Tag: European Union
The EU needs a unified polity
The European Union unquestionably deserves the Nobel Prize for its past accomplishments. To cite just a few: peace between France and Germany, post-World War II European economic development and prosperity (no it wasn’t all due to the Marshall Plan), absorbing a reunified Germany and what used to be called eastern Europe into the European architecture, most of the staffing of peacekeeping operations in the Balkans (and many other parts of the world) in the 1990s and 2000s (and most of the aid money)…
The question is whether the much-expanded EU of 27 countries can do for the next generation what it has done for the last two. While I count myself a euro-enthusiast, I doubt it. Without a decisive move towards greater political unity, the EU is hamstrung. And the politics in many European countries–from Germany to Greece–militates against greater unity.
The EU’s current problems arise essentially from its inability to make quick and wise decisions. There is a dramatic contrast between European slowness in responding to the euro’s problems and the American reaction to its 2008 financial crisis. Consensus at 27 is difficult to achieve, even in the best of circumstances. When the decisions involve redistributing big economic and financial burdens, politics in the member states will rarely align.
Europe has created a unified economic space, but it lacks a unified political space. As we happen to be enjoying an American presidential campaign, it should be clear what this means. Even with the archaic electoral college process, which bends the campaign into a focus on the relatively few “battle ground” states, it is clear that Romney and Obama are conducting campaigns that try to appeal throughout the country. Europe is essentially stuck with a political system resembling the one we had under the Articles of Confederation, but its economic system is continent-wide. There are no European officials elected in constituencies that extend beyond the national borders of the member states.
This matters to Americans, because Europe is one of our biggest markets (as we are to Europe), a giant source of investment (also as we are to them), an educational and cultural partner of the first order, and still our most important military alliance, even if EU military capabilities have naturally atrophied with the continental peace its members now enjoy. Slow American economic growth today is due in part to Europe’s current financial crisis and its economic consequences. The NATO mission in Afghanistan relies in part on European contributions, as did the NATO-led effort against Muammar Qaddafi.
I am about to go off to moderate a talk by the Macedonian defense minister, Fatmir Besimi. His troops guard NATO headquarters in Kabul, even though Greece has blocked his country’s membership in the Alliance. That, too, is an example of Europe’s continuing political division and how it hampers a stronger, more effective European Union.
I can offer no solution. The Europeans will have to find it for themselves, as they have often in the past. It is not going to be easy. America did it by writing a new constitution behind closed doors in Philadelphia. That won’t work in the Twitter age. I hope this Nobel Prize, ironically awarded by a committee in Norway (which has declined EU membership), will inspire Europeans to unify their political space.
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I agree with Dačić
If anyone still doubted Belgrade’s continuing determination to partition Kosovo, Prime Minister Dačić’s horrified reaction to mention of Kosovo’s territorial integrity in a European Union report on enlargement should remove all doubt. The EU made an almost banal remark:
Addressing the problems in northern Kosovo, while respecting the territorial integrity of Kosovo and the particular needs of the local population, will be an essential element of this process.
Dačić responded:
I am fairly upset with this statement, since it could close the Belgrade-Priština dialogue, instead of helping (re)start it. Perhaps it would have been more honest to ask Serbia to recognize Kosovo than to recognize (its) state integrity.
He’s right: the EU is insisting on Serbian acknowledgement of Kosovo’s territorial integrity, which is a step towards recognition of Kosovo as a sovereign state. Dačić and President Nikolić have been trying to duck this issue for months. They have been hoping against hope that the EU will not state bluntly what Belgrade has been told repeatedly by Germany, Sweden, the UK and other EU members: the boundary between Kosovo and Serbia will not be moved to accommodate ethnic differences. Serbia will have to recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity before it can hope to enter the EU. Belgrade has taken what comfort it could from the notion that the EU itself has never before said it.
Now the EU has. That should not be surprising: UN Security Council resolution 1244, which ended the NATO/Yugoslavia war, is absolutely clear in referring to Kosovo as a single, undivided entity from which all Yugoslav (now Serbian) security forces were to be removed. That never happened, hence the current struggle over north Kosovo, where Serbia still rules in clear violation of the UN Security Council resolution to which Belgrade constantly appeals in its claim to sovereignty over (you guessed it) all of undivided Kosovo.
