Tag: European Union
Goat rope
I arrived in Pristina yesterday and have enjoyed two days of intense conversations about Kosovo’s international relations, which are enormously complex for a country of less than 1.8 million inhabitants.
Let’s review the bidding. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, after almost nine years of UN administration following the 1999 NATO/Yugoslavia war. Serbia, of which Kosovo was at one time a province, did not concur in independence and has not recognized the Kosovo state’s sovereignty. But 90 other countries have, including the United States and 22 of the 27 members of the European Union (EU) and 24 of 28 members of NATO. Russia has blocked approval of UN membership in the Security Council, at the behest of Serbia. An International Civilian Office (ICO) will supervise Kosovo’s independence until September, when it plans to certify that the Kosovo government has fulfilled its responsibilities under the international community “Ahtisaari plan” (the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement). That was intended to be the agreement under which Kosovo became independent but was implemented unilaterally (under international community pressure) by the Kosovo government when Serbia refused to play ball. Belgrade and Pristina talk, but almost exclusively in an EU-facilitated and US-supported dialogue limited to resolution of technical, not political, issues.
Even after the ICO closes, Kosovo will be under intense international scrutiny (for a fuller account, see the Kosovar Center for Security studies report). NATO provides a safe and secure environment and is training its security forces for their enhanced roles after the July 2013. An EU rule of law mission monitors Kosovo’s courts and provides international investigators, prosecutors and judges for interethnic cases. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) provides training and advice on democratization, human and minority rights. The Council of Europe (CoE) administers programs on cultural and archaelogical heritage, social security co-ordination and cybercrime. The UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) continues despite its inconsistency with both the Ahtisaari plan and the declaration of independence, which at Serbia’s behest the International Court of Justice has advised was not in violation of international law or UN Security Council resolution 1244 (which established UNMIK).
Kosovo’s many complications get even worse north of the Ibar river, in the 11% of the country’s territory contiguous with Serbia that is still not under Pristina’s control. It may not really be under Belgrade’s control either, but that makes the situation there even more difficult. Partition of that northern bit, which Belgrade authorities have pursued, would likely precipitate ethnic partitions in other parts of the Balkans: Macedonia, Bosnia and Cyprus would all be at risk if Kosovo were split, an outcome neither Europe nor the U.S. wants to face. Serbia’s President-elect Nikolic suggested last week that Belgrade might recognize the Georgian break-away regions of South Ossetia and Abhazia, a move that would simultaneously deprive Serbia of its heretofore principled stance against Kosovo independence but at the same time reinforce Belgrade’s hope for partition of northern Kosovo.
What we’ve got here is a goat rope, as the U.S. military says. The situation seems hopelessly tangled. It is a miracle that the Kosovo government gets anything done with so many foreigners people looking over its shoulders. It naturally also has to meet domestic expectations, which are increasingly in the direction of more independence and fewer non-tourist foreigners, though Americans seem always to get a particularly warm welcome because of their role in past efforts to protect Kosovo from the worst ravages of Slobodan Milošević.
Kosovo unquestionably continues to need help. OSCE recently organized Serbian presidential elections in the Serb communities of Kosovo, a task that would have proven impossible for the Pristina or the Belgrade authorities. NATO has a continuing role because it will be some years yet before Kosovo can defend itself for even a week from a Serbian military incursion, which is unlikely but cannot be ruled out completely until Belgrade recognizes the Kosovo authorities as sovereign. The Kosovo courts would still find it difficult to have their decisions fully accepted in many cases of interethnic crime.
But the time is coming this fall for this overly supervised country to struggle on its own, making a few mistakes no doubt but also holding its authorities responsible for them. Kosovo needs a foreign policy that will take it to the next level. That means not only untangling the goat rope (or occasionally cutting through it) but also achieving normal relations with Belgrade and UN membership. There is no reason that an intense effort over the next decade cannot take Kosovo into NATO and perhaps even into the EU, or close to that goal, provided it treats its Serb and other minority citizens correctly and resolves the many outstanding issues with Belgrade on a reciprocal basis, and peacefully.
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Nikolić gets his break
This is a somewhat more detailed and updated version of a piece The National Interest published this morning as “Serbian Transition Worries West”:
On his fourth try, Tomislav Nikolić won Serbia’s presidential election Sunday, defeating incumbent Boris Tadić by a narrow margin. Turnout was low. The number of ruined ballots was high. The electoral mechanism appears to have worked smoothly, freely and fairly.
