25 years since Dayton and the future of Western Balkans
The disintegration of Yugoslavia
This whole, which is common to all the Balkan states, responds mainly to two factors, the first one being of an international nature, the fall of the socialist systems and the USSR, and the economic crisis throughout Europe since the mid-1970s, accentuated in Germany, which resulted from the reunification of the country at the end of the 1980s. A second factor, stemming from the instability generated all over Europe by the fall of the Soviet bloc, is the rise of charismatic leaderships in Yugoslavia and the excitement of national, cultural and religious differences, a differentiating factor that is not alien to the nationalist narrative within each state. This phenomenon is not exclusive to Yugoslavia; it also occurred at the beginning of the last decade of the 20th century in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
The fall of the eastern bloc at the end of the 80s affected Yugoslavia not directly, as it had broken with the USSR, was not a member of COMECOM, and enjoyed both association agreements with the European Community and a kind of free movement of Yugoslav citizens around the continent. The crisis in Germany at the beginning of the 1990s, unable to cope with the economic, social and political integration of the GDR into its own socio-political structure, after bearing the cost of the country's reunification In this context, the need to open export markets seems vital to the survival of the German project.
The Yugoslav factor comes into play here, where Germany was seeking to expand its political and economic area of influence, and for whom an atomised Yugoslavia was more interesting, both in terms of turnover and the imposition of the game rules. The rest of the European partners ignored the Yugoslav question.
When the storm broke, they were powerless to witness the inevitable as spectators.
At an internal level, preparing Tito's succession generated a problem with personalities. Milosevic, Tudjman and Izetbegovic emerged with charismatic leaderships at the worst possible moment. Tito's death as a trigger for the storm that was about to come.
Milosevic's Gazimestan speech in 1989 is the culmination of the destruction of the concept of Bratstvo i jedinstvo, Brotherhood and Unity, and the construction of the myth of Milosevic as the father of Greater Serbia. The roles played by the presidents of Bosnia and Croatia in the Yugoslav conflict, instrumentalising the nationalist and religious factors, are at least as important as Milosevic's own, both because of the leadership assumed, personally, by the new fathers of the fatherland, and because of the significance of their decisions. In Ambassador Holbrooke's memoirs, he narrates, in desperation, Izetbegovic's continual objections at Dayton after reaching agreements and accepting the successive designs for peace in Bosnia.
Despite being labelled a multicultural state, which was always a device or an excuse used by spectators outside the Yugoslav context to try to understand the country's idiosyncrasies without too much effort, since the 1970s in both Croatia and Serbia there was a surge of cultural and nationalist movements, supported by various social manifestations. A good example was represented by football, where fans of both Hajduk Split and Dinamo Zagreb would compare the matches their teams played against Red Star or Partizan to battles in which Croatia defeated Serbia and shook off Belgrade's yoke. The rivalry exists even today in cities like Sarajevo, in terms of cultural and national confrontation, between the Bosnian FK Sarajevo and the Serbian Zelejnicar. The perfect storm would end with Yugoslavia's disintegration and destruction, both as a nation and as an alternative socio-political concept to the two opposing blocs. Yugoslavia's 'damnatio memoriae' was necessary in the sense of accentuating its own feeling as a nation, a culture in search of the opposite, beyond the antagonism with Serbia, which always appears in the narrative of the other republics as the oppressive enemy. To destroy the concept of Yugoslavia because of the need to build an identity of its own, as is currently the case in Macedonia.
Autocrats and autocracies. Erdogan, a mirror image to Vucic in Serbia or Hasim Thaçi in the autonomous region of Kosovo, is permanently at odds with his prime ministers in seeking to increase the powers and responsibilities of the president, his latest victim, Albin Kurti. In Bosnia, Dodik and Itzetbegovic. Former prime minister Nikola Gruevski in Macedonia, a refugee in Hungary, protected by Victor Orban. Bulgaria, where Europeanist Bojko Borisov, in exchange for support to reform the constitution, has committed to the extreme right to consider the imposition of censorship based on labour criteria and the creation of areas for the establishment of ethnic minorities. In Albania, in addition to the open confrontation between Edi Rama and President Ilir Meta, a situation that seems to be inherent to the Albanian character, there are some of the characteristics that, according to the BIEPAG (Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group) in the document 'The Crisis of Democracy in the Western Balkans', are typical of autocratic governments, such as a lack of public participation in decision-making, clientelism and high levels of corruption, as well as a judicial system without guarantees and limited freedom of expression and press, as stated by the BIRN (Balkan Investigative Reporting Network) in the article 'Albania Anti-Defamation Laws Condemned as 'Censorship Package'. In Bosnia, Bakir Izetbegovic, the president of the SDA, is not only advised and supported by the Turkish AKP, but his figure has also been supported by powerful information campaigns in Turkish and local media and agencies. By linking media and owners definitively with the figure of Izetbegovic and the SDA, seriously attacking the independence of the media and strengthening the political presence of Turkey in Bosnia. Clientelism and media, in order to exert a kind of coercion on them. Clientelism is another of the most damaging factors identified by the EU in the Western Balkans, an aspect which is also highlighted by Albania, which Brussels has seriously warned of. Weakness of Balkan societies, which need to implement a guarantee system with a strong civil society based on solidarity and urgent modernisation. The solution is complex, not only because of the structure of the states themselves, but also because of their shortcomings. In Albania, the renewal of the judicial system is a Kafkaesque process that is impossible to address, at least in the short term, given the lack of replacement of its members. There are simply no trained judges.
