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Balkans progress, at risk of slowing

My blogging hiatus since Wednesday morning was not planned.  But I flew Wednesday overnight to Pristina, where I found myself Thursday afternoon and Friday in a conference where the internet connection did not work.  This turned out to be fortunate, as unbeknownst to me the conference was mostly off the record.  My intended live blogging would have violated the rules.  But I’ll try here to convey some of the gist of the public opening as well as the session on “a post-American Europe?,” respecting Chatham House rules.

The Foreign Ministry/European Council on Foreign Relations event aimed to showcase Kosovo’s success and demonstrate that its experience and interests extend well beyond its narrow borders.  My notes on the President’s and Foreign Minister’s presentations–which were on the record–disappeared into the ether,  but they were at pains to underline that Kosovo has completed its period of supervised independence, welcomed the recent visit of Secretary of State Clinton and European Union High Representative Ashton and is now engaged seriously in a political-level dialogue with Belgrade, which was renewed earlier in the week in a meeting between the Serbian and Kosovo prime ministers.

The Europeans and Americans present welcomed these developments, naturally.  No one dissented from the view that Europe and America need to act together in the Balkans.  The hypotheses of a post-American Europe and a post-European America were both roundly denounced.  The EU, because it is not united on issues like recognition of Kosovo and the Macedonia “name” question, cannot handle the Balkans alone.  The U.S. should not expect to be able to turn its attention entirely to Asia. It has an indispensable role in southeast Europe.

The common American and European objective is EU membership for all the Balkan states, and NATO membership for those who want it.  This will require not just dialogue but “normalization” of good neighborly relations between Pristina and Belgrade.  The Ashton/Clinton visit was a symbol of joint understanding and common objectives: integration of the Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic community, support for the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, no change of borders in the Balkans.  There is even reason to hope that the five non-recognizers of Kosovo are rethinking and might change their minds.

Europe is going through a difficult economic patch, but longer-term optimism is justified.  Neither the euro nor EU is going away.  U.S./European trade and investment is gigantic (55% of U.S. foreign investment is in Europe).  The security relationship is vital.  The U.S. is far from forgetting about the Balkans, because it needs them integrated into a stronger Europe that can partner with Washington in other parts of the world.

The 2014 NATO Summit will include enlargement, with Macedonia (if it can get past its problems with Greece) and Montenegro the prime candidates.  Others will join later.  Only Serbia has doubts, but Belgrade may well come on board once it sees all its neighbors in the Alliance.  A Serbian alliance with Russia is not a serious alternative.  The future of the Balkans lies in what it can contribute to resolving global issues, which can best be done through the EU and NATO.

The Macedonia “name” issue, on which Athens and Skopje have recently exchanged notes, will be resolved, but it is not clear when.  Giving Macedonia a date at the EU Summit in December for opening negotiations for EU membership would help.  All Macedonian politicians acknowledge that the issue has to be fully resolved before Skopje’s entry into the EU.  The states in the Balkans need to take more responsibility for solving their own problems.   Otherwise they risk facing not only enlargement fatigue but also Balkans fatigue.

Some would like to see the EU open accession negotiations with all the remaining Balkans non-members of the EU in 1914, marking the 100^th anniversary of World War I.  Others rejected this idea, underlining that the accession process is merit-based and clear criteria have to be met.  The EU is now front-loading rule of law and governance issues (including corruption and organized crime), to avoid the problems it faced after accession of Bulgaria and Romania.

The tedious merit-based EU process  creates a credibility gap:  people in the Balkans are finding the prospect of membership too distant to create meaningful incentives for reform.  The EU needs to find ways of providing intermediate incentives, as well as ways of keeping the U.S. engaged.  Otherwise, the Balkans may slide back into their usual pathologies:  ethnic nationalism, state control of the economy, organized crime and political stagnation.

My advice

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and EU High Representative Katherine Ashton will be in the Balkans together this week. Their common objective is to maintain peace and stability there and to hasten integration of the region into Euro-Atlantic institutions, especially the EU itself.  A visitor Friday suggested I tell them what to say.  Here is what I would advise, though I hasten to add that I have no reason to believe anyone is listening:

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina are a mess.  The European Union is unhappy with Bosnia’s progress towards candidacy for membership.  The country’s proudest cultural institutions are closing shop due to lack of funding. Constitutional reform at the central government level is stalled.  The Americans have launched an apparently open-ended effort to change the Federation constitution, the 51% of Bosnia governed by a Croat/Bosniak entity.  The President of the other entity, Republika Srpska (RS), passes up no opportunity to declare the country is falling apart and is trying hard to make it happen.  The RS’s founder, Radovan Karadzic, is busily denying war crimes in The Hague.

The big threat to Bosnia is the EU itself, which ironically describes the peril this way:

Some political representatives are questioning Bosnia and Herzegovina’s capacity to function as a country and are calling for an Entity-level EU agenda separate from the Bosnia and Herzegovina state.