Nikolić’s victory in this second round of the presidential election comes on the heels of his party’s victory in the parliamentary polls, which gave it the largest number of seats. A majority of Serbs was fed up with a leadership that had failed to deliver jobs, economic vitality, sufficient progress in Serbia’s efforts to gain membership in the European Union, or Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo.
An ethnic nationalist with a history of support to Slobodan Milošević and of close ties to radical nationalist and war crimes indictee Vojislav Šešelj, Nikolić broke from Šešelj in 2008. Allegations that Nikolić committed war crimes in Croatia in the early 1990s have not been proven in court, and he won a related defamation suit in 2009.
Since breaking with Šešelj, Nikolić has taken a more pro-Europe line, while maintaining promises of never recognizing the independence of Kosovo. In this, he is no different from Tadić, who however had convinced Brussels and Washington of his bona fides. American and European officials will be nervous about Nikolić, whose recent moderation they worry could be tactical.
How should Europe and the United States react to Nikolić’s election? Calmly and purposefully. The purpose should be to bring about genuine and deep reform in Serbia, which has failed in the more than 10 years since Milošević’s fall to purge fully its security services, investigate high-level involvement in war crimes and hiding of war criminals, give up its control of northern Kosovo or support the establishment of a viable Bosnian central government. Washington and Brussels have put up with this, fearing that a tough line would undermine Tadić at the polls and strengthen nationalists like Nikolić.
The coddling of Tadić has not worked. Tadić sought credit with nationalist voters by promising never to recognize Kosovo’s independence and supporting the Serb entity in Bosnia to the hilt. Its increasingly nationalist president campaigned openly for Tadić, who failed for years to provide the support to expensive international efforts in Kosovo and Bosnia that would make them successful.
Some in Brussels and Washington will still want to play their hand in formation of the new government by pushing for Tadić’s Democratic Party to lead the majority in parliament and “cohabit” with President Nikolić. That may be the way things will turn out, even though Nikolić’s party won more seats, if the Democratic Party alliance with Ivica Dačić holds. Some think such an arrangement would enable Serbia to make policy adjustments that Tadić was unwilling to make on his own, for fear Nikolić and others would benefit.
But there is no reason to believe that a Democratic Party-led government coalition under a Nikolić presidency will necessarily prove better from an American or European perspective than the outgoing Democratic Party-led government under Tadić. Cohabitation could allow Tadić to continue promising without delivering, with the blame cast on Nikolić. Washington and Brussels should look this gift horse in the mouth, trying to ensure that it is truly committed to a course they can support before encouraging or rewarding it.
If Nikolić forms a government without the Democratic Party, prying Dačić away from his alliance with the Democrats and relying on other more conservative nationalists like former prime minister Vojislav Koštunica, the result would be far more coherent. Washington and Brussels would then be free to push hard for real policy changes.
But it is unclear whether Nikolić would in fact choose the EU path over closer ties with Russia, where he is planning to make his first foreign visit since the election. If Nikolić chooses to align Serbia more closely with Moscow, that won’t make anyone in Washington or Brussels happy, but it will relieve them of the burden of worrying about Serbia’s “Atlantic” orientation.
Alternation in power is an essential feature of truly democratic systems. It has now happened in Serbia for the first time since the fall of Milošević. Europe and the United States should recognize in these elections a clear expression of the will of Serbia’s people: like others in Europe, they wanted change. In Serbia the only viable alternative was the more nationalist, less pro-European variety.
What Brussels and Washington need to do now is draw clear red lines that both can support wholeheartedly, no matter who gains power in Belgrade. Once the new parliamentary majority is formed and the government appointed, they should ask Serbia, which will seek a date to begin negotiations for European Union membership, to end its resistance to Kosovo’s independence, to push the Bosnian Serbs towards full acceptance of the Sarajevo government and to begin deep reform of the security services. There is no reason to coddle Nikolić, who in the past has proven himself pragmatic when faced with clear and forceful requirements.
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Serbia’s musical chairs
Tomorrow peacefare will publish a piece on international implications of the Serbian elections. Today Milan Marinković writes from Niš:
Serbia elected a new president last weekend: Tomislav Nikolić, the leader of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS). Nikolić defeated incumbent Boris Tadić of the Democratic Party (DS) in the second-round runoff of the presidential race. This comes on top of a parliamentary election in which SNS won the largest number of seats. The time is coming to form a governing coalition with a majority of votes in parliament.
