UNMIK on Air- Special
28th
June 2003
EU Summit
(By
Sputnik Kilambi and Zoran Culafic)
Hello and welcome to UNMIK ON AIR for this special program
on the perspectives opened up by the recent EU –Western Balkans summit in Thessalonica
Greece.
Music up and fade
Chris Patten: The destiny for the
people of South East Europe is membership in the EU, and we want to underline
that at this summit. Of course, they have to make changes on their part. They
have to continue the process of political and economic reform, on which they
impart, but we wish to be more hands-on helping them in that process.
EU external relations commissioner Chris Patten making it
clear that the western Balkans are a missing piece from the European jigsaw.
But that membership in this exclusive club is not automatic. The road map set out by the EU implies tough
choices and sacrifices for the 5 Balkan aspirants. Nonetheless says Alex Rondos, roving ambassador of Greece under
whose presidency the summit was held, it is significant that the EU made this
commitment at a time when world attention is deeply distracted by events in
other parts of the globe.
Alex Rondos: It’s a reminder not only that they
are not forgotten but there’s a very keen interest in seeing them totally
embedded in Europe. Basically what Europe is saying is today for the first time
all the countries there, represented democratically. Europe is saying let us
help you make all the different reforms needed because the path to Europe isn’t
easy. We give you the perspective but we’re telling you what your obligations
are.
That means above all tackling organized crime and
corruption, which according to the EU is the key obstacle to stability, the
rule of law, economic development and therefore European integration.
High, perhaps unreasonably high expectations left many
Balkan delegates unhappy that they didn’t get a clear date for entry into the
EU for example. But the Thessalonica summit was a turning point of sorts.
The EU is offering an additional
200 million euros on top of the 4 billion dollars already pledged. It is also
opening up new budget lines to help with European integration. But the onus of
the reforms lies clearly with the western Balkan countries - both on the
economic and the political fronts and above all in terms of intra-regional
relations. The people of the
Balkans want the benefits of joining the EU, says Nenad Sebek, executive
director of the Thessalonica based Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in
Southeast Europe, but they don’t want to give up the mindset of the 90s when
they fought wars over territory.
Nenad
Sebek: They’re
prepared to join the prosperity of the EU, but they’re not fully prepared for
the sacrifices, ideas like sacred soil, the blood of our ancestors, all the
nations of the Balkans are right now hoping that they can hang on to those
illusions and yet join the future in the EU. Its not going to work out that
way, they will have to make tough decisions, painful sacrifices if they want to
become part of this exclusive club. But I don’t think they’re ready for that
yet.
But that’s precisely what the roadmap to Europe will help
them with, insists Chris Patten. The history of enlargement, he says, shows
that it has promoted stability and peace in the whole region – and what happened in southern Europe can
also happen in southeastern Europe.
Chris Patten: After the end of fascist
authoritarianism in the Iberian Peninsula and in Greece, very poor countries
became members of the EU, became huge contributors in terms of the spirit of
the Union and became great beneficiaries for being part of the club and I think
it will be true in due course for the west Balkans too.
But given Kosovo’s unresolved status, what does regional
integration mean in practice; for one thing, says Frane Marejovic, spokesman
for the European commission delegation to Bosnia, Belgrade and Prishtina will
have to start talks…and sooner rather than later.
Frane Marejovic: If you want to be part of a bigger family, then you
have to show that you can get on with your neighbours before you can actually
have a membership of the EU. We are not talking about love and emotional
issues, we’re talking about practical issues, about economy, trade, freedom of
travel between the countries, very concrete issues that these countries have to
show that they are able to maturely deal with. Regional approach doesn’t mean
that these countries will be lumped together in a package; each country has to
show its own advance, its own initiative in terms of moving forward. It is an
individual approach but it has to be regionally strengthened.
