Black cloud over
the Balkans
Published 06 December 2007
The status of Kosovo was supposed to be the last obstacle to
solving the problems of the Balkans. Failure would affect the entire region.
Most people in the Balkans have seen the Kosovo train wreck coming for the
past two years. But now that it is upon us, apart from some dark warnings, few
have been able to spell out what the failure of talks on Kosovo's final status
actually means.
The international significance of a debacle that reflects poorly on all
participants is, by contrast, very clear: Russia and the United States have
combined to humiliate the European Union. "They are clearly trying to
undermine the EU - of that there is no doubt," a senior Brussels official
told me recently.
For several months, both Russia and the US have in effect supported the
maximalist demands of their chosen proxies in the Balkans: Serbia and Kosovo.
This neutered the most recent negotiations of the US-EU-Russia troika, which
were a last-ditch attempt to hammer out a compromise between Belgrade and
Pristina. Serbia knew Russia would block Kosovo's independence in the United
Nations, while Kosovo was secure in American support for a unilateral
declaration of independence. Neither side had any incentive to compromise, and
the EU was exposed again as incapable of managing a political crisis in its own
backyard, while its taxpayers will be compelled to clear up the resulting mess.
Over the past decade, Brussels has channelled incalculable diplomatic and
financial resources into the Balkans (far more money than either Washington or
Moscow). The reasoning behind this expenditure is eminently sensible: as a
consequence of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s and the troubled transition from
communism, the entire region has suffered from stunted development. This has
enabled corrupt economic interests, chiefly from within the Balkans, but also
from the EU and Russia, to turn the region into a playground for
asset-grabbing, money laundering and other criminal activities.
By offering the inducement of huge infrastructural and financial support,
the EU has persuaded the new leaderships in the Balkans to embark on
far-reaching economic and political reforms. The EU's commitment has already
had a stunning transformational impact on its two Balkan members, Romania and
Bulgaria, not to mention Slovenia, the former Yugoslav republic that is now
almost indistinguishable in character from Austria.
But the Kosovo crisis is casting a big black cloud over the hope that the
remaining former Yugoslav territories would follow Slovenia's smooth passage
into the EU. Croatia is likely to slip in before the door shuts. But the
constitutional mess of Kosovo and Serbia may well keep that door closed,
probably temporarily but perhaps for many years, as the crisis reverberates in
Bosnia and Macedonia, and less directly in Montenegro and Albania.
So what happens now? In the long term, the question keeping EU officials
awake at night concerns Serbia's membership of the EU. The enlargement
commission and several key European foreign ministries have believed for some
time that Serbia's admission is crucial for long-term stabilisation of the
region, given its situation at the geographical heart of the Balkans.
Nonetheless, the major EU member states feel they have no choice but to
follow Washington in recognising the UDI that Pristina is preparing. But most
of them are doing so reluctantly - they know that, privately, UN officials in
Kosovo predict that some 50,000 Serbs living south of the Ibar River will head
to northern Mitrovica, the Serb enclave in Kosovo bordering on Serbia that is
in effect governed from Belgrade; and that the recognition of an indep endent
Kosovo will also result in the territory's de facto partition.
The sight of impoverished peasants throwing their worldly belongings on to
the back of carts and trucks will make for an unedifying spectacle to accompany
independence. But, though all sides in this dispute have long understood that
partition would be a consequence of almost any solution, diplomatic cowardice
has ensured that nobody has been prepared to articulate this clearly in public.
So the independent state will be divided, with Belgrade retaining absolute
control in the northern enclave.
Inelegant though a divided Kosovo might be, both sides can probably live
with it. The epicentres of potential political earthquakes lie elsewhere. Zone
one is Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the rule of a series of omnipotent European
high representatives has disguised the profound weakness of the state fashioned
in Dayton, Ohio. At stake is the very viability of Bosnia.
The most depressing symbol of the Bosnian Federation, which joins Catholic
Croats and Muslim Bosniaks, is Mostar, the capital of Herzegovina. After 12
years, the two communities on either side of the Neretva River have nothing in
common except a high school that Croat children attend in the morning and
Bosniaks in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the Serbian entity in the east and north,
Republika Srpska, reacts with open hostility to attempts by the current EU
Special Representative, the Slovak Miroslav Lajcák, to centralise in
anticipation of transferring more power to the government in Sarajevo. Serbia's
prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, is encouraging this intransigence as well
as contributing to the outbreak of Putin-mania in both Serbia and Republika
Srpska. The dour face of the Russian president stares down from kiosks
throughout the two territories as the presumed new saviour of Serbia's
interests.
The Bosnian state will feel the strain of Kosovan independence as Serbia,
backed by Russia, toys with demanding the same rights of secession for
Republika Srpska as the west has granted Kosovo.
What neither Kostunica nor other Serbs care to mention too often is how
Russia was the main international sponsor of another "betrayal" of Serbian
interests - the recent independence of Montenegro. Renamed Moscow-on-Sea by
local wits, Montenegro has invited Russian oligarchs to replace cigarette
smuggling as the profoundly corrupt state's main source of income. According to
the Podgorica weekly magazine Monitor, Oleg Deripaska, Russia's
aluminium king, now owns 40 per cent of the new country's indust rial capacity.