For those who will object that borders have been changed in other parts of the Balkans, let me preempt: the status of the republic borders of former Yugoslavia (and of the federal unit known as Kosovo) has been changed from internal boundary to international border, but the lines have not been moved to accommodate ethnic differences.
For others who may think Cyprus represents a model the EU might want to follow (allowing Serbian accession with a territorial dispute unresolved), forget about it. No one in the EU wants to repeat that mistake.
I agree with Dačić. There is really no point in reopening the dialogue with Pristina, much less at a political level, unless Serbia is prepared to commit itself to cooperating on the reintegration of the north with the rest of Kosovo. This is the sine qua non of the talks. Without it, the EU should be prepared to wait to give Serbia a date for opening negotiations on accession. Anything softer than that risks destabilizing Macedonia, Bosnia and, by the way, Cyprus.
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The brighter side
Kosovo’s Minister for Economic Development, Besim Beqaj, stopped by last week to talk at SAIS. I was too busy with Yom Kippur and a wife’s illness to write him up quickly, but I doubt any of what he said is yet out of date. So here is my summary, with apologies for anything I’ve gotten wrong (the numbers are particularly difficult to keep track of–I’ll print corrections if you send them to me):
Kosovo found itself at the end of the NATO/Yugoslavia war in 1999 with a devastated economy and two big challenges: post-war reconstruction and transition from badly broken socialism to a free economy. Beqaj himself started his career as a teacher in the parallel education sytem, which undertook the schooling of Kosovo’s Albanians during the 1990s outside the official Belgrade-sponsored system. At the end of the war, 120,000 houses were damaged out of a housing stock of 400,000. Ninety-five per cent of the refugees and displaced people returned quickly, within two months.
Kosovo needed a state. Today it has one that declared independence in 2008 and substantially completed the implementation of Ahtisaari’s Comprehensive Peace Settlement proposal this year. Governance is decentralized, minority protection is enshrined in law, and 91 other states have recognized Kosovo, which is already a member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and will soon be a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Kosovo’s breach last year of its IMF agreement has proven temporary. Within eight months it was back under an IMF program and will stay there.
The state-building process is not yet complete. The long pole in the tent is rule of law. Kosovo has asked for the EU rule of law mission (EULEX) to stay for two more years. Education needs a major upgrade. Unemployment is high, especially among the young.
Still, Kosovo has enjoyed high growth rates (estimated at 4.4% in 2012), 40% of its budget is devoted to capital investments in infrastructure, GDP has grown to 2700 euros/year, debt is under 7% of GDP and foreign direct investment last year amounted to 400 million euros. The road to Durres in Albania is a major improvement. The next infrastructure priority is the road to Skopje, which will start construction soon (I was relieved to hear that!).The Central European Free Trade Agreement provides access to a market of 25 million, in addition to trade agreements with both Europe and the United States.
The National Council for Economic Development has set five goals:
1. Maintaining fiscal stability (legislation limits government debt to 40% of GDP);
2. Improving the environment for investment by reducing red tape and empowering the private sector;
3. Privatizing state enterprises, with priority going to telecommunications (a competition is now in process), the energy sector and mining (much improved airport operations are already in private hands);
4. Revitalizing agriculture and food processing;
5. Developing human capital, including civic education.
All legislation implementing these and other priorities must be aligned with European Union requirements. Ninety per cent of Kosovo citizens would approve a referendum in favor of EU membership.
Kosovo still faces serious difficulties. The Serbian campaign against diplomatic recognition has hurt the state’s prospects and its ability to provide for practical things like “green card” insurance coverage for people who want to travel outside Kosovo by car. Smuggling into Kosovo and back into Serbia) on small roads in the north is costly to both Pristina and Belgrade. As much as $200 million euros in electric bills remain unpaid by Serbs living in the north, which remains a major issue.
It was left to me to ask the obvious question: what about corruption? The Minister replied that the perception is worse than the reality. He pointed to UNDP/USAID polling that suggests only 8% of the population has personal experience of corruption. Eighty-two per cent of the population knows of corruption only through the media or through talking with friends and relatives.
Alas, that same polling shows low levels of satisfaction (among both Serbs and Albanians) with the government, which gets most of the blame for the still difficult economic situation. Besim Beqaj and his colleagues still have a tough road ahead.
