In the course of the 1990s, the violent disintegration of the former Yugoslavia was one important catalyst for the European Union’s determination finally to become a serious political actor in international affairs and to take onto itself the task to create a “Europe whole and free”. Developments in the Western Balkans displayed the exact opposite of everything which Europe aspired to: nationalism instead of Europeanism, violence instead of peace and intolerance instead of mutual comprehension and cooperation. This is why the region has not only posed a security problem to Europe, but has challenged the European project at its core.
Twelve years after the Dayton accords terminated the Bosnian civil war, the records are mixed. Genocide and war were halted in Bosnia and Kosovo, while ethnic war was prevented from occurring in Macedonia. Among the former members of the Yugoslav Federation, one has already become a member of the European Union (Slovenia), while another is well on its way towards accession (Croatia). On the other side of the balance sheet, ethnicity, with its heavy baggage of mutual mistrust and power-politics, has remained the dominant policy factor in most countries of the region. Political and economic reforms are stagnating in many parts, especially in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
2007 and 2008 may turn out to be decisive years for the region. In December 2007, the international community and the parties involved are due to find a solution to the unresolved question of Kosovo’s future international status. As of today, the positions of Serbia and the Kosovo Albanians are irreconcilable. The Albanian government in Pristina seems to be heading towards a unilateral declaration of independence even without Serbian agreement—an outcome which could ignite further bitterness in Belgrade and split the European Union. The looming decision over Kosovo also has already contributed to rising tensions in Bosnia. In 2008, the international Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe—since 1998 the central coordination forum for the EU’s engagement in the Balkans—is due to transfer its competences and activities to a new body under regional ownership. Whether or not this process will be successful will also depend on the developments in Bosnia and Kosovo.
To what extent has the Western Balkans begun to move beyond the “Dayton Agenda”, which has focused on coexistence along ethnic lines, towards the “European Agenda” of cooperation and integration across ethnic lines? While the former agenda has mainly rested on external pressure, the latter will depend on support and dedication from the regional actors themselves.
Unfortunately, the Dayton agenda is far from being accomplished: ethnic conflict and precarious state institutions in this region continue to pose serious risks which need to be dealt with. Even though the EU has increasingly focused on global political and security problems—such as terrorism and the spread of deadly weapons—the true challenge remains in Europe itself. While the Union does not lack in ambition to become a unique security actor through its ability to integrate civilian, economic and military tools in crisis management and post-conflict reconstruction, the reality has displayed a considerable gap between those ambitions and real capabilities. Still, the EU has narrowed this gap, not least by learning from experience on the ground in Bosnia, developing pragmatic ad hoc solutions and institutional innovations at the operational level, rather than by grand institutional design.
A difficult balance must be struck, between a renewed and robust engagement in the Western Balkans and the need to make reform efforts locally self-supporting. In the end, it is the people of the region themselves who hold the key to their future.
Marco Overhaus is Research Associate and Project Manager at the Chair for International Relations and Foreign Policy at the University of Trier.
This article is an excerpt from the latest issue of Foreign Policy in Dialogue, a publication of http://www.deutsche-aussenpolitik.de at the University of Trier.
Related Materials from the Atlantic Community:
- Antonio Cassese advocates a Confederation for Kosovo
- Nikolas Gvosdev asks Will Kosovo End the Transatlantic Honeymoon?
- Ulf Gartzke on Kosovo: The Next Transatlantic Clash?
- Lack of EU Solidarity Jeopardizes Kosovo Independence
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November 26, 2007
Jeppe Plenge Trautner, Aalborg University / College of Europe, Bronze Contributor (14)
What is rarely brought into the analysis is that the key historical event was neither NATO’s 1999 Air War over Kosovo, nor Yugoslavia’s formal ending of Kosovo’s near-autonomy ten years before that, but the 1989 ethnic cleansing of practically all Kosovars from Kosovo’s public sector. Milosevic actually expelled the majority population from nearly all jobs in the public sector and the state-controlled economy. This scheme, which in its intellectual, political and moral foundation (although certainly not in its almost non-lethal practise) mirrored that applied to the ‘Ostraum’ by the Third Reich, and was implemented without any Serbs of significance rising in defence of their Kosovar “compatriots”. In fact most Serbs applauded. Serbia thus lost all moral justification for and all prospects of ever again ruling Kosovo. The Kosovars understood that, and spent the 1990s building up their own parallel political, health, education, legal and military structures. When post-Dayton Europe ‘forgot’ them they forced the 1999 confrontation. The Serbs then managed to expel roughly 80% of the Kosovars and to burn 60% of the housing in rural Kosovo, all while confiscating the identity cards and land ownership documents from the refugees to make the non-owning non-persons before Belgrade caved in.
Some Europeans seemingly believe that the total rewriting of Kosovo’s recent history and the erasing of the minds of all Kosovars is possible. The American foreign policy elite, more comfortable with pre- post-modern concepts such as ‘country’ and ‘freedom’, do not. So the U.S. supports Kosovo’s independence as it is the only possible policy (NATO doing ‘a Chechnya’ to subdue the Kosovars is not an option), while some hapless Europeans tries to convince Serbia that, really, it doesn’t matter, and Russia that UNSC Resolution 1244, which gave Russia a veto on Europe’s Balkan policies, is worth the paper it is written on.
Perhaps we are now witnessing another ‘US cooks and Europe does the dishes’-event: Kosovo declares its independence, which the U.S. promptly recognises while Europe, scraping, bowing and hand-wringing, apologises to Serbia and the Russians while the EU supports the transition of Kosovo into a proper Balkan state. All will be pleased: The Kosovars with finally owning their land and being able to invest at home. The Serbs with being able to do politics focused on Serbia and Serbs and not on that ... province populated by … . Russia with Europe owing a big favour. The U.S. with getting its forces out of Kosovo. And the EU with, once again, being able to let the U.S. shoulder the tough decisions and the blame, and to do good without wielding power.