Nikolić’s victory strengthens Socialist Party leader Ivica Dačić as the kingmaker in postelection negotiations. He is the essential ingredient in either an SNS or a DS dominated coalition. In a statement following Nikolić’s election, Dačić said that his party’s pre-electoral agreement with DS basically remained in place, but the situation had now become more complex.
Dačić already proved to be an unreliable partner in 2008, when he was also the kingmaker following the parliamentary elections that year. Shortly after Daćić announced that his party had come to terms with the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), he suddenly jumped ship, defecting to Tadić (DS).
In line with his proven pragmatism, Dačić is now keeping his options open. He knows that Nikolić as president is entitled to offer the mandate to the party of his own chosing. SNS will be Nikolić’s logical first choice not only because it is his party, but also because it won the largest single portion of the parliamentary seats.
Serbia’s constitution strictly limits the authority of president . His predecessor managed to hold a far greater share of power than the constitution allows due to the fact that his party was the core member of the ruling coalition. Incumbent prime minister Mirko Cvetković was just a figurehead. Tadić ran the government .
The only way for Nikolić to attain substantial power is to make his party a member of the next government. Otherwise, he will be as weak a president as Mr. Cvetković was a prime minister under Tadić. Nikolić therefore needs to give Dačić an exceptionally attractive offer to lure him away from the coalition with Tadić and DS. And Tadić – or whoever might replace him as the party’s next leader – will then have to offer even more to Dačić in order for DS to stay in power.
Only a grand coalition between Nikolić’s SNS and Tadić’s DS would leave Dačić out in the cold, but that’s a solution Nikolić presumably wants to avoid. Most of the people who voted for Nikolić did so out of their animosity to Tadić. If Nikolić were to ally with his fiercest rival, his voters would no doubt feel betrayed. After nearly a decade of unsuccessful attempts to defeat Tadić in one presidential race after another, Nikolić is unlikely to risk losing the popular support he has finally won in his fourth try, especially given the small margin of his victory.
A less irksome option for Nikolić would be the so-called “cohabitation” with a government in which his party does not participate – i.e. one that involves Tadić’s DS and Dačić’s (inescapable) SPS. That would help Nikolić portray himself as a responsible politician who puts the interest of his country before everything else – including his own and his party’s interests – serving as a “corrective factor” that supervises the government’s actions. Nikolić would thus be able to cooperate with a government that involves Tadić’s party, but without direct participation in an alliance with his main political opponent – something his voters probably could swallow.
If Nikolić wants to avoid cohabitation at all costs, his party and SPS will still need a third coalition partner. The Democratic party of Serbia (DSS), led by a former prime minister Vojislav Koštunica, seems most likely to join in. DSS publicly supported Nikolić prior to his runoff with Boris Tadić.
Such a government could put the European integration of Serbia at serious risk. DSS is irreconcilably anti-EU and openly pro-Russian. It is unclear what Nikolić could do to persuade Koštunica and his party to soften their stance against the EU. SNS itself maintains strong relations with Moscow, recently formalized in a cooperation agreement with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia. Some Serbian observers even suspect that SNS is a “Trojan horse” that has infiltrated Serbia’s pro-EU camp on behalf of the Kremlin.
According to opinion polls, Nikolić’s supporters oppose Serbia’s potential membership in the EU despite his official pro-EU position. Nikolić and Dačić share the dark nationalist past of 1990s and have adopted the European agenda only recently. They both have yet to prove their newfound commitment.
A “nationalist” government composed of SNS, SPS and DSS might most coherently reflect the election results. Most SPS voters also prefer Nikolić to Tadić, even though Dačić called on them to vote for the latter. But cohabitation, with DS leading the government but Nikolic in the presidency, would be preferable from a regional and international perspective, which sees risks in a return to a strongly nationalist Serbia.
An additional complication would occur if the SPS were unable to hold the allegiance of its other two electoral coalition members. That would greatly increase the number of arithmetic possibilities for achieving a parliamentary majority.
Dačić of late has begun to play down his ambition of becoming prime minister, which may suggest that he has realized it would be advisable to avoid the hot seat at a time when a number of unpopular steps will have to be taken and instead patiently wait for a next – more opportune – occasion.
