship with Pristina and unequivocally accepts Kosovo’s territorial integrity, the reduced threat will require less arming and training, and lower military expenditures in Serbia as well.
Kosovo
The Americans and Europeans have more reason to be satisfied with Pristina at the moment than with Sarajevo or Belgrade. Despite political resistance inside Kosovo, Prime Minister Thaci met recently with Dacic, at Ashton’s behest and with U.S. encouragement. The fulfillment of Kosovo’s obligations under the Athisaari peace plan and the consequent end of “supervised independence” in September was an important moment.
But Kosovo is far behind Serbia and other parts of the Balkans in preparing itself for EU membership. Belgrade’s progress in this direction is likely to slow, at least for the next year or so. Kosovo can do itself no greater favor than trying hard to catch up. Clinton and Ashton should say this will require a stronger focus on implementing its mostly EU-compliant legislation and campaigning seriously against corruption and organized crime, as well as fixing its fraud-vulnerable electoral system. It also requires avoiding all violence against Serbs or other minorities and showing the Kosovo state can maintain order when more nationalist Albanians take to the streets.
Bottom line: The EU and U.S., when they act together in the Balkans, get what they want. The trick is to make it clear that there is no daylight between them on the vital issues: no partition in Bosnia or Kosovo and serious focus in all three capitals on preparing for EU membership, with all that implies in terms of strengthening the central state in Bosnia, Belgrade’s acceptance of Kosovo’s territorial integrity and reintegration of the north, and Kosovo’s effort to make its governance conform to European norms.
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The guests who won’t come calling
Today is turning into a Balkans day. It must have been less than 5 minutes after I posted about the SecState visit to the Balkans with Lady Ashton that I got a note complaining that they weren’t going to Macedonia. I’d of course be perfectly happy if they did go to Macedonia, but I’m not sure the Macedonians would be delighted. When the EU and the U.S. come calling, they do it wanting results.
In Belgrade and Pristina, they will be looking for further progress on the bilateral dialogue, which already had a big moment last week with a meeting between the two prime ministers. A settlement of north Kosovo is presumably in the works, though I doubt it will be full-fledged by the end of the month. I don’t really know what they can hope for in Sarajevo. The political situation there is a shambles. They may be content to give a pep talk.
In Skopje, they would necessarily be looking for progress on the “name” issue, which means they would have to go to Greece as well. I can think of a lot of reasons why they might not want to do that. In addition, Washington and Brussels have come to believe that Macedonia’s Prime Minister Gruevski is a big part of the problem in the decades-long search for a name (other than Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM) that Greece will accept. He seems to think he is better off just leaving things as they are, since everyone except Greeks calls the country Macedonia (even Greek officials don’t object any more).
The big problem for Gruevski and Macedonia is that they have been blocked from entering NATO because of the “name” issue. This is unjust, as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said clearly and unequivocally last December. But Athens has convinced Washington not to bulldoze it into accepting FYROM, despite the Interim Accord that obligates Greece to do so.
I imagine that if Gruevski rang up the State Department and told them he is willing to accept a “qualifier” (as in North Macedonia) that he might get a SecState and HiRep visit. He does not want to do that because Greece is insisting that any solution be used for all purposes, including every time the name of the country is mentioned in its constitution. I imagine that is at least as difficult for him to swallow as it would be for other prime ministers.
I am notoriously sympathetic with the Macedonians on this question: I think any country (and people) is entitled to call itself what it wants, as in Estados Unidos Mexicanos. Also “Americans,” which is a term some of my Latin American and Canadian friends think should be available to them as well as citizens of the United States. Fat chance they have of stopping us from using it as we like, or we them.
I don’t for a moment believe that Skopje has designs on Greek territory. Certainly its claims, if it had any, would be no better than those of Mexico on large parts of the United States, and the power relationship between the two countries is similar. Greece needs to get over its fear of Macedonia and unworthy defiance of the ICJ decision.
But none of that is likely to get Skopje a visit from Hillary Clinton and Lady Ashton.
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To concert is a virtue
The weekend allowed me to look at a number of interesting reports on the Balkans. The common thread of the two I cite below is the recognition that the issues still plaguing Albania and Bosnia require concerted regional and international approaches. It is often difficult to take concerted action, but when we do we tend to get results that are worth the effort.
1. Antoinette Primatarova and Johanna Deimel, Bridge Over Troubled Waters? The Role of the Internationals in Albania. Unsparing, they fault the internationals for failing to see the negative implications of 2008 constitutional amendments that ushered in a retrograde period in Albania’s young democracy. But they see hope in the EU commission’s advocacy of 12 key priorities, now embraced by the Albanian government and opposition and supported by the U.S.
