Tim Judah, The Balkans slip-slide away

The Balkans slip-slide away

By Tim Judah

10.03.2011 / 04:44 CET

Testing the value of two hoary old clichés about the importance of keeping the European Union engaged in the western Balkans.

Just because something is a cliché does not mean it is not true. A week in which the EU has brought together Serbia and Kosovo in direct talks for the first time in three years is a good time to recall two of the golden oldies about the EU's foreign policy, in particular toward the western Balkans. The first is that if we cannot get things right in our own backyard, how on earth are we supposed to pull our weight anywhere else? The second is that as soon as Balkan countries stop moving forwards in terms of EU integration, they begin to slip backwards.

Let's draw up a balance sheet and start with Macedonia. This year marks the 20th year of its existence as an independent state and the tenth year since the EU helped nip in the bud the conflict with ethnic-Albanian guerrillas.

In 2005, Macedonia became a candidate for EU membership and in 2009 its citizens were allowed to travel without visas to the Schengen zone.

Since 2008, though, Macedonia's EU (and NATO) accession has ground to a halt. The reason is, of course, the unresolved dispute about the country's name. Greece, even in its current enfeebled state, has been able to stop Macedonia's EU accession. The result has not been a Macedonian government doing anything it can to reassure Brussels of its good intentions, but, rather, the opposite.

Greece accuses Macedonia of trying to steal its Hellenic identity, so, in lieu of a gigantic bronze V-sign, the Macedonians are building a massive plinth in the centre of Skopje that they will soon crown with a statue of Alexander the Great.

Bosnia is in crisis, again. But, as Bosnia is almost always said to be in crisis, few bother to report this. On 7 March, the foreign ministers of Slovenia and Bulgaria went to Sarajevo to warn the Bosnians that their future was in jeopardy. Samuel Žbogar, the Slovene, reading from the EU-to-Bosnian phrasebook, said: "Status quo means moving backward, while the region is going forward."

Bosnians have heard this a million times before, but at least the first half of the phrase is right. As, since December, they no longer need visas to travel to the Schengen zone, Bosnians really are back to their old business of not doing what is asked of them by the EU.

Meanwhile, the endless debate about closing the Office of the High Representative, who has powers under the 1995 Dayton peace agreement and whose head is also the EU Special Representative, has entered another year.

As for Kosovo, the EU is taking the lead in overseeing the talks between Serbia and Kosovo and, in theory, those talks could make a real difference to people's lives.

But, in general terms, Serbia is doing this because it wants to advance its EU agenda and wants to appear, in this case, to be a co-operative partner. In the medium term, though, it is relatively happy with the way things are. Serbia keeps its claim to Kosovo, which declared itself independent in 2008, while the EU and others pay for it.

In the meantime, Kosovo's friends can squirm with embarrassment at the allegations levelled at Hashim Thaçi, the prime minister, by Dick Marty, who, in a report for the Council of Europe, called him a mafia boss and said he was linked to people who, again allegedly, murdered Serbs for their organs after the Kosovo war.

In Albania, the latest episode of the political drama pitting Edi Rama, the Socialist leader, against Prime Minister Sali Berisha is now unfolding.

There has been no normal politics in Albania since June 2009, when Rama accused Berisha of stealing the general election. In January, four demonstrators died outside Berisha's office, shot by the Republican Guard. Berisha accuses the Socialists of trying to mount a coup d'état using guns disguised as umbrellas.

Miroslav Lajcák, the managing director for the Balkans for the European External Action Service, has been to Tirana twice to try to broker a deal, but says that Albania's entire EU application process is in deep trouble.

Meanwhile, in Croatia, demonstrations begun by war veterans have spread to other groups, and the European Commission's sharp criticisms of Croatia's accession bid, in a report released on 2 March, will do little to endear the EU to a deeply Eurosceptic population.

In Serbia, which has now begun the countdown to elections, the prospect of membership seems so far off that it is hard to mobilise bureaucrats and officials to do what they are supposed to do.

That leaves just Montenegro, quietly ploughing its own furrow and actually getting on with things.

Milica Delevic, who runs Serbia's EU integration process, sums it up for the Balkans: "We not yet boring countries, but neither are we integrated into the EU."

But neither are they straining in the right direction – and in that case, as the cliché rightly says, they are going backwards.

In the Balkans, the EU cannot be a "retired power", as Ivan Krastev, the Bulgarian commentator, describes it with some justice. Because that second cliché – that if the EU fails in its backyard, how can it pull its weight elsewhere? – now seems to have a twist in the Balkans: if the EU cannot convince the world that it is a serious player, it certainly will not convince its Balkan backyard.

Tim Judah is the Balkans correspondent of The Economist.

http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/the-balkans-slip-slide-away/70498.aspx