Serbia’s game of musical chairs has begun. Who will be left out when the music stops?
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Ramifications of an Iran nuclear deal
Optimism is breaking out in some circles for tomorrow’s nuclear talks in Baghdad with Iran. Tehran Bureau hopes for a win/win. Stimson projects possible success.
This hopefulness is based on the emerging sense that a quid pro quo is feasible. While the details people imagine vary, in general terms the deal would involve Iran revealing the full extent of its nuclear efforts and limiting enrichment to what the amount and extent it really needs under tight international supervision. The international community would ease off on sanctions.
What is far less clear than the shape of a deal is whether politics in either Tehran or Washington will allow it to happen, as Zack Beauchamp speculated on Twitter last week. Europe, which leads the p5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany) talks with Tehran is useful to the process but will go along with whatever the Americans and Iranians decide.
Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has been a major stumbling block in the past. He scuppered a deal a few years ago that would have supplied Iran with the enriched uranium it needs for a research reactor in exchange for shipping its own stockpile of 20% enriched uranium out of the country. Unquestionably more in charge than in the past, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards who support him need hostility with the West to maintain their increasingly militarized regime. A resolution–even a partial one–of the nuclear standoff may not be in their interest.
It might not please hawks in the U.S. Congress either. They want a complete halt to enrichment in Iran and don’t want to rely on international inspections that might be suspended or otherwise blocked. Improvement in relations with Iran would hinder their hopes for regime change there. It would also make it difficult to criticize Barack Obama in the runup to the election for his diplomatic outreach to Iran, which failed initially but with the backing of draconian international sanctions seems now to be succeeding.
The smart money is betting that both Tehran and Washington will want to string out the negotiating process past the U.S. election in November. This would be a shame if a deal really is possible before then. The world economy would look a lot brighter if oil prices, pumped up since winter by Iranian threats to close the strait of Hormuz, sank well below $100 per barrel. Improved relations with Iran could also have positive knock-on effects in Iraq and Afghanistan, where Iran (which neighbors both countries) has sought to make things hard for the Americans.
A nuclear deal could also free the American hand a bit in Syria, where Washington has been reluctant to act decisively because it needs Russia and China on board for the P5+1 effort. Of course it might also work in the other direction: Washington could decide to give a bit in Syria in order to get a nuclear deal with Iran. That would not be our finest moment.
PS: Julian Borger is, as usual, worth reading, in particular on how low the bar has been set for the Baghdad talks.
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Algeria: is stability stable?
Thursday’s discussion at SAIS’s Center for Transatlantic Relations of Algeria After the Elections: Now What? left the audience wondering whether the country’s apparent stability really is stable, in particular as the 2014 presidential elections draw closer.
Algeria pulled off an election no one will say was free or fair for a parliament that controls nothing, as SAIS professor Bill Zartman put it. The junta remains firmly in power. The election results reflect the voting population’s reluctance to rock the boat or entrust its future to Islamists, who did poorly. Algeria had its intifada in the 1990s. Having suffered a civil war as a result, with horrific violence both by the Islamists and the security forces, there are good reasons for those Algerians who remember it not to want a repeat performance. It also had mini-intifadat every month or so in the 2000s and a larger one in January 2010; labor and other protests are common in Algeria, but they have little political impact. It wouldn’t matter if President Bouteflika were removed; the junta remains. However, the time of the presidential elections in 2014 may bring a moment when, whoever runs, the people will have had enough.
Even without revolutionary fervor, Algeria faces big problems. Barrie Freeman of NDI noted that its youth bulge is finding little employment (youth unemployment stands at 40%). Few young people voted. While the government is claiming over 40% of the electorate went to the polls, the real number may be significantly lower. Civic participation is generally low, in part due to a restrictive law on associations. The junta has promised constitutional reform, but it is unclear what that means. There is no reason to expect any serious moves to democratize.
Carnegie Endowment’s Marina Ottaway noted that a remarkably high 18% of voters spoiled their ballots, which likely reflects widespread dissatisfaction. It is harder to interpret the low turnout, which might just reflect indifference. While the Islamist parties did not see the surge evident in Tunisia and Egypt, Algeria suffers as they do from lack of secular opposition parties offering a serious alternative. President Bouteflika represents the last of his generation. Once he and his cohort are gone, within the next few years, the dissatisfaction many feel may emerge in political form, but there is little sign of it yet. The ruling parties have so far hung together fairly well, fearing that otherwise they will hang separately.
