CERCLE DIPLOMATIQUE - issue 01/2016

LE MONDE WESTERN BALKANS
The Riddle of the Western Balkans
According to common wisdom, the future of Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina,
Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia lies in Europe. But the burdens of the
refugee crisis put the seeds of doubt in more and more people in Western Balkans.
Text: Rainer Himmelfreundpointner
Official final picture of all members at the Western Balkans
Conference in Vienna, end of August 2015.
Each time an educated discussion on a future
enlargement of the European Union ends up
at the the vision of integrating the Western
Balkans, some folks of the cynical fraction of life
start to mock around about the real big question of
this region. Which in their view is: Are the times
changing there or not? After having rhetorically
asked so, one of them will immediately recall Otto
von Bismarck, who in 1888 truly predicted: ”One day
a great European War will come out of some damned
foolish thing in the Balkans.“ And another one will
quickly draw an analogy to a further Bismark statement
– „The Balkans aren‘t worth the life of a single
Pomeranian grenadier” – meaning that nothing has
changed in the Western Balkans, its countries Albania,
Bosnia & Herzegovina, Mecedonia, Montenegro,
Kosovo and Serbia would not be worth a single
EU cent and should stay on their own.
So far to the most extreme, most critical approach
in debating the geopolitical future of what mainly
used to be the former Yugoslavia. A position far beyond
mainstream EU politics, by the way, which in
general is strongly in favour of paving the way for the
Western Balkans towards membership, or at least a
stronger integration into a common Europe. Maybe
the most outspoken promoter of closing the gap between
the EU and the Western Balkans is Austria‘s
Minister for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs,
Sebastian Kurz, who recently finished an extensive
roundtrip throughout the region. ”Austria is deeply
tied together with these states on a humanistic, economic,
cultural and historic base“, says Kurz. „Therefore
Austria remains a clear advocate for EU membership
of all countries of the Western Balkans.“
Basically this perspective is rooted in the first
Western Balkans Summit 2003 in Porto Carras in
Greece which promised an ”unconditional support
for these states in their European orientation“. Nevertheless,
for the next ten years the region was partly
tied up in painful first time experiences of nation
building, partly in unsolved bilateral conflicts going
back to historic or nationalistic differences. Up until
now Serbia and Kosovo haven‘t figured out their generations
old hostility. Bosnia & Herzegovina still
seem to be politically paralysed by internal fractionism.
And Mazedonia‘s ambitions to join the EU
have yet to overcome Greece‘s resistance because of
its disputed name. So, all in all, Western Balkans remained
at square one.
But in 2013, with the first Western Balkan Conference,
chaired by EU Border Security Agency ”Frontex“,
things began to move. It was the dawn of the
European refugee crisis, immigration from the
Middle East and Africa began to focus more and
more on Greece, and as early as that experts warned
that without any counter measures, masses of asylum
seekers could soon be moving forward via the Western
Balkans right into heartland Europe. 2014 saw
two conferences on the Western Balkans, one in June
in Vienna, at which Albania gained EU candidate
status, and one in August in Berlin, where former
Commission President José Manuel Barroso pointed
out that ”the future of the Balkans lies in Europe“
and sweetened this outlook with a 12 billion Euros
subsidy promise. A lot of big infrastructure projects
– mainly transnational railroads, streets and powerplants
– have thus been kickstarted, and politicians
were eager to put wood behind the arrow in their
PHOTOS: ANDY WENZEL/BKA. GRAFIK: FRANZ DEIX
Bosnia &
Herzegovina
The country proclaimed independence
on 6 April 1992 but nearly
immediately became the battlefield
of the Bosnian War, lasting until 1993
with a still disputed number of war
crime victims.
