EU in the Balkans

The future of the Balkan countries is in the European Union". Thus, on June 21, 2003, in Thessaloniki, the top of the EU declared its intention to accept the entire Western Balkans into its membership. The promise from Thessaloniki opened a new perspective for the 22 million inhabitants of these countries of former Yugoslavia and current Albania. The future on the near horizon, thanks to reforms in the state, economy and society, promise more security and well-being. No sudden turn, but still a turn, a slight one, in the direction of a better life.

More and more authoritarian

The region left behind a decade of horrors. Yugoslavia fell apart in blood. For hundreds of thousands of people it meant destruction or persecution. But in 2000, Milosevic was a thing of the past, so even though his victor, Zoran Đinđić, was killed in March 2003, the prevailing belief in European capitals was that the country remained on the course of reform. Bosnia and Kosovo were protectorates, which swallowed billions of euros. But international donors believed they could see progress in building a functioning state. In Macedonia in 2001, Western countries prevented a civil war. Croatia had the Tuđman era behind it and was right on the threshold of EU candidacy. Although the process of rapprochement with the EU most often remained non-transparent, in Brussels they believed that they had found a method to liberate the Balkans from its backwardness. The enlargement process was supposed to be an export of democracy at the same time. Since then, the attack has been regularly evaluated and noted in reports. However, the mentioned pedagogical dialogue was conducted exclusively with the political elites. Citizens were almost not represented in it. Said method did not prevent the governments in the Balkans from becoming increasingly authoritarian, with all-powerful politicians at the top: Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, Nikola Gruevski in Macedonia or Milo Đukanović in Montenegro. The media is loyal to them, and the judiciary is helpless in relation to the all-powerful executive: one can freely speak of the democracy of leaders.

Simulated reforms This deficit in democracy bothers the EU less and less. Pressured by the Ukrainian and refugee crisis as well as the euro crisis, the EU made a turn in the direction of realpolitik. Instead of reprimanding the Balkan lords and leading them into a furrow due to autocracy and twisting of justice, now only loyalty matters to her. Aleksandar Vucic and Hashim Thaci guarantee a cold peace between Belgrade and Pristina, which the EU has boxed out. Milo Đukanović is pushing through his country's membership in NATO despite the resistance of the pro-Russian opposition, and Nikola Gruevski has advanced to become the gatekeeper of the EU, which has blocked the Balkan route on the northern borders of Greece with rivers of refugees. Instead of an enlargement policy, the EU is now conducting a highly calculating realpolitik. The fact that there is almost no progress in EU integration does not overly concern strong people in the Balkans. On the contrary! They live most comfortably in the lobby of the EU. There, where in the fading light of their own stars they simulate reforms.

Guarantees of peace and stability: Tači-Vučić tandem The President of Kosovo and the Serbian Prime Minister are guarantors of the peace process between their countries. Thus, they became the central pillars of the EU's stabilization policy.

Most often, "hawks" and not "doves" are the ones who dare to take the first steps towards peace after the war. That legality also applies to the Kosovo conflict. On the Serbian side, it was a former ultra-nationalist, and on the Kosovo side, it was a former guerrilla leader. In 2013, they signed the Agreement on Normalization, with the assistance of the EU Committee on Foreign Affairs. Since then, Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and President Hashim Thaci have been the guarantors of a fragile peace plan.

The 1993-year-old Serbian prime minister began his political career in 1998 as the son of Vojislav Šešelj, a nationalist and warmonger. He advanced quickly and from 2000 to 2008 he was the Minister of Information under Milošević. After his fall, with great demagoguery, he was in opposition to the Democrats, who led the country on the path of EU integration. At the latest in XNUMX, it became clear to Vučić that the Great Serbian fantasies are no longer winning elections. He renounced his creator Šešelj and became a companion of the new party, which declared itself as pro-European. That opened the way for him to power.

As early as 2012, as the deputy prime minister, Vučić was the most influential man in Serbia, dominating the media and institutions, while since then the disoriented opposition has been lurking in the shadows. Absurdly, but convincingly, Vučić announced that he now considers his former ideas to be wrong. He learned. What his predecessors did not dare to do, he did without thinking: he made a compromise with Kosovo Prime Minister Thaci, which implies the withdrawal of Serbian institutions from the north of Kosovo. In return, Pristina provided wide autonomy to Serbian municipalities.