In these 25 years since the signing of the Dayton Accords, it is difficult not to consider the impact of the ICTY and the context in which it was created. It is certainly difficult to think about, contextualise and analyse the issues related to war crimes during the 1990s Balkan wars without a glimmer of viscerality. Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Gorazde, Visegrad, the Krajina, Staro Gracko, Mitrovica, Vukovar, Bihac and Mostar, to name but a few, are places that will always be indelibly marked by what happened during Yugoslavia's wars of disintegration.
The establishment and implementation of the ICTY was a necessary condition for holding states to account. Either they were powerless to judge the war crimes that occurred during the conflicts that led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, or it was the same leaders who ordered or consented to the war that led the post-war governments, as in the case of Karadzic in Bosnia. These leaders not only refused to be tried by any court, but normalised the construction of a narrative in which such events did not occur. Legitimising and normalising denial of the responsibility to protect victims. In addition to legitimacy, efficiency has been questioned by exonerating Ante Gotovina for war crimes in the Krajina or by laxly condemning Naser Oric for defending Srebrenica during the Drina Army's campaign in eastern Bosnia, giving full responsibility to Serbian military and civilians.
Non-collaboration with the ICTY by important third parties is another of the aspects that have hindered its functioning, as occurred throughout the year with Hasim Thaçi, president of Kosovo and former KLA commander, who received the US offer to promote the negotiation of a US-endorsed peace agreement with Serbia in exchange for supporting the dismantling of the ICTY and the ICC (International Criminal Court), a body not recognised by the US, which has also been calling on Thaçi for crimes against humanity since 2014. The Council of Europe, in document 12462 of January 7, 2011 'Inhuman treatment of people and illicit trafficking in human organs in Kosovo' holds Thaçi, leader of the KLA, responsible for repeated violations of IHL, drug trafficking, illegal detention, degrading treatment and selective killing of Serbian prisoners and trafficking in organs and people between 1998 and 2000. It also ordered the massacre of Staro Gracko in 1999 by the KLA, with the war already over. The states that were supposed to support, legitimise and provide capabilities to the ICTY are the same ones that today refuse to recognise its authority or limit its effectiveness. A paradox.
In today's societies there is an insistence, particularly within the neo-capitalist and post-modern paradigm, on the preponderance of the individual over the collective. The theory of ethnopolis presupposes a series of harmful aspects, which are not consubstantial with a political system based on ethnic segregation, relating this type of society to economic autarky and corruption. Corruption or segregation by social class are aspects that can be found today in any modern liberal democracy.
In the face of individualism and weak social structures, a strong civil society is necessary, which effectively equates citizens with duties and rights, but where each religious, ethnic, cultural subgroup that forms the structure of civil society is recognised and protected in its specificity. Perhaps, as paradoxical as it may seem, the model of civil society was the Yugoslav one, despite analyses and analysts who, based only on the historical antagonism of the different ethnic, religious or cultural groups that made up the state, and who considered that the glue that maintained social cohesion was the brutality of the socialist system. On how the system jumped in the 70s and the causes we have already talked about, and again it would require a deeper analysis than the one provided by this reflexion.
Societies such as the Nordic countries or Switzerland could be examples of strong, cohesive civil societies, and would probably be the model on which to build stronger and more cohesive societies, but, ethnically and culturally, these exemplary societies are also very homogeneous, which makes a clear difference to societies with such markedly differentiating features as those that make up the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Societies based on mobilisation, where civic and social organisations had a specific weight as guarantors of citizens' duties and rights.