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The Federation revisited
As some readers will know, I was known during the Bosnian war as Gospodin Federacije, because I was in charge of U.S. support to the Federation that had ended the 1992-4 Bosniak/Croat war and was supposed to govern on territory controlled by the Bosnian Republic Army and the Croat Defense Force. So when the Bosnian version of the Croatian daily Večernji list asked some questions (mildly edited here for English grammar and spelling), I replied:
1. How would you describe current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) having in mind that there’s no stable coalition on the state or entity level and everyone is trying to remove the other party from power?
DPS: I’d describe as you have: no stable coalition at the state or entity level and everyone trying to get rid of everyone else. That’s called politics in a sharply divided polity. At least it’s peaceful.
2. How much is BiH important to US and is it a major focus right now, and how would you coment on a more powerful engagement in this country?
DPS: Bosnia is way down the list of U.S. priorities today. I don’t think you can expect a more powerful U.S. engagement, unless things get really bad. Even then I’m not certain.
3. Is it time to shut down and relocate Office of the High Representative outside BiH and strengthen the role of Mr. Peter Sorensen and the European Union Special Representative in BiH?
DPS: I don’t see much purpose in relocating the OHR and it is clearly premature to shut him down. Peter Sorensen’s role is quite distinct from the OHR’s. And it has a narrower constituency.
4. A lot of Croat and Serb politicians reproach that U.S. administration for letting Turkey have broader political infulence in the BiH. Do You consider that approach productive or harmful?
DPS: I think Turkey has played a very positive role in many ways in the Balkans: peacekeeping, investment, trade, even politics. It is their backyard and they have every reason to try to make sure it evolves in a peaceful and European direction.
5. Many European diplomats to whom I’ve spoken consider that the Dayton experiment has shown its limits and weaknesses. Some of them told me as a matter of fact it’s failure. Would you like to take comment on that? Is it time for radical change?
DPS: European mouths are sometimes more active than their brains. I’d like to see their plan for radical change before commenting on it.
6. The Dayton political system gave key powers to three constituent national groups: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Key Croatian and Serb politicians consider that the imposition of national representatives in the previous two election cycles have caused the most serious crisis in this country. How is it possible to establish a system that would guarantee equal rights to all constituent national groups and from the other hand citizens having in mind also verdict in case Sejdic – Finci?
DPS: My view is that equal rights should be established on an individual basis and protected by the rule of law, not by group rights protected by thuggish political leaders. I don’t think there should be any ethnic criteria for the presidency of a country of which I am a citizen. But the perspective among many Bosnians is different, and I respect that.
7. How do you comment demands of the Croats in Bosnia, who are the most vulnerable ethnic group in Bosnia, for restructuring of the country in order to have equal rights with two other people. There’s always mentioning of the third entity!?
DPS: The Croats got a very good deal at Dayton: half the Federation and one-third of the state. That’s because they then held a stranglehold on the Federation and Croatia’s military power was vital. Now the military balance is irrelevant, Croatia is entering the European Union and therefore no longer a major factor inside Bosnia, and there are far fewer Croats in Bosnia than at the time of Dayton. Why would they get a better deal now than in 1995? If I were a nationalist Croat, I’d be cautious about reopening an agreement that was highly favorable to Croat nationalists.
8. Do you consider that development in Catalonia would have impact on BiH, maybe some new Dodik initiative?
DPS: No. Whatever happens in Catalonia, it is not based on the ethnic cleansing of more than half the population on its territory.
9. The US administration is lobbying for constitutional changes in the Federation of BiH. They have in mind to change the internal organization of the Federation. What is your view on this initiative?
DPS: I don’t understand it well enough to comment, but see my response to 7 above.
10. What would Croatian accession to the EU mean for BiH and the region?
DPS: I hope it will be inspiration to BiH, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Kosovo to get their act together, as Croatia did, and meet the criteria for membership. At the same time, it may disrupt some trading and travel patterns and create some stresses in the rest of the Balkans. The important thing is to recognize that all of the Balkans should soon be members, but only if they make the necessary reforms.
