The EU’s Balkan Policy and Kosovo’s Impact: An Assessment
Much ink is being spilled of late regarding the uncertainty around Kosovo’s future status and whether the European Union’s policy needs retinkering and rethinking. Is the worry about a unilateral Declaration of Independence by Kosovo’s Albanians and its recognition by many states without a United Nations Security Council imprimatur on a solution warranted? Does this in turn imply further violence, disarray, and a bleak forecast for the region? Or while concern regarding the future sequence of events (both planned and unplanned) in the Balkans is unavoidable, does the deadlock provide for opportunities? Does the stalemate allow for further EU cohesion? Does it help the EU in further anchoring the region within its realm and provide for a new engagement with Russia? After all, greater cohesion, the further Europeanization of the Balkans, and bitter relations with Moscow are all EU priorities.
The Union’s track record in the Balkans since at least 1999 has been remarkable. Two Balkan states, Bulgaria and Romania, have for a year now enjoyed the fruits and trials of membership. Croatia has its negotiations on track (baring some bumps along the road such as its maritime dispute with Slovenia), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is a candidate for accession while the rest of the states of the Western Balkans are all making some headway with their stabilization and Association Agreements and their potential candidacy status. Similarly, the door to NATO membership for Croatia, Albania, and FYROM is ajar, provided they meet the requisite conditions. The EU has meanwhile sharpened its ESDP tools through its past, present and future operations in the region while the bulk of the NATO operation in Kosovo has for a long time been made up of troops from EU member states. Regional cooperation and good neighborhood relations, both part of the Union’s conditionality package, are slowly taking hold while the economic indicators are generally improving.
Nevertheless, the Kosovo conundrum continues to distract by adding melancholic (some might say pragmatic) overtures to an albeit positive EU influence. For one, achieving cohesion regarding Kosovo’s status is a markedly more difficult exercise. The EU 27 is a different animal than the EU 15. Yet a quick throwback to post June 1999 when Slobodan Milosevic raised the white flag over Kosovo reveals a number of lost opportunities regarding status. Milosevic’s presence at the helm of Serbia’s government made independence for Kosovo more morally acceptable. After all, the NATO operation was based on the premise of the concept of a humanitarian intervention which reflected the inability of the cherished Helsinki principles of 1975 to justify intervention in the post bipolar world. As such, cohesion at 15 was easier as it was within NATO to intervene, ant to probably deal with status once and for all. The transatlantic relationship was also better at the time, although unbalanced to reflect the US’s then paramount unipolarity. Also, as a consequence, coordination with Russia was easier and more consensual. Nevertheless, the newfound consensus was reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1244 rather than a more dynamic (and probably more uncertain) formula.
Today, not only is the achievement of cohesion in Europe a product of more refined diplomatic skills, but relations with the United States are being redefined and Russia has become more assertive globally. Moscow’s differences with Washington on a number of fronts including missile defense, Iran, Iraq and Kosovo suggest a power game between the two sides on a global scale that leaves the EU and the rest of the world on the sidelines awaiting for the match to end and picking up the pieces from there depending on the outcome. While it might well be that the United States is not setting on establishing the realities anymore in the Balkans, its bras de fer with Russia makes EU strategy more difficult or uncertain. In this context, how can the EU engage Russia over Kosovo when Moscow’s Washington policy implies using Kosovo as a bargaining chip? How can the EU insist on its conditionality policy under these adverse conditions while Washington and Moscow are pitted against each other in their own World Cup which is being played in overtime but there is no referee to say for how long while it is a safe bet to say that it will end in a tie. In other words, is there a Russia-US deal in the making? If so, what is its impact on the region and the EU going to be?
The linkages theory propounded by Moscow is an obvious immediate side effect. That is to say that diplomatic recognition of an independent Kosovo without a United Nations Security Council stamp of approval could imply that South Ossetia, Abkhazia or Transdnistria could do the same with Moscow’s (and its allies) full blessing. Hence, what is the impact on Georgia’s or Moldova’s territorial sovereignty? What are the implications elsewhere? For the rest of the world, especially the EU, the question is whether Moscow’s series of dilemmas are real or a ploy. Cyprus, one the Union’s newest and smallest member states that has to live with a third of its territory under foreign occupation seems to think that the resilience of Kosovo’s Albanians would imply that its Turkish Cypriot citizens would do the same and eventually opt for a de jure partition of the country. On 14 December 2007, EU leaders clearly stated that their “conviction that resolving the pending status of Kosovo constitutes a sui generis case that does not set any precedent.” Whether this is possible remains to be seen.