If Brussels gives into this temptation, Bosnia will break up, with the RS pressing for early entry into the EU as an independent state and the Federation thrust into a struggle that can only end in a breakup into Croat and Muslim mini-states.  There is no two-way partition of Bosnia.  The three-way partition risks leaving an Islamic state with uncertain borders somewhere in central Bosnia, a threat to both its Croat and Serb neighbors.  It is not difficult to picture the Bosniaks of Sandjak seeking to join this Islamic state, thus threatening the territorial integrity of Serbia and requiring Belgrade to act vigorously to protect itself from the threat of losing yet another province.

So the joint message from Clinton and Ashton should be this:  Bosnia and Herzegovina needs to put its own house in order and create a government in Sarajevo that can act authoritatively in implementing the Stabilization and Association Agreement already signed with the EU and in eventually negotiating EU membership. The EU has already said this in its typically opaque terms:

Establishing an effective coordination mechanism between various levels of government for the transposition, implementation and enforcement of EU laws so that the country can speak with one voice on EU matters, remains an issue to be addressed.

Clinton and Ashton should make it clear there will be no partition and no separate EU negotiations with the RS and Federation.  If the current mess continues, Bosnia will be left to stew in its own juices while the rest of the Balkans moves ahead.  Aid will be cut and diplomatic exchanges curtailed.  Those who are most responsible for the mess will find themselves barred from travel to the U.S. and EU and cold-shouldered in European and American visits to Bosnia.

Serbia

Belgrade has a new president and government whose help on Bosnia Ashton and Clinton should seek.  Serbia today understands the risks partition in Bosnia would cause for stability in Sandjak, its own territorial integrity and its own EU prospects.  President Nikolic and Prime Minister Dacic have no brief for RS President Dodik, who was a favorite of the previous administration in Serbia.  Before he manages to compromise the new president as he did former President Tadic, the Americans and Europeans should let it be known they will greatly appreciate Belgrade’s help in strengthening the central state in Bosnia and ending Dodik’s increasingly strident tirades against it.

Kosovo is the other big issue in Belgrade.  Clinton and Ashton need to tell everyone they meet that there will be no partition of Kosovo, something Dacic in particular has sought in the past.  Serbia, as the EU put it recently, has to accept the territorial integrity of Kosovo, whatever its status.  There is no basis in UNSC resolution 1244 or anywhere else for Serbia to hold on to the north, which it still occupies (even if it does not fully control the various enterprises there).  As Chancellor Merkel has made eminently clear, this means dismantling the parallel structures in the north and integrating it with the rest of Kosovo, in accordance with the wide-ranging self-governance provided for in the Ahtisaari plan.  The other issues Dacic has expressed an interest in can and should all be handled in the bilateral dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade.

There is more:  Kosovo will get an armed security force next year, in addition to its police.  The NATO-assisted design of that security force depends on the threats Kosovo faces.  If there continues to be a threat to Kosovo’s territorial integrity from Serbia, the Kosovo security forces will have to be armed and trained to meet that threat, in combination with guarantees and backup from NATO.  If, however, Belgrade establishes a more cooperative and business-like relationship with Pristina and unequivocally accepts Kosovo’s territorial integrity, the reduced threat will require less arming and training, and lower military expenditures in Serbia as well.

Kosovo

The Americans and Europeans have more reason to be satisfied with Pristina at the moment than with Sarajevo or Belgrade.  Despite political resistance inside Kosovo, Prime Minister Thaci met recently with Dacic, at Ashton’s behest and with U.S. encouragement.  The fulfillment of Kosovo’s obligations under the Athisaari peace plan and the consequent end of “supervised independence” in September was an important moment.

But Kosovo is far behind Serbia and other parts of the Balkans in preparing itself for EU membership.  Belgrade’s progress in this direction is likely to slow, at least for the next year or so.  Kosovo can do itself no greater favor than trying hard to catch up.  Clinton and Ashton should say this will require a stronger focus on implementing its mostly EU-compliant legislation and campaigning seriously against corruption and organized crime, as well as fixing its fraud-vulnerable electoral system.  It also requires avoiding all violence against Serbs or other minorities and showing the Kosovo state can maintain order when more nationalist Albanians take to the streets.

Bottom line:  The EU and U.S., when they act together in the Balkans, get what they want.  The trick is to make it clear that there is no daylight between them on the vital issues:  no partition in Bosnia or Kosovo and serious focus in all three capitals on preparing for EU membership, with all that implies in terms of strengthening the central state in Bosnia, Belgrade’s acceptance of Kosovo’s territorial integrity and reintegration of the north, and Kosovo’s effort to make its governance conform to European norms.

The guests who won’t come calling

Today is turning into a Balkans day.  It must have been less than 5 minutes after I posted about the SecState visit to the Balkans with Lady Ashton that I got a note complaining that they weren’t going to Macedonia.  I’d of course be perfectly happy if they did go to Macedonia, but I’m not sure the Macedonians would be delighted.  When the EU and the U.S. come calling, they do it wanting results.

