Does the Belgrade-Pristina deal bring an end to the ‘Balkan cauldron’ metaphor?

ANITA SĘK

On April 19 I was sitting in the majestic Raeburn room of the Edinburgh University’s Old College, discussing the PhD dissertations of my fellows, when I got a message from my Serbian friend: “Belgrade and Pristina sign agreement. Ashton must be jumping with joy”. The comment on High Representative Ashton was rightly on place. It was less than a month ago when, sitting in Rome on a seminar on the ENP, I received from the same friend a forwarded press-release by lady Ashton that the last 8^th meeting of the ‘EU facilitated dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo’, initiated a couple of months earlier, came to an end, unfortunately with no deal reached. Serbian prime minister Ivica Dacic and his Kosovar counterpart Hashim Thaci needed two more rounds of negotiations under the EU auspices. The success comes right in time for the EEAS, celebrating this year its third anniversary, but lacking so far any bigger outcomes proving its existence. Much credit for the positive result of the EU-facilitated dialogue goes to Ashton herself.  

The deal produces an interesting case for the international law and praxis: de jure, it does not mean Serbia recognises Kosovo as an independent state. But de facto it concedes that the government in Pristina has legal authority over the whole territory. From now on, about 45,000 Serbs concentrated in the northern part of Kosovo (about one-fifth of the territory) will enjoy certain autonomy in the justice and home matters, such as choosing their regional police and justice representatives. It is the more important that since the 1999 conflict, there has been sporadic violence between Serbians and the ethnic Albanian majority. Nevertheless, such a solution does not satisfy Kosovo Serbs, who do not want to be put under Pristina’s authority. That is the reason why Aleksandar Vucic, Serbian deputy prime minister, proposed to call a referendum on the Belgrade-Pristina deal, while at the same time demanding from Serbs to accept its result, regardless of what it will be.

It seems that Serbs, perhaps seduced by the EU promise of (1) commencing the accession talks, of (2) allowing Serbian citizens to travel to the EU without a visa, of (3) bringing EU investments so needed for the country’s collapsed economy, or maybe simply exhausted with the protracted ‘Kosovo problem’ and with their legacy of Balkan wars, have come to terms with the loss of its southern province, signifying 10% of Serbia’s ancient territory. As Kosovo Albanians put it:  it is time to stop the nationalistic propaganda, time to be honest with Serb people that Kosovo is gone for good.

Well, certainly it is the Albanian side that is the winner of the negotiations. Nonetheless, as we know from history, (e.g. the Wiemar Republic), a total condemnation and punishment of only one side involved in a conflict never brings long-lasting peace. On the contrary: the more severe and unfair the punishment, the bigger the sentiment for revisionism. The Serbian nation has been isolated from the international community too long. Often on its own wish, must be underlined, giving examples of such situations as staying outside the framework of the WTO or presenting  (humming, to be precised)  a military nationalistic song “Mars na Drinu” in the heart of the organisation that is supposed to take care of international peace and good neighbourliness: the United Nations, sparking outcry from the neighbouring Bosnia. On the other hand, the Serbian nation – indeed not the Serbian politicians, ex-leaders or elites, but the whole society – has been constantly reminded (and brainwashed, as my Serbian friend would add) that they are the only perpetrators of all the Balkan tragedies taking place on the peninsula since the Yugoslav times, as exemplified painfully for the nation in the decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague sentencing almost exclusively Serbians, controversially freeing almost all the others (Croatians with Ante Gotovina on top, as well as Bosnians and Albanians) due to the lack of evidence. It must be nevertheless remembered that all the parts are to be blamed and are to certain extent responsible for both the past and the future (see e.g. Benson Leslie “Yugoslavia. A concise history”, Palgrave Macmillan 2004, wydana w Polsce przez WUJ w 2011).

The Belgrade-Pristina deal is not the end, but the beginning. Definitely, a new era opens now for the Balkans. Setting up the good neighbourly relations is a test of their political and social maturity. But it is not only Serbians who must give in. What is more, this regards even not only all the Balkan nations once gathered in the Socialist Federal Yugoslav Republic, for which so many of them are still nostalgic for. This is also the international community, with the European Union and the United States on the top, who must finally understand that the world of Balkans is not black and white.

* Anita Sęk – former President of the Centre for International Initiatives and coordinator of Youth Eastern Partnership Programme. She holds Master degrees in EU International Relations and Diplomacy from the College of Europe in Bruges, (2012) and in International Relations from the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (2011). She also studied in Warsaw and Vienna (LLP Erasmus). Anita Sęk gained experience as trainee in several institutions: the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Embassy in Moscow, the international NGO Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, Berlin, as well as the Institute of Public Affairs, a Polish think tank. Currently she works at the Trans European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA) in Brussels.
Research interests: diplomacy, external action of the EU, CFSP, European Neighbourhood Policy (particularly Eastern Partnership), Polish foreign policy.

See also:

• A. Zdeb, Gdy się demokracja rodzi…
• A. Sęk, Gruzja – kolebka konfliktów
• N. Wojtowicz, O czym świadczą największe nieplanowane manewry rosyjskiego wojska?