Another unexpected sided effect of Moscow’s direct involvement in the global chessboard is that Belgrade uses the Russian position to justify its inability to consent to a velvet divorce with its disenfranchised Kosovo Albanians and smugly stands in defiance. Of course, it must be stressed that its political situation with its uneasy governing coalition and the spectre of its hard-line opposition coming to power, severely limits its room for manoeuvre. Nevertheless, Serbia’s position is untenable over time because it is based on too many unknowns. What would happen if Moscow and Washington tire of snarling at each other and Moscow plays down its linkages theory? What would Belgrade do when Nicosia puts aside its reticence regarding Kosovo’s independence? After all, an independent Kosovo which includes the territory north of the Ibar with its Serbian population is a strong ally of Cyprus given its whole and undivided character. It might make more sense for Cyprus to support Kosovo’s independence as a multiethnic state which resists efforts at secession or division of its territory on ethnic grounds much as Cyprus faces in its occupied North.
Albeit the uncertainties, the EU has many weapons available to enhance its presence, The first of these is its new Reform Treaty which upon ratification would provide the requisite legal and institutional framework to allow for further enlargement. Upon completion of this process in early 2009, Croatia’s road to membership is opened wide. The positive effect of such a development on the Western Balkan states should not be discounted.
Another relevant instrument in the newly-established, Sarajevo-based Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) which not only replaces the Brussels-based Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe but also accounts for regional ownership by upgrading the South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP), the only locally-owned regional cooperation initiative. In other words, the RCC provides the EU with a mechanism of regional cooperation which seriously and openly allows the region’s stakeholders to effectively lead the process. This has been a long-standing demand of the states of the region at least since 1996 when the SEECP in its present form was launched. The priority should be on making the RCC as operative and effective as possible.
Finally, the EU has to refocus on its accession priorities. The questions facing it are many: How to make the process of accession more relevant for the candidate countries? How to maintain momentum without making serious discounts on accession and conditionality criteria? The continued deadlock over Kosovo risks clouding the European perspective in particular vis-à-vis Serbia, which needs more incentives than any other candidate given Kosovo’s probable future independence. There is already evidence of watering down the ICTY requirements and lessening the pressure for the capture of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadic. The departure of Carla del Ponte from the position of the Tribunal’s chief prosecutor could be a sign of changing times and priorities. The same can be said of the 17 December 2007 European Council which “considered that a stable and prosperous Serbia fully integrated into the family of European nations is important for the stability of the region. In this regard, it encouraged Serbia to meet the necessary conditions to allow its Stabilisation and Association Agreement rapidly to be signed and, in the light of Serbia's considerable institutional capacity, and recalling its conclusions of December 2006, it reiterated its confidence that progress on the road towards the EU, including candidate status, can be accelerated.”
Nevertheless, the insistence on maintaining accession criteria and conditionality does not imply that the EU cannot seek to formulate proposals and establish policies that specifically aim at increasing the relevance of the accession process. Many such proposals have seen the light of day over time. These include a junior membership option for candidate countries or a formula of “Copenhagen minus, SAP plus”. Recent ideas put forward by the Greek government, among others, which include the notion of providing Western Balkan states with a road map that would convert the Visa Facilitation and Readmission Agreements with the countries of the Western Balkans that entered into force on 1 January 2008 into a visa liberalization regime merit further consideration. Another interesting proposal is the platform propounded by the Coalition for Regional Cooperation and European Integration (Coalition REI) made up of seven influential civil society organisations from Skopje, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Tirana, Belgrade and Prishtina. The aforementioned platform calls for a new phase of the Stabilisation and Association Process that accounts for a clearer perspective for the Western Balkan states “in the reformed EU” and support for its quicker “adjustment to the new trends within the EU.”