2. Kurt Bassuener and Bodo Weber, Croatian and Serbian Policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Help or Hindrance? Equally unsparing of past mistakes that allowed Croatia and Serbia to favor their conationals within Bosnia and thereby undermine the country’s unity, they want to see a more concerted U.S., EU and Turkish effort to turn Zagreb and Belgrade in the direction of supporting the Bosnian state. I’m not seeing this one posted yet on the Democratization Policy Council’s website, but I’ll come back and install a link when it appears there (and someone tells me so).
I haven’t seen a recent report on the international mistakes in Kosovo and the importance of concerted action there to overcome remaining problems between Belgrade and Pristina, but of course one could be written. We saw in September the completion of the internationally imposed agenda for the four and a half year period of Kosovo’s “supervised independence.” Last week, with the meeting between Prime Ministers Thaci and Dacic, we witnessed how effective concerted action by the U.S. and EU can be in pushing the remaining issues to the political level, even if there is good reason to be concerned with the lack of implmentation of earlier “technical” agreements.
Of course none of this figured in this week’s presidential debate, but it is relevant: collaboration with the EU enables the U.S. to help resolve Balkans problems on the cheap, committing little more than the diplomatic and political weight of its oversized missions in Belgrade, Pristina, Sarajevo and Zagreb plus the occasional phone call from Hillary Clinton or one of her minions. The EU provides the bulk of the troops, money and “European perspective” required to rescue countries that 20 years ago were basket cases. Sharing burdens is a lot better than carrying them on our own, especially if our vital interests are not at stake. Which they are not in the Balkans.
After I’d written the text above, the State Department announced yesterday that Lady Ashton, the European Union’s High Representative (foreign minister, more or less) and Hillary Clinton will travel together to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo October 29-November 1. This is very much the right approach. If they can concert their messages as well as their travel plans, there is nothing really important in the Balkans that can’t be solved. That includes the political mess in Bosnia as well as the difficult relations between Belgrade and Pristina.
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Good news
It wasn’t just excess wonkiness that made me tweet about the World Bank’s “Doing Business” report website. It was this tidbit I found there: Kosovo jumped up 28 places in the rankings (from 126 to 98). Big improvements were in protecting investors, starting a business and dealing with construction permits. Serbia also saw a jump of 9 places in the rankings (from 95 to 86), with most of the improvement in starting a business and resolving insolvency.
I did my own unscientific survey last summer of a few entrepreneurs I met at a barbecue in Pristina. They all reported that it was easy to open a business and to operate one without serious problems. That’s better than I can say for my experience in DC.
This, to me, is very good news. It takes concerted effort to jump ahead the way Kosovo and Serbia have done. It also gets harder as you move up the rankings, for obvious reasons. I won’t be surprised if progress is uneven. The important thing is that both continue in the right direction.
Why is this important? Above all because it is the opening and growth of small businesses that will create stronger economies throughout the Balkans and raise the standard of living. Both Serbia and Kosovo have seen strong growth in recent years, but both appear to be slowing now due to the financial crisis plaguing all of Europe. Kosovo uses the euro as its currency, which in my way of thinking is a big plus since it eliminates monetary policy issues that are difficult to manage. But as a result, it cannot devalue to improve its trade position, as Serbia can.
The improvement in business climate is also an important indication that governance is improving. I’ll hope to see those improvements reflected in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index in the future. Neither Kosovo nor Serbia can be proud of their most recent (2010/11) scores there. In the long run, it is the willingness, or not, of Serbia and Kosovo to adopt the needed reforms to improve business conditions and governance that will determine whether and when they are ready to enter the European Union.
Of course there are other factors, not least the willingness of Belgrade and Pristina to normalize their relations and resolve the many outstanding issues between them. The meeting last week of the two prime ministers was a step in the right direction. Later, Serbian Prime Minister Dačić said that the issues to be discussed with Pristina
include missing persons, rights of the Serbs in northern and southern Kosovo, protection of the cultural and church heritage and property and privatization
This looks to me a good deal like former President Tadić’s four points. from early this year, which represented an effort to greatly reduce Serbia’s “asks” of Kosovo.
The big missing item is partition, which Dačić will more than likely raise again in due course. He is deeply invested in the idea. Neither Dačić nor Tadić has been prepared to put recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as establishment of diplomatic relations on the table. Those things will come at the end of the process, not at the beginning, but come they must. The EU and U.S. will need to provide the leverage required to make Serbia swallow pills Belgrade has made much more bitter by its diehard resistance.
In the meanwhile, let’s celebrate what there is to celebrate: two countries that are moving, however haltingly, in the right direction. I wish I could say as much for my other friends in the Balkans, in particular Bosnia.