In the Balkans, systems based on ethnic/religious differentiation predominate, in Serbia we find areas with a Muslim majority, such as the Sanjacado, multiethnic areas, such as Vojvodina, and apart from this there is the question of Kosovo, with a very complex historical and socio-political development. The example of Bosnia adds even more complexity to the equation, and to which we would have to add the situation of the Roma or Romany people, the gypsies, which is common in other regions such as Macedonia. In this country we also find the Albanian minority, with a fairly large share of power within Zoran Zaev's government and wide recognition of their rights, Albanian language schools, co-officiality of Albanians in the regions where they are in the majority, which are an example in the region. This process was certainly not free of violent episodes, anti-Albanian pogroms in Orhrid, Bitola and Prilep and armed clashes with the KLA at the beginning of this century. The political representation of minority ethnic groups is also found in a system as complex as Bulgaria's, where the Turkish party is the hinge of the Borisov government. Finally, there is Albania, where the division between Ghegs and Tosks is becoming increasingly blurred but remains a differentiating feature within Albanian society.
In recent years, the EU has pursued a timid policy with respect to the Western Balkans, particularly at a time when the future of the Union is being debated. What the EU should be and what we want it to be. With the gap between Paris and Berlin deepening as the leaders of both countries look at each other with disdain and fake smiles.
As the renowned academic and Balkanist Miguel Roan recently put it, should the EU aspire to be an empire or a 'unitas multiplex'?
The EU has maintained an erratic policy in its relations with the Western Balkans, slowing down the accession processes and giving ground to global powers which view this abandoned region of the eastern Mediterranean as a gamble full of possibilities. Brussels maintains a wish to influence and gain weight in a region it views as a periphery, which in the short term presents more problems than advantages, without considering that the strength of an empire is also measured by the strength of its periphery. The ABC of geopolitics.
Albania is the paradigm of the European periphery, France's strategic ally in the region; historical relations date back to the emergence of Albania as a nation-state at the beginning of the 20th century. But relations, owing to Albania's candidacy for membership and France's refusal, together with the Netherlands, to integrate Albania and Macedonia, have ended up dynamiting these historical relations. The levels of perception of the Adriatic country are very low in France, owing to two factors. First, rejection of the arrival of immigrants, 30% for immigration from outside the EU and 35% for immigration within the EU, according to Eurobarometer 2019 data. Second, the perception of corruption and crime in French society, which hangs over Albania like a flagstone of white Sivec marble.
Germany is playing two cards: on the one hand, the government is committed to integration, the Balkans being its natural area of expansion; on the other, the same thing is happening to German society as to French society, with very high levels of rejection of immigration. And to Albanian immigration in particular, as it is the one that has grown the most in Germany over the past decade.
In the end, the political positions of France and Germany are not going to be so far apart, at least those of their citizens.
And then is Kosovo, which looks eminently across the Atlantic, as we have just seen with the recent round of negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade endorsed by Washington. Throughout this year, we have seen Hasim Thaçi, considered a man of the United States, manoeuvre former Prime Minister Albin Kurti out of the Kosovo political game. He has two clear intentions: to increase presidential powers and responsibilities and to give impetus to the negotiations with Serbia endorsed by the United States, ahead of hypothetical talks under the EU's umbrella. Furthermore, in this connection, Thaçi has repeatedly condemned the election of Brussels' new representative in Pristina, former Slovak prime minister Miroslav Lajčák, owing to Slovakia's failure to recognise Kosovo.
Ahead of all the powers that seek to influence the Balkans, above Russia and China, the EU and the US, the most decisive actor at the moment is Turkey.
Russia has repositioned itself as a global player. Its traditional ally in the Balkans is Serbia, but its influence is currently limited or at least inferior to that of Turkey, which has made the region one of the mainstays of its foreign policy at all levels. Russia continues to cooperate with Serbia, particularly in defence; joint manoeuvres, but it has ceased to be Serbia's main economic partner, which has become Turkey, supported by the 2009 free trade agreement and the free transit agreement. Turkish investments have grown to just over one trillion euros by 2019. Russia is the power with which the Serbian population of northern Mitrovica identifies, the Russia that is the standard bearer of pan-Slavery, which however does not compete for the region but rather collaborates with Turkey, the power most firmly established in the region. For Russia, the Balkans were its natural area of expansion, both for ethnic, cultural and religious reasons and, at present, for economic and strategic reasons. Turkish influence, once again in contrast to Russian influence, is reaching out to peripheral regions such as Moldova, because the harmony between Presidents Dodon and Erdogan has brought Moldova closer to Turkey. It has responded by strengthening economic and security cooperation. And Igor Dodon has responded by extraditing seven members of the Fethulah Gülen brotherhood who are refugees in Chisinau to Turkey. The accession of countries like Macedonia to NATO in recent years, in the former Russian backyard, is for the moment the only, or at least the most significant, point of friction between Moscow and Ankara in the region.
