Tag: Balkans
Belgrade and Pristina need to work together
Radio Free Europe tells me the Kosovo municipal election went badly today in the north: voting materials were destroyed at three polling stations, turnout was low and intimidation was high, with one Serb candidate attacked yesterday. The observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) withdrew and polls closed early.
This is too bad, even if unsurprising. Assignment of responsibility for what went wrong will have to await investigations of what happened, but it is clear enough that both Belgrade and Pristina have a problem. The organized criminal groups in northern Kosovo, supported by nationalist hardliners and elements in the Serbian security services, are able to defy both Belgrade’s desire to see smooth implementation of the EU-brokered April agreement as well as Pristina’s desire to see its institutions recognized as the only legitimate ones in the northern part of the country. Read more
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The quickest way out of the Balkans
It doesn’t rank high in the annals of Balkan history, but the apparent Greek suggestion that Macedonia be renamed “Slavo-Albanian Macedonia” is certainly one of the more offensive and revealing maneuvers of recent times. Greeks know that Macedonians don’t like to be characterized as Slavs, even though their language is a Slavic one. It’s a bit like the term “redskins”: offensive despite the veneer of descriptiveness.
The proposal is also calculated to cause trouble between Macedonians and Albanians, the two most populous ethnic groups in the country. Never mind the other minorities the country counts among its citizens, including Turks, Roma, Serbs and Vlachs. They won’t be pleased either. There is a reason the French call a fruit salad une macédoine.
The Greek suggestion is calculated to irritate Skopje, but it ought also to annoy the international community, which has been hoping for two decades that Macedonia and Greece would come to a compromise solution on the “name” issue. Greece has simply confirmed what should have been obvious: there will be no solution based on the free will of Athens and Skopje. Greek Prime Minister Samaras has wanted the collapse of his northern neighbor. Better to increase the chances of that than solve the problem. Conversely, Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski sees no possibility of a negotiated solution better than the one he already has: the entire world calls Macedonia Macedonia, except for Greece. He is not blameless in the failure to reach a negotiated solution. Read more
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Tomorrow’s Kosovo elections
| Milan Marinkovic writes from Nis, about Sunday’s municipal elections in Kosovo:Given the importance of the forthcoming local elections in Kosovo for the ongoing normalization between Kosovo and Serbia and, consequently, both countries’ European perspective, it is clear that Brussels, Priština and Belgrade all want the process to succeed. One measure of success will be voter turnout, which all sides hope to be as high as possible. Another measure relates to whether the elections will pass in a peaceful atmosphere.
As for voter turnout, politicians can do their best to encourage people to vote, but cannot force them to do so. Everyone has their own right to decide for themselves whether or not to cast a ballot. In the case of those who will eventually boycott the vote, the key question is how many of them will abstain because they really don’t want to participate in the election (regardless of anyone’s personal reasons), and how many due to fear of Serb extremists like those seen in the Youtube video below. The latter concern logically raises the question of what kind of and how large security presence will be needed to avoid any possible incident during the elections and thus keep the voters safe. Read more |
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My morning mail from Belgrade
My morning mail brought this from the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies in Belgrade, in reference to the upcoming municipal elections in Kosovo, including for the first time under Pristina authority in the north:
CEAS POLICY BRIEF
YOUR FACE SOUNDS FAMILIAR
REGARDING THE USE OF PUBLIC PROPERTY IN THE “CLEANSING” OF NORTHERN KOSOVO OF ELECTION MATERIAL, AND SOME OTHER SECURITY CHALLENGES AND THREATS TO THE UPCOMING LOCAL ELECTIONS IN KOSOVO
CENTER FOR EURO – ATLANTIC STUDIES, NOVEMBER 2013.
The Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies (CEAS) calls upon Serbian officials to pay attention and state their position on the use of public property in the action of “cleansing Northern Kosovo” from election materials for the upcoming local elections in Kosovo, which has been carried out on October 28, 2013 by “self-organized citizens”, as stated in the video available now for a couple of days already on the internet channel YouTube:
In the video, among other, the use of cranes for trimming trees and repairing traffic lights is obvious, both of which are hardly private property. The speed and professionalism in which individuals in the video are painting over the election materials with spray paint is also worrying. Read more
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When will Macedonia enter the EU?
I of course have no idea, but I did this interview for the Macedonian daily Vecer, which published it yesterday. Maybe it sheds some light on the question, if not the answer:
Q. After the European Council did not adopt the Commission’s recommendation to begin negotiations with Macedonia last year, you recommended that “the bicycle must move, so as not to fall,” warning that the enlargement process may be terminated if it is slow. Again, Macedonia, for the fifth time had a recommendation for starting accession negotiations with the EU. Do you expect that the Council in December will finally accept it and will grant Macedonia a date?
A. No, not unless there is a solution of the “name” problem. Greece seems determined to continue to block a date without that. But the High Level Accession Dialogue (HLAD) seems to be providing an alternate route that can take Macedonia a long way forward in the process. That’s a good thing.
Q. Your position that Macedonia should begin negotiations under the interim reference from 1995 is well known, a solution that is acceptable for Macedonia, inoffensive for Greece and Bulgaria and supported by the Hague verdict, but Athens does not comply. Is it possible that Athens and Sofia change something in their perceptions before December and accept this solution as a compromise? Read more
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Counting counts
Valerie Perry, chief of party of the Public International Law and Policy Group, writes from Sarajevo:
Following a delay of several years and much heated debate, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) conducted a long overdue census 1 – 15 October 2013, the first in 22 years. This census is of crucial to both BiH and the international community, as many of the Dayton-era power-sharing arrangements between the three constituent peoples (Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs) are based on the 1991 census. The new census results will reflect the significant demographic changes caused by wartime ethnic cleansing and displacement. Given the continuing downward spiral of BiH’s current political dynamic, there should be little doubt that census results will be extremely controversial.
On 3 February 2012, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) Parliamentary Assembly adopted a law for a census to be conducted in April 2013. The delay in adopting the law meant that BiH did not hold a census in 2011, the year that all European Union (EU) member states (as well as other former Yugoslav countries) held theirs. Additional political haggling delayed the census from April to October 2013.
Even though the process of knocking on doors has finished and many are already exhausted from the politicization of the process, the census is far from over. The aggregation, analysis, and most importantly, the use of the data will remain open questions during 2014 – a general election year. This brief, published by the Democratization Policy Council, provides an overview of the key issues surrounding the census in BiH and identifies a number of potential policy and political implications that will continue to both shape and reflect the politics of numbers.
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