In other words, albeit Serbia’s 26 December 2007 parliamentary resolution that “[a}ny treaty Serbia signs, including the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, must be in keeping with preservation of [Serbian] sovereignty and territorial integrity”, the EU together with its Balkan partners and their civil society forces cannot but press on with the further Europeanisation of the region.
Finally, the negotiations with Russia over Kosovo’s future status highlight the need to continue engaging Moscow. The European Union and Russia, in spite of their differences, have a symbiotic relationship which is reflected by their geographic proximity, shared neighbourhoods, growing trade and global roles (after all both are global powers albeit of a different nature). Both the EU and Russia espouse the notion of multilateralism in their diplomatic endeavors. The EU’s principle of “effective multilateralism” as spelled out in the European Security Strategy of December 2003, in part in response to the United States’ growing unilateralism in the post 9/11 world admittedly implies (re)building bridges with both Washington and Moscow.
The same could be said of the EU’s policy of building a “ring of well-governed states” in its neighbourhood which to its East is Moscow’s neighbourhood as well. After all, the EU’s emphasis on the good governance of its neighbourhood should also be one of Russia’s priorities as well. The negotiations for a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Russia coupled with the coming to power of a new government in Warsaw that is willing to find a modus vivendi with Moscow make the engagement with Russia all the more relevant and promising.
Also, in this context, the EU together with Russia and the United States could conceivably find a solution for Kosovo within one of the many UN-mandated ad hoc structures (such as the G8, the Contact Group, the Troika, the Quartet) that have emerged in the post-Cold War period reflecting the UN’s inadequacies to cope with pressing international concerns yet accounting for its blessing in order to facilitate resolution whenever possible.
In conclusion, the challenges ahead for the Union in the Balkans are many but they are fraught with opportunity. That is to say that while the Kosovo conundrum puts a damper on the europeanisation process that the EU has set in motion, it is unlikely that it will derail the eventual accession of the countries of the region into its ranks. Serbia’s obfuscation regarding its future relations with the EU in that Kosovo will not be sacrificed in exchange for future EU and NATO membership is a reality that cannot be sidestepped. It can only be considered more calmly after the Serbian Presidential election process runs its course in early February. The other opportunity that presents itself is the possibility of further interaction with Russia as Moscow’s involvement in the Kosovo negotiations reflected the changing dynamics of relations between key global actors and the need for constant engagement between Brussels and Moscow in the Balkans and elsewhere. The European Union’s successful policy of europeanising the Balkans should not and must not be held hostage to lack of progress regarding Kosovo’s pending status.
The Union’s track record in the Balkans since at least 1999 has been remarkable. Two Balkan states, Bulgaria and Romania, have for a year now enjoyed the fruits and trials of membership. Croatia has its negotiations on track (baring some bumps along the road such as its maritime dispute with Slovenia), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) is a candidate for accession while the rest of the states of the Western Balkans are all making some headway with their stabilization and Association Agreements and their potential candidacy status. Similarly, the door to NATO membership for Croatia, Albania, and FYROM is ajar, provided they meet the requisite conditions. The EU has meanwhile sharpened its ESDP tools through its past, present and future operations in the region while the bulk of the NATO operation in Kosovo has for a long time been made up of troops from EU member states. Regional cooperation and good neighborhood relations, both part of the Union’s conditionality package, are slowly taking hold while the economic indicators are generally improving.
Nevertheless, the Kosovo conundrum continues to distract by adding melancholic (some might say pragmatic) overtures to an albeit positive EU influence. For one, achieving cohesion regarding Kosovo’s status is a markedly more difficult exercise. The EU 27 is a different animal than the EU 15. Yet a quick throwback to post June 1999 when Slobodan Milosevic raised the white flag over Kosovo reveals a number of lost opportunities regarding status. Milosevic’s presence at the helm of Serbia’s government made independence for Kosovo more morally acceptable. After all, the NATO operation was based on the premise of the concept of a humanitarian intervention which reflected the inability of the cherished Helsinki principles of 1975 to justify intervention in the post bipolar world. As such, cohesion at 15 was easier as it was within NATO to intervene, ant to probably deal with status once and for all. The transatlantic relationship was also better at the time, although unbalanced to reflect the US’s then paramount unipolarity. Also, as a consequence, coordination with Russia was easier and more consensual. Nevertheless, the newfound consensus was reflected in UN Security Council Resolution 1244 rather than a more dynamic (and probably more uncertain) formula.
