Dimitrios' World

With the start of the new round of talks in Crans Montana on 28 June regarding the future of Cyprus, all the bets are on as to whether these will lead to a deal or be another part in a long process of reconciliation but not enough to cross the finish line. Although the momentum that was evident at the beginning of the year has significantly stalled, the United Nations through its good offices has managed to get the leaders of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, the representatives of the three guarantor powers – Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the representative of the interested party – the European Union, to return to the negotiating table. The stakes are a historic deal in the making and the implications of a non-deal should the talks fail to yield positive results with the chances evenly divided for either outcome to prevail.   The optimistic scenario stems from the fact that the leaders of the two communities – Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Aki...

At the official handover ceremony between the Slovenian Presidency and the current French Presidency, on 30 June 2008, the French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, upon symbolically accepting a relay baton and an EU flag from his Slovenian counterpart commented that the European Union was “in average shape”. Kouchner’s sentiments echoed those of Nicholas Sarkozy who speaking on French television suggested that “something isn’t right, something isn’t right at all.” In an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Serra on 25 June 2008, on the eve of the Euro 2008 semi-finals which pitted Turkey against Germany and Russia against Spain, Joerg Haider, the Austrian far-right politician, questioned why Turkey and Russia were allowed to participate in the European Soccer Championships by asking “what have these two countries got in common with Europe?” Though seemingly unrelated, the two aforementioned references in fact have much to do with each other. On the one hand, they describe a ...

Sitting in Athens, one’s perspective, regarding developments in Greece’s wider neighbourhood, is obviously different from that of many other allied capitals. Here one has the impression, as it is cultivated by the mass media especially in its electronic form and many of the country’s elite, that uncontrollable, irreversible processes have taken hold and that the world as we know it is steadily being reshaped and recalibrated. An unusually high and troubling recent rate of seismic activity does certainly not help alleviate a general feeling of malaise. What seems to be troubling public opinion? Kosovo has unilaterally declared independence with the blessing of most great and not so great powers of the West, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) wants to become a NATO member preferably without compromising in its name dispute with Greece, Turkey is simultaneously beset by two existentialist crises – the head scarf issue and the Kurdish conundrum, and Cyprus has a new Presiden...

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 stat...