Neither the parliaments nor the public were involved in these negotiations. When the Kosovo Serbs revolted, Vučić replaced their leadership and thereby crushed the resistance there.

Thaci, according to the EU's calculation, is the ideal negotiating partner for Vučić: as the former head of the KLA, only he could push political trade with the Serbs against his own nationalist hardliners. Thaci has been the dominant figure in Kosovo since the war. After 1999, the UN administration quickly aligned itself with the warlord. Investigations into war crimes, political murders and corruption have sunk into the sand. The international representatives were afraid for the stability of the protectorate and allowed the new masters to do whatever they wanted.

The political peak of Thaci's career was the declaration of Kosovo's independence in 2008, which he directed as prime minister under the American baton. Since then his star has been sinking. Because of the progress that Kosovars dreamed of, there is nothing even now in their own country. Clientelism and corruption led to the powerful growth of the opposition movement, which combines its criticism of the elite with Greater Albanian nationalism and decisively rejects the Normalization Agreement. In the fall, Brussels retaliated with the Stabilization and Association Agreement. Vučić, the second pillar, was rewarded with the opening of accession negotiations.

Pioneer Milo Đukanović At the age of 29, he was the youngest prime minister in Europe, back in 1991. A quarter of a century later, Milo Đukanović still rules his dwarf state on the Adriatic: Montenegro. He is a pioneer of guided democracy in the Balkans, and he managed to have the EU consider his country as the "least problematic" in the region. Since 2012, Podgorica has been conducting accession negotiations with the EU, and in December an invitation to join NATO arrived. Đukanović has survived politically for so long because he has a fine sense for changes in the movements of the political winds. Politically, he grew up under the mantle of Slobodan Milošević, from whose shadow he squirmed after the war in Bosnia in 1996, and since then he has been striving to leave the union with Serbia. That act turns him into an ally of the West. His family becomes wealthy, which some consider to be the product of cigarette smuggling, and others to the privatization of banks. Networking between the state and business is profitable for him and he cannot help but see it. Since 2014, Đukanović has been trying to join NATO, and after Putin's annexation of Crimea, despite threats from Moscow, he immediately joined Western sanctions against Russia. With Montenegro joining NATO, the entire Adriatic would be in the hands of the Alliance, with the exception of those few kilometers of the Bosnian coast. By receiving 2.000 members of the strong Montenegrin army, NATO can show everyone that it continues its "open door policy" without any risk. The opposition does not only accuse Đukanović of nepotism and corruption, but also demands a referendum on joining NATO, which divides the local population. Đukanović refuses.

Porter Nikola Gruevski

Gruveski entered the political scene in 1998 as a technocrat: a hard-working minister of finance, who gained some popularity in Macedonia through tax reforms. He took over the leadership of the national-conservative party VMRO in 2003, and in 2006 he became prime minister. Since then he has won every election. The year of the turning point was 2008. Greece, which saw in the constitutional name Republic of Macedonia pretensions over the Greek province of the same name, blocked Skopje's membership in NATO. Since then, Athens has been preventing the EU integration of the candidate country Macedonia: for 10 years already.

What under normal circumstances would have been the sure defeat of a head of government, Gruevski used it for an ideological turn that strengthened him. He styled himself as the defender of the nation, whose internal security is threatened by an evil neighborhood and an internal enemy. Most believed him, partly because he kept the media on a tight leash. At the beginning of 2015, a scandal erupted when it was revealed that the state was spying widely and deeply on the opposition and critics. The EU got involved, and new elections will be held in June. The chances of Gruevski being re-elected are good.

It helps that, along with the refugee crisis, Macedonia has become the "defender of Europe". On Macedonia's southern borders, police officers from EU countries are helping the Macedonian army to block the "Balkan route". Vienna and Budapest praise the actions of the Macedonian government in favor of the stability of the continent. And the diplomatic service of the EU stated in an internal paper that it has strong enough institutions for this: in the eyes of Europe, Gruevski has rehabilitated himself - at least as a goalkeeper.

(Neue Zuercher Zeitung/NZZ) Translation: M. VULETIĆ