Today, not only is the achievement of cohesion in Europe a product of more refined diplomatic skills, but relations with the United States are being redefined and Russia has become more assertive globally. Moscow’s differences with Washington on a number of fronts including missile defense, Iran, Iraq and Kosovo suggest a power game between the two sides on a global scale that leaves the EU and the rest of the world on the sidelines awaiting for the match to end and picking up the pieces from there depending on the outcome. While it might well be that the United States is not setting on establishing the realities anymore in the Balkans, its bras de fer with Russia makes EU strategy more difficult or uncertain. In this context, how can the EU engage Russia over Kosovo when Moscow’s Washington policy implies using Kosovo as a bargaining chip? How can the EU insist on its conditionality policy under these adverse conditions while Washington and Moscow are pitted against each other in their own World Cup which is being played in overtime but there is no referee to say for how long while it is a safe bet to say that it will end in a tie. In other words, is there a Russia-US deal in the making? If so, what is its impact on the region and the EU going to be?
The linkages theory propounded by Moscow is an obvious immediate side effect. That is to say that diplomatic recognition of an independent Kosovo without a United Nations Security Council stamp of approval could imply that South Ossetia, Abkhazia or Transdnistria could do the same with Moscow’s (and its allies) full blessing. Hence, what is the impact on Georgia’s or Moldova’s territorial sovereignty? What are the implications elsewhere? For the rest of the world, especially the EU, the question is whether Moscow’s series of dilemmas are real or a ploy. Cyprus, one the Union’s newest and smallest member states that has to live with a third of its territory under foreign occupation seems to think that the resilience of Kosovo’s Albanians would imply that its Turkish Cypriot citizens would do the same and eventually opt for a de jure partition of the country. On 14 December 2007, EU leaders clearly stated that their “conviction that resolving the pending status of Kosovo constitutes a sui generis case that does not set any precedent.” Whether this is possible remains to be seen.
Another unexpected sided effect of Moscow’s direct involvement in the global chessboard is that Belgrade uses the Russian position to justify its inability to consent to a velvet divorce with its disenfranchised Kosovo Albanians and smugly stands in defiance. Of course, it must be stressed that its political situation with its uneasy governing coalition and the spectre of its hard-line opposition coming to power, severely limits its room for manoeuvre. Nevertheless, Serbia’s position is untenable over time because it is based on too many unknowns. What would happen if Moscow and Washington tire of snarling at each other and Moscow plays down its linkages theory? What would Belgrade do when Nicosia puts aside its reticence regarding Kosovo’s independence? After all, an independent Kosovo which includes the territory north of the Ibar with its Serbian population is a strong ally of Cyprus given its whole and undivided character. It might make more sense for Cyprus to support Kosovo’s independence as a multiethnic state which resists efforts at secession or division of its territory on ethnic grounds much as Cyprus faces in its occupied North.
Albeit the uncertainties, the EU has many weapons available to enhance its presence, The first of these is its new Reform Treaty which upon ratification would provide the requisite legal and institutional framework to allow for further enlargement. Upon completion of this process in early 2009, Croatia’s road to membership is opened wide. The positive effect of such a development on the Western Balkan states should not be discounted.
Another relevant instrument in the newly-established, Sarajevo-based Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) which not only replaces the Brussels-based Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe but also accounts for regional ownership by upgrading the South East European Cooperation Process (SEECP), the only locally-owned regional cooperation initiative. In other words, the RCC provides the EU with a mechanism of regional cooperation which seriously and openly allows the region’s stakeholders to effectively lead the process. This has been a long-standing demand of the states of the region at least since 1996 when the SEECP in its present form was launched. The priority should be on making the RCC as operative and effective as possible.