Official name:
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Capital: Sarajevo
Population: 3,871,643
Government: Federal
parliamentary republic
Ethnic groups: 48.4% Bosniaks,
32.7% Serbs, 14.6% Croats,
4.3% other
Area: 51,197 sq km
GDP: 38.08 billion US-$ (PPP)
GDP per capita: 9,800 US-$ (PPP)
Official name: Montenegro
Capital: Podgorica
Population: 620.000
Government: Parliamentary republic
Ethnic groups: 45% Montenegrins, 28.7%
Serbs, 8.6% Bosniaks,
4.9% Albanians
Area: 13,812 sq km
GDP: 3.985 billion US-$ (PPP)
GDP per capita: 6.373 US-$ (PPP)
Serbia
The largest of the Western Balkans states is an
independent republic since 2006 when its union with
Montenegro broke apart. Having left the years of the
Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s behind, Serbia today is an
upper-middle income economy with a dominant service
sector, followed by industry and agriculture, an economically
moderately free country and EU membership candidate.
Official name: Republic of Serbia
Capital: Belgrade
Population: 7,041,599
Government: Unitary parliamentary
constitutional republic
Ethnic groups: 83% Serbs, 3.5% Hungarians,
2% Roma, 2% Bosniaks, 9% others
Area: 88,361 sq km
GDP: 99.899 billion US-$ (PPP)
GDP per capita: 13,944 US-$ (PPP)
Official name: Republic of Albania
Capital: Tirana
Population: 2,893,005
Government: Unitary parliamentary constitutional republic
Area: 28,748 sq km
GDP: 32.259 billion US-$ (PPP)
GDP per capita: 11,700 US-$ (PPP)
Kosovo
The former province of Serbia declared independence
on 17 February 2008. Serbia refuses to recognise Kosovo
as a state, although with the Brussels Agreement of 2013
it has accepted the legitimacy of Kosovo institutions.
Kosovo also lacks diplomatic recognition from 85 United
Nations member states, including five EU states, and is
not a member of the UN.
Official name: Republic of Kosovo
Capital: Pristina
Population: 1,859,203
Government: Parliamentary republic
Area: 10,908 sq km
GDP: 17.780 billion US-$ (PPP)
GDP per capita: 9,570 US-$ (PPP)
Official name: Republic of Macedonia
Capital: Skopje
Population: 2,069,162
Government: Parliamentary republic
Ethnic groups: 64.2% Macedonians,
25.2% Albanians, 3.9% Turks, 2.7% Romani,
1.8% Serbs, 2.2% other
Area: 25,713 sq km
GDP: 22.147 billion US-$ (PPP)
GDP per capita: 10,718 US-$ (PPP)
,
FACTS &
FIGURES
Western Balkans
Terminus technicus: In December
1998 the EU introduced the words
Westerns Balkans into its terminology,
identifying the remaining
southeast European countries –
Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina,
Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and
Serbia – which after the joining of
Bulgaria and Romania would be part
of the next strategic step of EU
enlargement.
Geography: In case of experts in
geomorphology talking about the
Western Balkans, they deal with the
Western part of the Balkan
Mountains between Bulgaria and
Serbia, with 95 percents of its hills on
the side of Bulgaria.
History: Apart from the facts that
World War I started in Serbia and the
states of former Yugoslavia engaged
in a bloody war in the region between
1991 and 2001, the notion of
”balkanisation“ – meaning political
instability and economic backwardness
– is deeply rooted in Western
perception. Especially in Austria, and
more so in Vienna, where people
think to know where the Balkans
really start – at the Rennweg in
Vienna‘s third district.
Economy: The Western Balkans
states still have a long way to go
before reaching EU economic level.
Incomes per capita amount for only
27 percent of EU average. Trade
relations of the regions are heavily
dependent on the EU, accounting for
75 percent.
Montenegro
Meaning ”Black Mountain“, the
country was either ruled by local
aristocray, Venice or the Ottoman
Empire, until it became part of
Yugoslavia in 1918. Independent
since 3 June 2006.
Albania
The country first mentioned in 1190 became independent
after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and declared
independence in 1912. After a period of kingdom, Italian
and Nazi regimes, it returned to republic constitution with
the last having been introduced in 1998. Albania enjoys the
status of EU candidacy and is a member of the NATO.
Macedonia
The most southern successor state of former
Yugoslavia declared independence on 8 September
1991 and became a member of the United Nations in
1993. But, as a result of an ongoing dispute with Greece
over use of the name Macedonia, it was admitted under
the provisional description of „the former Yugoslav
Republic of Macedonia“.
46 Cercle Diplomatique 1/2016
Cercle Diplomatique 1/2016 47