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A fruitless approach that will continue

• It is a great pleasure to be able to participate in this launch of the New Lines Western Balkans Observatory. I am an admirer of New Lines, which has brought fresh thinking to Washington, especially but not only on Middle East issues.
• I hope to see the same devotion to new perspectives, deep analysis, and trenchant critiques from the Balkans New Lines.
• However I am an old Balkans hand. I fear I will not live up to my own expectations.
• I see in the Balkans today more of the same ethnic nationalist ambitions that haunted the region in the 1990s. The homicidal will and capacity have declined.
• But the effort to channel politics towards enabling autocrats to exploit the region’s ethnic polarization is all too familiar.

Belgrade’s ambitions

• The most ambitious effort of this sort is headquartered in Belgrade. Backed by the Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian security services allied with Russia, Alexandar Vucic is aiming to make himself an elected autocrat and the godfather of Serbs throughout the region.
• In Bosnia and Herzegovina, he does this by seeking full control of Milorad Dodik, who is struggling to maintain his autonomy. But Dodik needs Serbia’s financial and ideological backing.
• In Montenegro, Vucic does it through recently victorious and willing electoral proxies. These include both President Milatovic and Prime Minister-designate Spajic.

In Kosovo, Vucic’s focus is on the north

• I have been asked to focus on Kosovo. There Belgrade has continued to control the Serbs of the four municipalities north of the Ibar since the end of the war in 1999.
• Belgrade decides their cooperation and noncooperation with Pristina. North Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Zvecan and Leposavic have little say.
• The refusal to accept Kosovo license plates, the boycott of the last municipal elections, the rioting against non-Serb mayors, the attack on NATO soldiers, the kidnapping of Kosovo police in the north, and the refusal to guarantee participation in new elections have all been decided in Belgrade.
• The message is that Serbia will not allow the Serbs of the north to be governed within Kosovo’s constitutional framework unless they get—through the Association for Serb Majority Municipalities—virtual autonomy that removes them from that framework.

Russia likes it, but what about the EU and US?

• Either way, Pristina loses, de facto or de jure.
• It is clear why Russia would want this. Ethnic partition of Kosovo offers a precedent that could be useful for Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
• It also undermines a Western achievement, the state-building project in Kosovo.
• Despite its many imperfections, Kosovo is the most successful of the democratic enterprises in the Balkans since 1995, and perhaps worldwide.
• It is less clear why the EU and US are backing this ethnonationalist ambition for separate governance in Kosovo.
• Of course, Brussels and Washington deny they support ethnic partition.

The facts belie the denials

• But have you heard a peep out of them about return of the Albanians and other non-Serbs to North Mitrovica, which was plurality but not majority Serb before 1999?
• Have they insisted Belgrade offer the same accommodations to Albanians in southern Serbia that they want for Belgrade in northern Kosovo?
• The Americans write op/eds about guaranteeing that the Association will not be allowed to become a second Republika Srpska. But are they prepared to commit the U.S. government in writing to precisely what that means?
• They cite arrangements similar to the Association that exist within the EU. But all those arrangements are between states that recognize each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
• So why shouldn’t Serbia and the five non-recognizing EU states recognize Kosovo first, before creation of the Association ?

The EU is understandable

• The position of Brussels is, I fear, all too understandable.
• It is in the hands of a High Representative who has never been willing to see Kosovo recognized or enter the UN.
• With the UK gone, Germany distracted, Hungary and Croatia backing him, and five non-recognizers, Borell feels he has adequate support from the member states.
• I expect better of Miroslav Lajcak, who played a key role in the independence of Montenegro.
• However, he also promised when he first became Slovak Foreign Minister that Bratislava would recognize Kosovo. But he failed to deliver.

Washington is more mysterious

• The position of Washington is more mysterious. It seems to derive in part from people who have spent too much time listening to Serbs moaning about how the United States is unkind to Serbia.
• Some diplomats believe all Belgrade wants is a better deal for Serbs in the neighboring countries.
• It also reflects the ambition for a “Europe whole and free,” with Serbia in the West. With no evidence at all, American diplomats are claiming that Belgrade has embraced the West, even as it increases alignment with Moscow and Beijing.
• I have little doubt that whatever Serbian ammunition ends up in Ukraine more goes to Russia.
• Vucic’s summertime visit to President Zelensky aimed not to support Ukraine but to prevent Kyiv recognition of Kosovo.

The result is Kosovo isolation

• Kosovo is more isolated than ever. That is a problem.
• However much you oppose Serbia’s ethnonationalist ambitions, Pristina has lost traction with Brussels and Washington.
• It gets no credit, even when putting forward at last week’s dialogue with Belgrade a step in the direction of forming the Association. Albeit in accordance with Kosovo’s own requirements.
• I confess I do not know how to solve this problem. I thought the August letter from the American and European legislators urging a rebalancing of EU and US policy toward more evenhandedness was correct.
• But so long as current personnel are in place, I expect the biased, counterproductive, and wrong policies to continue.