In Kosovo, the irrational Atlanticist vocation of Kosovar society and the closeness between Thaçi and the Trump Administration, which we have commented on at length in this article, led Belgrade and Pristina to negotiations under Washington's umbrella. They were more interested in attracting Serbia to the organised circus of the Middle East with Israel and the Arab countries than in seeking a viable solution to the Kosovar question. Thaçi, eager to increase his share of power within the government and to avoid the civil or criminal courts that seek to try him for war crimes, has found a perfect partner in the US, which wants to join in the same diplomatic efforts in Kosovo, or rather a double one. It wants to solve the Kosovo issue while Serbia becomes the first European country to recognise Israel's status on the terms unilaterally decided by the Trump Administration. A nonsense that has gone nowhere. The United States has long since abandoned not only the region but also its interests in Eastern Europe, and that space has not been left empty.
China's style, discreet diplomacy, patient underground positioning, contrasts with the style of the Sultan, who has shouted to the four winds that the Balkans are Turkey, and in this respect he has acted. In the article 'China's Footprint in Southeast Europe: Constructing the Balkan Silk Road', the detail of Chinese investments up to 2017, both in Macedonia and Bosnia, is considerably lower than the volume of projects financed by Turkey during this 2020. These projects include critical infrastructures, above all in communications, both management and construction of new infrastructures. However, one of China's most recognisable strategies is the pursuit of influence through intervention in economic systems by purchasing debt, which in countries so in need of financing offers an unbeatable opportunity for the Asian giant.
However, Turkey is the great puppeteer in the region. Its aggressive foreign policy, neo-Ottomanism, envisages various levels of intervention in the different regions where it operates. In this case in the Balkans, it has strengthened its political influence and even exercised a kind of paternalism with many of the Balkan leaders, Izetbegovic in Bosnia, Edi Rama in Albania, Hasim Thaçi in Kosovo and Vucic in Serbia. The political strategy includes the creation and financing of pro-Turkish political parties in countries such as Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Kosovo and mediation between the different states, as occurred in the recent dispute over tariffs between Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia. Another level, perhaps the one that has provided Ankara with the best results, is Turkey's or Erdogan's cultural and religious identification with the countries making up the Balkans, achieving enormous influence over the Muslim minorities in Montenegro or Serbia. Economic cooperation, a fundamental pillar of a sound strategy in the region, has led Turkey to establish separate free trade and movement agreements with each of the countries in the region and to make considerable investments in critical infrastructures through the Directorate General for Religious Affairs, Diyanet, and the Directorate General for Cooperation, TIKA, in most countries. Bosnia and Serbia, Sarajevo-Belgrade highway project, plus inclusion of Serbia in Turkish Stream and more than likely Bosnia. Financing of hospitals in Bosnia, geomining and telecommunications development projects in Kosovo, financing and management of airport facilities in Kosovo and Macedonia, reconstruction of heritage in Albania, as well as aid and financing for reconstruction after the Dürres earthquake in Albania, are just some of the projects where Turkey is involved in the Balkans. Finally, security cooperation has made the Western Balkans a central region in the crusade of Ankara against Fëto, the organisation of Fethulah Gülen.
And finally the EU, which continues to insist on the need for reforms aimed at strengthening the region's economic integration in order to bring the economies closer to the EU's single market system by strengthening the EER (Regional Economic Area). The Commission committed itself, without defining any dates, to presenting an economic and investment plan for the region aimed at stimulating local economies. It emphasises the reforms that each country needs to carry out to integrate its political and economic systems into the EU, such as reducing levels of corruption, strengthening the rule of law, freedom of expression, limiting migration to EU countries, reforming judicial systems and aligning with EU foreign policy. Brussels' erratic policies have given way to third parties and as a result the positions of the different governments are yielding to the sceptics, who are in favour of approaching these new players. And it is the EU itself that has established groups and levels when admitting or beginning accession negotiations, with Albania awaiting structural political reforms, Serbia with the Kosovo issue, or Macedonia a year ago with the name dispute with Greece. Once again, it should be stressed, Europe must be a construction based on solidarity and transversality between partners and candidates or it will be nothing, Russia, Turkey, China or Visegrad willing.