But apart from becoming the new money-laundering paradise of the Balkans,
Montenegro presents fewer potential problems than southern Serbia and
Macedonia. Here we must wait to see whether Kosovo's independence further
discombobulates the fragile relationships between large Albanian minorities and
the Slav majorities. Despite being an EU candidate member, Macedonia is coming
under renewed pressure from Greece in the ludicrous dispute about the former
country's official name. The argument may be arcane, but with Greece
administering a veto on Macedonia's progress towards European and Nato
integration, the implications are very serious.
And in Kosovo itself? The great headache is the economy - under UN and EU
administration, the province has experienced a precipitous decline in GDP and
frightening levels of un employment. This is a dismal record that underlines
the hopeless inadequacy of the west's post-intervention policies. The territory
is now thoroughly criminalised as a consequence, and it is hard to see how
independence will change this in the short term.
Two to three years ago, the EU was on the way to solving the fundamental
problems of the Balkans. Kosovo's status was the final, albeit very complex,
obstacle to circumnavigate. The collective failure to do so has cast the region
back into uncharted, choppy waters, where lie several concealed rocks.
3 comments from
readers
David
Edenden
06 December 2007
Dear Misha Glenny:
Along with Noel Malcolm and Human Rights Watch, you
are one of the very few people who have written about the sorry plight of
ethnic Macedonians in Greece (an EU and Nato member) struggling for human
rights.
There is a basic flaw in your argument that
"Russia and the United States have combined to humiliate the European
Union".
The EU is part of the problem in the Balkans, not
part of the solution. Greece and Bulgaria have conducted a slow motion cultural
genocide against their respective ethnic Macedonian minorities, Greece's values
regarding minority rights are EU values. Bulgaria was recently admitted to the
EU and Nato, notwithstanding their denial of minority rights to ethnic
Macedonians.
Any Serb in Kosovo who trusts the EU or Nato to
protect their rights is insane! They only have to look to Greece and Bulgaria
to see their future!
The best way to demonstrate EU commitment to
minority rights in the Balkans is to suspend Greece and Bulgaria from the EU
for one year and force them to re-apply using their treatment of ethnic
Macedonians as a criteria for membership.
Anything less is just smoke and mirrors!
"Despite being an EU candidate member,
Macedonia is coming under renewed pressure from Greece in the ludicrous dispute
about the former country's official name. The argument may be arcane, but with
Greece administering a veto on Macedonia's progress towards European and Nato
integration, the implications are very serious."
David Edenden
The Macedonian Tendency
http://the-macedonian-tendency.blogspot.com/
David
Edenden
06 December 2007
Dear Misha Glenny,
When discussing the positions that states take in international
affairs, we often forget that these positions of "national interest"
are the result of the interests of particular politicians, not of "state
interests".
If you want to make a splash in the US presidential
debate, you may want to discuss Barack Obama's pandering to the Greek lobby
regarding the Macedonian name issue. My suggestion is to contact Slate or
Salon.
Obama's proposed Bill (HR 356) in the House of
Representatives denounces the Republic of Macedonia for "irredentism"
for simply demanding that Greece grant basic minority rights to its ethnic
Macedonian minority. Obama ignores the rights of ethnic Macedonian for a few
pieces of sliver to his campaign.
Greece does admit to a "slavophone"
minority that speaks an "idiom" but does not have a language, history
or culture, you know … a bunch of "N….. Words".
Therefore the title of your piece may be:
"Barack Obama to Ethnic Macedonians: Drop
Dead!"
"Barack Obama to ethnic Macedonians: You are a
bunch of "N-Words"
"Barack Obama supports Greek Racism!"
Misha, if you want more information about the
impact on Macedonia about independence for Kosovo, don't be a stranger!
David Edenden
The Macedonian Tendency
http://the-macedonian-tendency.blogspot.com/
writeon
06 December 2007
I miss Misha Glenny. He used to be a regular on the
Today Programme and Radio 4, and I used to think after listening to his
analysis, he's too good, he won't last. What I mean by this is, he seemed to
have a real grasp of the complexities of the Balkans and the dangers and
possible consequences of Great Power interference in the region.
This was at a time when our political leaders
seemed bent on a policy of "simplifictaion" and taking sides, in of
all places, the Balkans! Every time I heard Misha Glenny his knowlegde and
analytical abilities seemed to put to shame and undermine the increasingly
emotional response of our politicians to the Balkan crisis.
If we recognise an independent and breakaway
Kosova, won't we in practice be re-drawing the borders of Serbia against the
will of the majority of Serbs? And without the support of the United Nations?
What about the issue of Serbian sovereignty in this matter? Surely they have
the right to oppose the forced re-drawing of their borders by foreign powers?
It seems that, looked at from a neutral
perspective, it's only Western powers and their clients that have the right to
re-define borders and create new states, if anyone else tries it they are in
Big Trouble. It almost appears like we think that we own the world, what we do
is right, we make mistakes, but we're fundamentally benign, and our national
interests the only interests that are legitimate, and natural; everyone else is
merely being "nationalistic", old-fashioned, unrealistic, and
selfish.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200712060031
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