Reset is needed

• The Biden Administration needs a policy reevaluation and reset. But that would require courage and tenacity. Someone would have to tell the Secretary of State that current policy is not working.
• That someone would also need to develop a new, more even-handed, and more effective approach.
• I am not expecting that kind of courage and tenacity in the leadup to a national election.
• I would however argue it could garner more Bosnian and Albanian votes in 2024 than it would lose among Serbs and Croats.

Ukraine is the best hope

• The best hope for the moment is Ukraine’s victory. That would end Russian territorial ambitions, take the wind out of ethnonationalist sails worldwide, and give Bosnia, Montenegro, and Kosovo a leg up in contesting Serbia’s regional ambitions.
• But Ukrainian victory is not imminent.
• I conclude, sadly: we are going to have to continue to put up with a fruitless approach to the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

In a very open UN speech, BiH Presidency Chairman Komšić lambasts the ongoing attemts by Serbia & Croatia to interfere w/ Bosnia’s internal affairs as well as the support they receive from Western powers for their malign agenda.

A remarkable defense of the country’s sovereignty. pic.twitter.com/bxXzdxkoWD

— Jakub Bielamowicz (@KubaBielamowicz) September 20, 2023

Failure is definitely an option

Things are coming apart in the Balkans, where a sometimes uneasy peace has prevailed for more than two decades. War in the 1990s mode is unlikely. No one can sustain a conflict like the one in Bosnia, which lasted more than three years. Nor would the NATO-led forces in Kosovo tolerate a full-scale Serbian invasion of its entire territory. But instability, armed clashes, ethnic strife, and dysfunction are more than possible. They are likely. US and EU policies and practices are not helping.

Dodik threatens Bosnia and Herzegovina with secession

Milorad Dodik is back as president of the Serb-majority entity (Republika Srpska, or RS) that governs on 49% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has continued to salami-slice his way towards independence, de facto if not de jure. Recent moves include two notable ones. The RS Assembly has passed legislation that purports to invalidate the jurisdiction of Bosnia’s judicial system. In addition, Dodik himself has declared that the international community High Representative, responsible for the Dayton peace agreement, will be arrested if he enters RS territory. Both moves violate both the spirit and letter of the Dayton agreements. But apart from declaring the former invalid the HiRep, Washington, and Brussels have done nothing to counter them.

Dodik has also built up the police forces of the RS, obtained ample armaments and financing from Russia, and successfully enlisted Hungary to block any EU sanctions Brussels might propose. Washington has sanctioned him both for his challenges to Dayton and for blatant corrupt practices. But the lack of a unified Western response invites further salami slices. So too does Dodik’s warming relationship with Belgrade, which is seeking a “Serbian world” that incorporates the Serb populations of neighboring countries.

Vucic threatens part of Kosovo

That is an even more serious threat in Kosovo. Serbia already controls four Serb-majority municipalities north of the Ibar River contiguous with the border Belgrade calls a “boundary.” With encouragement from Belgrade, the Serbs there have abandoned the Kosovo institutions, boycotted recent elections, and rioted against installation of the non-Serb mayors who were consequently elected. Serbia has kidnapped Kosovo police from Kosovo territory, mobilized its army along the border/boundary, intimidated Serbs into leaving the Kosovo Security Force, threatened North Macedonia and Montenegro for having recognized Kosovo, and rejected agreements reached with Pristina that the US and EU claim are legally binding. The Americans and Europeans have responded only with mild verbal reprimands.

That has not been true for Pristina, which has incurred “consequences” for its insistence on installing the non-Serb mayors in their offices and deploying paramilitary police in response to disorder. While northern Kosovo has calmed since the spring, US and EU diplomats are still insisting on their own demands for withdrawal of Kosovo police from Kosovo’s sovereign territory. Meanwhile, Serbian President Vucic has been busy trying to prevent Ukraine from recognizing Kosovo independence, in clear violation of the agreement the Europeans and Americans say is binding.

Vucic also threatens the whole of Montenegro

The situation is even less salubrious in NATO member Montenegro. It lacks a fully empowered government following June elections. The President wants Russophilic political parties in the government. The Prime Minister-designate does not, but he also resists bringing in the former ruling party, the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS). The result will either be a government with a thin majority in parliament or new elections. In any new election, Serbia will pull out all the stops to support the Russophiles, who are also pro-Serbian.

The obvious solution would be a coalition between the Europe Now! winners of the June election and DPS, which is also pro-European. But Belgrade will exert enormous pressure on the President and Prime Minister-designate to prevent such a combination. Serbia sees the possibility of regaining de facto, if not de jure, control of all of Montenegro. That would eliminate a potential rival for EU membership. It would also render Montenegro’s NATO membership a practical dead letter. Podgorica would continue to be a member, but serve Russian interests.

Blind to the obvious

The sources of threats in the Balkans to peace, stability, and progress towards the EU are clear. They lie in Banja Luka and Belgrade. Moscow supports both. But Brussels and Washington remain blind to the obvious. They are still trying to bend Bosnia, Kosovo, and Montenegro in directions the majority does not want to go. Failure is an option. Now is the time to re-assess and correct course. Democracy and rule of law require it.