The EU, says Judy Dempsey, Brussels based diplomatic correspondent for the Financial Times, is getting much more hardnosed towards the region, but the international community also has a lot to answer for. Stability was the key concept for the EU and the US as the former Yugoslavia slid from bloodshed to bloodshed. Troop buildup was seen as the answer, but at the cost of state building, she says. The international community waited too long and local mafias filled the ensuing vacuum.
Judy Dempsey: I think we’ve made a terrible
mistake in the Balkans and we’re only learning now that reconstruction cannot
take place in a vacuum. Its got to go hand in hand with a huge financial and
personnel commitment of state building, judicial institutions, the legal
institutions, independent civil servants and the rule of law.
Bosnia is a case in point, says Nenad Sebek. The
international community directly manipulated 2 elections, banned nationalist
parties and managed to push through a non-nationalist government on the third
attempt. But that failed and at the most recent polls, voters went back to the
same nationalist parties, which took them into the war.
Nenad Sebek: People here feel threatened; the basic issues of security,
of safety, of jobs have not been resolved. What do you do when you don’t have
those issues resolved, you pull together in a tribe, in a herd and that’s this
nationalist mantle? That is why we’re still dealing with politicians of the old
guard the peoples of the region are still struggling with the past they’re
trying to move forward, yet they have this chain on their leg as if they were
all convicts dragging this terrible painful past with them and not being able
to turn towards the future.
And that
chain is both visible and palpable in Kosovo. Small wonder perhaps that the
Kosovar Albanians can only think of the future in terms of independence, while
their Serb counterparts look the other war the moment the ‘I’ word is
mentioned. At the Thessalonica summit too, the question of Kosovo’s final
status was on everyone’s minds. But not an issue to be debated at the moment
for EU commissioner for external relations Chris Patten, who preferred to
repeat the mantra of standards before status.
Chris Patten: Constitutional status of course
excites people a great deal, but whatever the constitutional status over
community of the end of the day, if that community does not share the standards
the rest of us are worked to in the EU, then it turns into a black hole
continentally and makes it impossible for to join our shared sovereignty.
Not talking about it doesn’t mean the problem will go away,
points out Judy Dempsey of the Financial Times. Kosovo’s final status will have
to be tackled sooner rather than later, otherwise, she says, the contours and
problems of the region cannot be resolved.
Judy Dempsey: We
have to bite the bullet on this and the Greeks have actually lost out on this
in the presidency they should have forced the status issue on the table. The
Americans are divided over it, the Europeans are divided over it and its all so,
its too dirty, its too messy, we’ll open up a Pandora’s box the Serbs will go
crazy if you mention the independence of Kosovo, what on earth are we doing
with our diplomatic skills if we cant bring mature people around the table and
call a spade a spade. This is not another Balkan war, this is about
establishing arrangements between nations and states and if we don’t address
this, well frankly, thank you, you can have an international protectorate
running Kosovo for the rest of the time.
Ines Sabolic: I think that effort of the EU to
establish a state union of Serbia and Montenegro is primarily a security issue
with the aim of postponing the issue of the final status of Kosovo. The whole
struggle in the last 2 years, to preserve Serbia-Montenegro and to strengthen
their integration, is telling us that they absolutely don’t want to touch the
Kosovo issue in the foreseeable future.
The situation in the western
Balkans today is not one of genuine peace, says Nenad Sebak of the center for
democracy and reconciliation in southeast Europe, it’s merely the absence of
war. And Kosovo is not the only
unresolved problem, there is unrest in Macedonia while Bosnia remains a big
problem. None of the current proposals
on the table spell an end to conflict – both independence and partition hold
dangers.
Nenad Sebak: The one solution which I see
taking the whole region forward is actually Kosovo joining the EU regardless of
final status why not become member states of the EU and then resolve the real
tough issues of the final status of Kosovo 50 years from now. Where’s the big
rush, if we’re one big European family, if we’ve got no borders separating us,
if we’ve got one single currency etc, etc, does it really matter after all.
It does in the real world - but the summit did underline
that the integration of the western Balkans is irreversible. The question of when is firmly in the hands
of the countries of the region.