In Belgrade and Pristina, they will be looking for further progress on the bilateral dialogue, which already had a big moment last week with a meeting between the two prime ministers.  A settlement of north Kosovo is presumably in the works, though I doubt it will be full-fledged by the end of the month.  I don’t really know what they can hope for in Sarajevo.  The political situation there is a shambles. They may be content to give a pep talk.

In Skopje, they would necessarily be looking for progress on the “name” issue, which means they would have to go to Greece as well.  I can think of a lot of reasons why they might not want to do that.  In addition, Washington and Brussels have come to believe that Macedonia’s Prime Minister Gruevski is a big part of the problem in the decades-long search for a name (other than Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or FYROM) that Greece will accept.  He seems to think he is better off just leaving things as they are, since everyone except Greeks calls the country Macedonia (even Greek officials don’t object any more).

The big problem for Gruevski and Macedonia is that they have been blocked from entering NATO because of the “name” issue.  This is unjust, as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said clearly and unequivocally last December.  But Athens has convinced Washington not to bulldoze it into accepting FYROM, despite the Interim Accord that obligates Greece to do so.

I imagine that if Gruevski rang up the State Department and told them he is willing to accept a “qualifier” (as in North Macedonia) that he might get a SecState and HiRep visit.  He does not want to do that because Greece is insisting that any solution be used for all purposes, including every time the name of the country is mentioned in its constitution.  I imagine that is at least as difficult for him to swallow as it would be for other prime ministers.

I am notoriously sympathetic with the Macedonians on this question:  I think any country (and people) is entitled to call itself what it wants, as in Estados Unidos Mexicanos.  Also “Americans,” which is a term some of my Latin American and Canadian friends think should be available to them as well as citizens of the United States.  Fat chance they have of stopping us from using it as we like, or we them.

I don’t for a moment believe that Skopje has designs on Greek territory.  Certainly its claims, if it had any, would be no better than those of Mexico on large parts of the United States, and the power relationship between the two countries is similar. Greece needs to get over its fear of Macedonia and unworthy defiance of the ICJ decision.

But none of that is likely to get Skopje a visit from Hillary Clinton and Lady Ashton.

To concert is a virtue

The weekend allowed me to look at a number of interesting reports on the Balkans.  The common thread of the two I cite below is the recognition that the issues still plaguing Albania and Bosnia require concerted regional and international approaches.  It is often difficult to take concerted action, but when we do we tend to get results that are worth the effort.

1.  Antoinette Primatarova and Johanna Deimel, Bridge Over Troubled Waters? The Role of the Internationals in Albania.  Unsparing, they fault the internationals for failing to see the negative implications of 2008 constitutional amendments that ushered in a retrograde period in Albania’s young democracy.  But they see hope in the EU commission’s advocacy of 12 key priorities, now embraced by the Albanian government and opposition and supported by the U.S.

2.  Kurt Bassuener and Bodo Weber, Croatian and Serbian Policy in Bosnia-Herzegovina:  Help or Hindrance?  Equally unsparing of past mistakes that allowed Croatia and Serbia to favor their conationals within Bosnia and thereby undermine the country’s unity, they want to see a more concerted U.S., EU and Turkish effort to turn Zagreb and Belgrade in the direction of supporting the Bosnian state.  I’m not seeing this one posted yet on the Democratization Policy Council’s website, but I’ll come back and install a link when it appears there (and someone tells me so).

I haven’t seen a recent report on the international mistakes in Kosovo and the importance of concerted action there to overcome remaining problems between Belgrade and Pristina, but of course one could be written.  We saw in September the completion of the internationally imposed agenda for the four and a half year period of Kosovo’s “supervised independence.”  Last week, with the meeting between Prime Ministers Thaci and Dacic, we witnessed how effective concerted action by the U.S. and EU can be in pushing the remaining issues to the political level, even if there is good reason to be concerned with the lack of implmentation of earlier “technical” agreements.

Of course none of this figured in this week’s presidential debate, but it is relevant:  collaboration with the EU enables the U.S. to help resolve Balkans problems on the cheap, committing little more than the diplomatic and political weight of its oversized missions in Belgrade, Pristina, Sarajevo and Zagreb plus the occasional phone call from Hillary Clinton or one of her minions.  The EU provides the bulk of the troops, money and “European perspective” required to rescue countries that 20 years ago were basket cases.  Sharing burdens is a lot better than carrying them on our own, especially if our vital interests are not at stake.  Which they are not in the Balkans.

After I’d written the text above, the State Department announced yesterday that Lady Ashton, the European Union’s High Representative (foreign minister, more or less) and Hillary Clinton will travel together to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo October 29-November 1.  This is very much the right approach.  If they can concert their messages as well as their travel plans, there is nothing really important in the Balkans that can’t be solved.  That includes the political mess in Bosnia as well as the difficult relations between Belgrade and Pristina.