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A step in the right direction
So Dačić and Thaçi have met in Lady Ashton’s office in Brussels. The world has barely noticed. That’s the good news. While their domestic oppositions may criticize the two prime ministers (of Serbia and Kosovo, respectively) for “giving in” to each other, no one else thinks this meeting is really a big deal. They may not have shaken hands, but they have taken a quiet step towards normalizing relations.
That is what the European Union has rightly insisted on. Ashton deserves credit for pulling this meeting off, so far as I know as a surprise. I find myself in comfortable agreement with my professor colleagues Ognjen Pribićević and Predrag Simić, former Serbian ambassadors in Berlin and Paris respectively. The meeting is important symbolically and will reduce the tension between Belgrade and Brussels. There is still a long road ahead, at the end of which Serbia will have to choose between the EU and Kosovo. This is a first step in the right direction.
The question is whether there is more in than that. I suspect so. The EU has made it clear in recent days that Serbia cannot expect to hold on to part of Kosovo. Dačić has implicitly, if not explicitly, accepted this EU condition in meeting with Thaçi, whose commitment to Kosovo’s territorial integrity is not to be doubted. President Nikolić and Aleksander Vučić, defense and deputy prime minister, must be enjoying putting their coalition partner Dačić out front on an issue that has little upside in Serbian politics.
What did Thaçi give? Implicitly if not explicitly he has I trust agreed to discuss north Kosovo with Belgrade. This is very much the right thing to do. There can be no resolution of the situation there without cooperation from Belgrade in the reintegration process, which will have to be carefully planned and implemented. But there are those in Pristina who prefer to use north Kosovo has a bludgeon rather than get it resolved, so Thaçi will no doubt get some flak for moving ahead.
I trust Washington contributed something to this effort, if only encouraging Thaçi. I suspect it may also have had a hand in the strange high-profile visit of Clint Williamson to Belgrade earlier this week. He is the American the EU has named to lead an investigation of crimes against Serbs, including alleged involvement of Thaçi. That enabled the Belgrade’s political leaders to pose as protectors of the Serbs just before the meeting with Thaçi.
Kosovo and Serbia still have a long way to go. It is my hope that they can develop the habit of helping each other get over the bumps in the road. That will require a lot more effort from both Brussels and Washington, both of which should be gratified to see that their tough stance on partition has bent Belgrade in the right direction.
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A bird’s eye view of north Kosovo
A well-informed, well-situated birdie offers the following picture of what is going on in northern Kosovo and its broader implications. None of it is surprising, and none of it is confirmed by hard evidence, but worth pondering nevertheless. Solutions are going to have to take current circumstances into account:
The main reason why most ordinary Serbs in northern Kosovo are refusing to integrate into Pristina’s political system and institutions is not that they fear local kingpins but because they also benefit from smuggling even if they are not criminals themselves. Almost everyone there has at least one relative – in either their immediate or broader families – who is involved in smuggling business, and almost all Serb families are interconnected in one way or another. Profits from smuggling are so huge that gang bosses are able to bribe a large number of people into turning a blind eye to organized crime. In other words, even if you are not directly engaged in illegal business, you can benefit indirectly from it. The result is that most people have virtually no job but are nevertheless able to provide for themselves thanks to these high profits from smuggling. Therefore, they see no interest in changing a situation favorable to themselves, in spite of all the anarchy that exists in the area.
The Serbian gendarmerie troops deployed across areas bordering Kosovo are ordered to prevent only the illegal transfers of commodities from Kosovo into Serbia but not from Serbia into Kosovo.
Belgrade finds it difficult to dismantle the parallel institutions in northern Kosovo because a number of high-level Serbian politicians from nearly all relevant political parties and consecutive governments (including the incumbent one) were in earlier periods involved in smuggling and other criminal activities related to Kosovo by providing political protection to prominent criminals and getting in return a share of the profits. This enables criminals and their accomplices from unreformed parts of security-intelligence apparatus to blackmail these politicians with compromising material. So, even if they were willing to comply with demands from Brussels – and especially Berlin – to dismantle the parallel Serb structures, their hands are virtually tied.
Of particular interest is that this account puts the emphasis on things Brussels should worry about: the selective porousness of the boundary between Pristina’s control and Belgrade’s, the pervasive influence of organized crime and the compromised situation of Belgrade’s national leadership.
Some of my readers will object that this concerns only the Serbian side of the equation. They are correct. I don’t have the same kind of inside view of the Albanian side, though I will be glad to publish it if someone reliable provides it. I have no doubt but that there are beneficiaries south of the Ibar river that separates the areas of Belgrade and Pristina control.
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