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The unlikely parade
According to Serbia’s constitution, all citizens have the right to a peaceful demonstration. Homosexuals appear to be exempt from the rule. Even though LGBT activists announced several months in advance their plan to stage the Gay Pride events, including the parade, September 30-October 7. Serbian prime and interior minister Ivica Dačić recently stressed that the demonstration could be banned if the police assess the security risks as too high. Dačić added that he basically supports human rights of all people, including homosexuals, but is not going to risk the lives and safety of his policemen and potential participants of the parade.
Last year the Pride Parade was banned at the eleventh hour. The official explanation was that far right extremists were planning terrorist actions. No further information has been released since, nor has anyone been arrested in connection with these allegations. Organizers now fear the government will use the security risks as an excuse to ban Pride once again.
The issue is weightier than a few demonstrators in Belgrade. Now a candidate for EU membership, Serbia is hoping to get a date to start accession talks, which brings with it substantial financing. U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Phillip Reeker was among the first foreign diplomats to state public support to the Pride organizers. Several EU officials – including Jelko Kacin, the European parliament rapporteur for Serbia – have confirmed their attendance. While this year’s Gay Pride may not be crucial for Serbia’s further progress toward EU membership – at least not to the extent that improvement in relations with Kosovo is – the Europeans will certainly take it into account when deliberating on whether the country merits the date.
The first attempt by LGBT organizations to hold the parade was in 2001. The event ended in chaos, with participants brutally battered by football hooligans and militant ultranationalists. The organizers accused the police of deliberately failing to protect them. Scenes from television reports suggest they may well have been right.
Frightened of violence, LGBT activists were not even thinking of organizing the parade again until 2009, but the government eventually decided to disallow it. The decision has been declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court only recently, which gives the LGBT community some hope that this year the tide might be turned.
In 2010, hundreds of Serbian lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transexuals were finally allowed to occupy a strictly enclosed area of the capital for about an hour, completely surrounded by cordons of police. Whether the demonstration was a success is debatable however. While the participants suffered no attack during the rally thanks to the immense security presence, the rest of the town saw a series of clashes between hooligans and riot police, who were ordered to show as much restraint toward rioters as possible. Belgrade was trashed. Of about 200 injured, a large majority were policemen. The government was believed to have allowed the demonstration only to improve its chances of getting EU candidate status.
Serbia is a conservative society and people generally oppose the gay parade. Although most of them disapprove violence against the LGBT population, they also believe that homosexuals should not express their sexual identity in public places. Homophobia is mainly present among younger generations. Teenagers are the most violent members of extreme nationalist and football hooligan groups.
In addition to the issue of human rights in general and gay rights in particular, the government’s hesitancy raises the question of Serbia’s institutional capability to guarantee its citizens an elementary level of safety. There is a widespread belief that the militant far right groups consist entirely of “kids” from the margins of society who use violence merely as a way to express frustration. While that may be true for some of the low-level operatives, the bulk of their leaders – especially of football hooligan groups – are well situated individuals with criminal records that involve serious offenses such as armed robberies, drug trade, extortion, murder attempts and so on.
Despite their criminal activities, most of these extremists have rarely, if ever, been brought to justice. The support they enjoy from the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), which is the most popular and influential institution in the country, helps them gain legitimacy among ordinary people and portray themselves as the “ultimate guardians of the Serb Orthodoxy and heroic tradition.” Outgoing Russian ambassador Aleksandr Konuzin – who is almost as popular here as SPC – was photographed with members of far right groups on several occasions, including his visit to the Serbs from northern Kosovo.
Militant ultranationalists were most privileged during the prime ministry of former conservative nationalist prime minister Vojislav Koštunica of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), which ended in 2008 after an attack on the U.S. embassy building in Belgrade amid riots against Kosovo’s declaration of independence. The order for security forces to withdraw could not have been issued except by a top police or government official, but even four years later it still remains a mystery who was in command that day.
Several other cases have also clearly illustrated the strength of Serbian far right militants. During the 2010 gay parade, they demonstrated not only surprisingly high organizational capabilities, but also considerable knowledge of guerrilla tactics in their battle with police. Last year evidence appeared in some media of young Serbs attending Russian camps to learn military skills. Perhaps the most notable example was a few years ago, when leaders of a football hooligan group managed to wiretap police communications prior to a derby match and thus learn about police plans to prevent them from fighting with rival fans.