Pointing to southern Algeria and northern Mali, Daniele Moro of the Center for Transatlantic Relations raised the specter of terrorism, equipped in part by arms from Libya. We need to keep our eye on this obscure part of the Sahel, which could become a free for all region where Nigerian, Somali and Algerian (Al Qaeda in the Maghreb) terrorists may create a “mini-Afghanistan.” Algeria and Morocco, whose border is closed due to differences over Algerian support to the Western Sahara, are joining with NATO soon in a naval exercise. This is a positive development of a sort Europe and the U.S. should continue to encourage.
No one should be under any illusions. Reform in Algeria has not yet begun in earnest. But the apparent stability of an aging regime may not last.
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Chicago holds a key to the Balkans
Soren Jessen-Petersen* and I drafted this piece as an op/ed but it didn’t sell. Sign of our times–the Balkans are not a priority in Washington, or even in Chicago. So we are posting it here, in advance of the NATO Summit next weekend.
The Balkans are superficially peaceful this spring. Serbia held elections May 6, having happily achieved the envied status of a candidate for European Union (EU) membership earlier this spring, as has Montenegro. Croatia is scheduled to enter the EU next year. After a long hiatus under a caretaker government, Bosnia is enjoying a moment of relative comity among its notoriously fractious Croats, Serbs and Muslims. This fall, Kosovo will complete its four and a half-year tutelage under an “international civilian representative” who supervised its independence.
But there are still serious problems that need to be resolved and little sign of progress. The 49 per cent of Bosnian territory that Serbs govern is without the plurality of its population that was non-Serb before the war. Its independence-seeking president makes no secret of his resistance to their return and disdain for the government in Sarajevo. He has succeeded in getting the EU to deal directly with him and his minions on many issues that need to be resolved before Bosnia can even become a candidate for membership.
Kosovo may be independent, but the government in Pristina has no control over the northern 11% of its territory, where the Serb population refuses to accept the substantial autonomy it would be permitted under the internationally negotiated “final status” settlement for Kosovo.
Perhaps the most delicate of today’s Balkans problems lies in Macedonia, whose population is about one-quarter ethnic Albanian. Small-scale violence between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Macedonians has been all too frequent this spring. Both groups are nervously watching northern Kosovo, fearing that partition there could lead to heightened ethnic conflict throughout the Balkans and beyond. Partition could ensue not only in Macedonia but also in Bosnia and Cyprus.
Then there is Chicago. There is strong support in Macedonia for NATO membership, which could occur at the NATO Summit May 20-21 in the windy city. But Greece objects to Macedonia using that name, which Athens would like to reserve for itself, claiming that Skopje’s use of it signifies designs on Greek territory as well as history and culture.
Macedonia has completed all the requirements for NATO membership, which include meeting political and economic criteria as well as putting the military under civilian control. Macedonian soldiers have served with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, where they were embedded in fighting units with the Vermont National Guard. The American who commanded the Macedonians in Afghanistan says they were up to U.S. military standards and carried their portion of the burden well.
But Greece will not agree to NATO membership for Macedonia, or a date to begin negotiating its EU membership, unless it changes its name. Athens has even refused to allow Macedonian NATO membership under the name used for UN membership (The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, or The FYROM), despite a 1995 agreement to do so.
This Greek resistance is creating a strong reaction in Macedonia, where the exasperated prime minister benefits politically from defying Athens by renaming the airport after Alexander the Great and putting a statue of him in downtown Skopje.
The International Court of Justice, in a resounding victory for Skopje, decided in December that Athens acted illegally in blocking membership in NATO at the last Summit. It would be wrong for this injustice to be repeated in Chicago.
NATO and the EU are the two strong poles of attraction that keep the Balkans on the path towards a democratic and prosperous future. In order to find the political will to proceed with difficult reforms, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro need to see the prospect of NATO and EU membership as real. Macedonia’s entry into NATO at Chicago and Croatia’s entry next year into the EU are the best current opportunities to demonstrate that the region’s aspirations can be fulfilled, solidifying a still fragile peace.
*Daniel Serwer, an American, and Soren Jessen-Petersen, a Dane, teach at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. They have both worked on and in the Balkans for more than 15 years.
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