Finally, the EU has to refocus on its accession priorities. The questions facing it are many: How to make the process of accession more relevant for the candidate countries? How to maintain momentum without making serious discounts on accession and conditionality criteria? The continued deadlock over Kosovo risks clouding the European perspective in particular vis-à-vis Serbia, which needs more incentives than any other candidate given Kosovo’s probable future independence. There is already evidence of watering down the ICTY requirements and lessening the pressure for the capture of Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadic. The departure of Carla del Ponte from the position of the Tribunal’s chief prosecutor could be a sign of changing times and priorities. The same can be said of the 17 December 2007 European Council which “considered that a stable and prosperous Serbia fully integrated into the family of European nations is important for the stability of the region. In this regard, it encouraged Serbia to meet the necessary conditions to allow its Stabilisation and Association Agreement rapidly to be signed and, in the light of Serbia's considerable institutional capacity, and recalling its conclusions of December 2006, it reiterated its confidence that progress on the road towards the EU, including candidate status, can be accelerated.”
Nevertheless, the insistence on maintaining accession criteria and conditionality does not imply that the EU cannot seek to formulate proposals and establish policies that specifically aim at increasing the relevance of the accession process. Many such proposals have seen the light of day over time. These include a junior membership option for candidate countries or a formula of “Copenhagen minus, SAP plus”. Recent ideas put forward by the Greek government, among others, which include the notion of providing Western Balkan states with a road map that would convert the Visa Facilitation and Readmission Agreements with the countries of the Western Balkans that entered into force on 1 January 2008 into a visa liberalization regime merit further consideration. Another interesting proposal is the platform propounded by the Coalition for Regional Cooperation and European Integration (Coalition REI) made up of seven influential civil society organisations from Skopje, Podgorica, Sarajevo, Zagreb, Tirana, Belgrade and Prishtina. The aforementioned platform calls for a new phase of the Stabilisation and Association Process that accounts for a clearer perspective for the Western Balkan states “in the reformed EU” and support for its quicker “adjustment to the new trends within the EU.”
In other words, albeit Serbia’s 26 December 2007 parliamentary resolution that “[a}ny treaty Serbia signs, including the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, must be in keeping with preservation of [Serbian] sovereignty and territorial integrity”, the EU together with its Balkan partners and their civil society forces cannot but press on with the further Europeanisation of the region.
Finally, the negotiations with Russia over Kosovo’s future status highlight the need to continue engaging Moscow. The European Union and Russia, in spite of their differences, have a symbiotic relationship which is reflected by their geographic proximity, shared neighbourhoods, growing trade and global roles (after all both are global powers albeit of a different nature). Both the EU and Russia espouse the notion of multilateralism in their diplomatic endeavors. The EU’s principle of “effective multilateralism” as spelled out in the European Security Strategy of December 2003, in part in response to the United States’ growing unilateralism in the post 9/11 world admittedly implies (re)building bridges with both Washington and Moscow.
The same could be said of the EU’s policy of building a “ring of well-governed states” in its neighbourhood which to its East is Moscow’s neighbourhood as well. After all, the EU’s emphasis on the good governance of its neighbourhood should also be one of Russia’s priorities as well. The negotiations for a new Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Russia coupled with the coming to power of a new government in Warsaw that is willing to find a modus vivendi with Moscow make the engagement with Russia all the more relevant and promising.
Also, in this context, the EU together with Russia and the United States could conceivably find a solution for Kosovo within one of the many UN-mandated ad hoc structures (such as the G8, the Contact Group, the Troika, the Quartet) that have emerged in the post-Cold War period reflecting the UN’s inadequacies to cope with pressing international concerns yet accounting for its blessing in order to facilitate resolution whenever possible.
In conclusion, the challenges ahead for the Union in the Balkans are many but they are fraught with opportunity. That is to say that while the Kosovo conundrum puts a damper on the europeanisation process that the EU has set in motion, it is unlikely that it will derail the eventual accession of the countries of the region into its ranks. Serbia’s obfuscation regarding its future relations with the EU in that Kosovo will not be sacrificed in exchange for future EU and NATO membership is a reality that cannot be sidestepped. It can only be considered more calmly after the Serbian Presidential election process runs its course in early February. The other opportunity that presents itself is the possibility of further interaction with Russia as Moscow’s involvement in the Kosovo negotiations reflected the changing dynamics of relations between key global actors and the need for constant engagement between Brussels and Moscow in the Balkans and elsewhere. The European Union’s successful policy of europeanising the Balkans should not and must not be held hostage to lack of progress regarding Kosovo’s pending status.
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