The overal number of militant extremists in Serbia is estimated to be between ten and fifteen thousand. Most, if not all, of them are well known to the police and intelligence agencies. Professor Zoran Dragišić, a prominent security expert, has asserted that it would have taken the Gendarmerie no more than seventeen minutes to arrest the vast majority of violent militants. So far there has been no indication of political will to order such a nationwide police operation. It’s high time.
PS from Daniel Serwer 2 October: Milan is not the only Serbian citizen who sees possible cancellation of the parade as reflecting badly on the security services.
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The closer
We hear a lot more about international intervention missions opening than we do about their closing. This is not as it should be. While some of them are conceived as holding operations without clear end-states, most these days are intended to achieve something. Then they should close.
Four and a half years after Kosovo declared independence, Pieter Feith stopped by Washington to report on what his International Civilian Office (ICO), which closed last week, achieved in implementing the Comprehensive Peace Settlement (Athisaari plan) and consider what still needs to be done. This is Pieter’s second closing: he also implemented an Ahtisaari plan for Acheh in Indonesia, closing the European Union mission there in 2006.
To make a long story short, the Albanians accepted the Ahtisaari plan for Kosovo independence but the Serbs rejected it. The Kosovars declared independence anyway, in coordination with supporters like the United States and most of the European Union, as well as its immediate neighbors. That support was conditional on implementing the Ahtissari plan, under the supervision of the ICO.
The result is a state with its critical institutions in place: not only a constitution with ample protection for minorities as well as a parliament and executive with guaranteed minority representation, but also a constitutional court that has taken some courageous decisions, a privatization agency, a property claims commission, judicial and prosecutorial councils, a Serbian-speaking radio and television channel, a Kosovo Security Force about to be declared fully operational by NATO, ample decentralization, five new majority Serb municipalities (with Serb mayors and police chiefs). The border with Macedonia, long a source of friction, has been demarcated. Those who say, and some do, that Kosovo hasn’t made any progress are talking nonsense.
Kosovo now has a single legal framework. The Ahtisaari plan is history. All the provisions that could be implemented by Pristina acting alone have been passed in parliament. But there are some things that are beyond Pristina’s reach, most notably control of the northern bit of Kosovo, which is still in Serb hands (though whose is sometimes uncertain). The best Pristina has been able to do so far is establish a municipal administrative office for the north that is providing services (business permits, drivers’ licenses) as well as initiating infrastructure and other projects. Going farther will require developing a strong consensus among the political parties in Kosovo on a common platform for the north.
The division of the north from the rest of Kosovo cannot be allowed to continue, creating a new and interminable “frozen conflict” and possibly opening a Pandora’s box of destabilization (of Macedonia and Bosnia in particular). Pristina needs to reach out to the north, with help from the EU, KFOR (the NATO force that still has 5-6000 soldiers in place) and EULEX. Decentralization will be part of the solution, as it has been in the rest of Kosovo. The health and education sectors have to continue to have close relations with Belgrade, but these should be made transparent. The EU, in particular the Germans, will insist on progress in the north as a condition for proceeding towards Serbian and Kosovar membership.
The EU, guided by the Stabilization and Association process and eventually by the accession process, will now be the main international engine in Kosovo, emphasizing rule of law (its EULEX mission at its peak had 2000 employees), transitional justice and reconciliation. This last is of particular importance and requires a grassroots effort that is regional in scope. REKOM, Natasa Kandic’s project, merited particular mention. The EU will also be strong on regional integration of transportation and energy systems. There will be no grand EU Marshall plan or other “leap of imagination” in Kosovo.
The American role is still strong. It will need to gradually diminish, allowing the Kosovo institutions to take on more responsibility. The EU will be the main monitor of implementation in Kosovo, as it prepares for the visa waiver, a Stabilization and Association agreement and eventual membership.
On lessons learned, Feith offered a savvy few:
1. Missions need to focus on exit strategy from the beginning (“achieve and leave” was the motto in Kosovo). Providing support is good, local ownership is better.
2. Combined European and American support for ICO gave it leverage.
3. Lack of UN Security Council approval and Belgrade agreement to the Ahtisaari plan was a serious hindrance, but not an insurmountable one.
4. Partly to avoid the implication that Kosovo was not fully sovereign, the ICO never used its “corrective” powers to veto legislation or fire officials (though it did appoint officials). This was useful for gaining local ownership.
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