Macedonia Moves Forward

EUROPA - Rapid - Press Releases

In a highly important move, the European Commission has now recommended that Macedonia be given the status of a country that is a candidate for membership in the European Union.

After the referedum debacles of late spring, the entire future enlargement process has been in doubt. But since then accession negotiations have started with Croatia and Turkey, and now it's official that Macedonia is next in line to open formal talks.

That's a most important signal that will be heard loud and clear throughout the entire region.

But the Commission isn't recommending immediate accession talks. There are a number of reforms still needed in Macedonia. A new assessment of these will be made a year from now, and that means that accession talks can start in 2007 at the very earliest.

Much depends on what will happen in the meantime in Macedonia, in the region and - not the least - in the European Union itself.

But it was a good day for Europe and the Balkans

Macedonia Taken Hostage

Although I would expect the issue to reappear when the heads of state and government of the European Union get together in Brussels tomorrow for the crucial meeting of the European Council, it is a fact that it was France that at the meeting of the foreign ministers of Monday blocked giving Macedonia the status as candidate for membership of the Union.

In itself this designation would not necessarily have meant that much. The Commission, which recommended the step, noted that the country is not yet fully ready to start accession negotiationens.

But it would be an important political signal.

First to Macedonia itself, showing that implementing the Ohrid Peace Agreement, signed after the heavy fighting in the country in early 2001, is the road that eventually leads to full European integration.

Secon to the region as a whole, showing that the door to the European Union remains open, but it is dependent on performance on whether one can enter or not.

Both signals would have been of great importance as a critical time approaches in the region.

But France wanted otherwise and said no. French foreign policy seems to be in a rather sorry state at the moment - disoriented after the Non in the referendum, and apprehensive towards a European development it doesn't really control any more.

In public remarks the French foreign minister hinted that it was more of a short-term thing, indicating that in six months time there could be a reassessment of the entire question of an accession strategy for the Western Balkans. Whether this would mean that it would then be no to everyone, or perhaps yes to everyone, was left as unclear as many other things.

And to some extent there is no doubt that France has taken Macedonia hostage to its stance on the EU budget negotiations. Keen to protect its farm subsidies, it's threathening to block everything else.

I don't think this is a policy that long-term protects French interests by creating allies and friends. Rather on the contrary.

And I'm certain that it is a policy hurting the Balkans and Europe's important role there.

Congratulations, Europe and Macedonia!

It was indeed high time to put an end to the soap opera of budget dispute in the European Union. Tony Blair managed to secure a deal on the 2007 - 2013 budget for the Union.

Perhaps these soap operas are unavoidable. It's many different interests coming from 25 member states that have to come together in a unanimous decision. It's distinctly good that there isn't yearly major budget decisions, but instead a multi-year process that then clears the table for a considerable time.

I haven't as of yet had time to look at the details of the budget deal. It's expenditure on the level of 1,043% of the anticipated GDP of the Union. Minute if you compare it with the level of - often much too high - public spending in the member states.

But most important was that candidate status was given to Macedonia. The French lifted their veto.

Macedonia is to be congratulated!

Further steps - as you can see in the text of the conclusions - will be taken in the light of a more general debate in the Union on the future of enlargement. Not necessarily wrong, but very important how that debate is prepared and conducted.

But for the time being we can only note that the European Union has left one drama behind and has kept the perspective of further enlargement open.

Good work, Tony Blair. And Angela Merkel.

87642.pdf (application/pdf objekt)

Macedonia Moving

It might not be the biggest global story at the moment, but the first round of the local elections in Macedonia this Sunday are not without interest.

I was there when the country descended into fighting that brought to the brink of large-scale civil war in 2oo1. It was essentially a spill-over from Kosovo - most of the key rebel fighters had crossed the mountains from there in order to launch the attack on Kosovo - but still reflected some of the divisions in Macedonian society.

After heavy political intervention by the EU and the US, a political deal was brokered in Ohrid, and the country set on a new path with greater rights for its Albanian minority, consisting of somewhat more than a fifth of the total population.

The Ohrid Agreement has been under threat a number of time since then, but it has held. Now, a major reform of local administration has been done, including some highly controversial redrawing of municipal boundaries, and the elections now are to elect new local leaders to these partly new local administrations.

On a brief visit to Skopje, the political athmosphere was unsually calm. In Skopje, the battle will be within the Macedonian majority there, while in Tetovo, which is the key Albanian city, there will be fought a major electoral battle between two Albanian parties. The war leader from 2oo1, subsequently part of the government that implements the Ohrid Agreement, might well fail to unseat the dominance of the party that dominated the Tetovo region prior to the rebellion.

We'll see. Either way, there is no reason to expect major drama. And it's really the absence of major drama that is the big unreported story coming out of Macedonia. War makes headlines - peace really doesn't, not even in places that have been on the verge of major war.

I was there for a major conference on economic development that brought most of the leaders of the region together. With growth rates of 4-5% and with foreign investment starting to increase there is a reasonable story to tell about the region.

But much more needs to be done, and that was the subject of the meeting. And at the centre of the discussions were the prospect for closer relations to, eventually leading to membership of, the European Union. That is seen as the safest way to both peace and prosperity for the region.

The silent success of the Ohrid Agreement has showed the peace possibilities - and the economic integration will over time show the prosperity potential.

Towards a Nerveous Balkans

In the next few days, I'm "re-basing" to the coast of Dalmatia in Croatia for parts of the summer. The intensity of the blogging might well suffer somewhat from the warmth of the Mediterranean summer.

It's a nerveous Balkans I'm coming to. In spite of official efforts to keep a good face, there is a deep unease over what might be happening with the process of enlargement of the European Union and how it will affect their futures.

Croatia is eagerly waiting for the possibility to start its accession negotiations, but so far failure to cooperate completely with the UN tribunal in the case of Croat general Gotovina indicted for war crimes in connection with the so called Operation Storm in August 1995 has held up progress.

The issue will be on the agenda when the EU foreign ministers meet in mid-July for their last meeting until October. If there hasn't been enough progress until then, there is a severe risk that the beginning of the Croat negotiations will slip until after the scheduled beginning of the talks for Turkey on October 3rd.

That would obviously put Croatia in a difficult position, and one can only hope that the steps will be taken that avoids this. The decision is primarily in the hands of Zagreb.

In Bosnia, much is at the moment centered on the 10th anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica on July 11th. Boris Tadic - President of Serbia - has been invited and will be among coming those coming for the commemorations.

But in this rather emotional climate, the country also has to come together for important reform decisions. Political tensions have heated up lately, with the Prime Minister dismissing the Foreign Minister for reasons that really had nothing with his job or his politics to do.

And this autumn, we will see the 10 year anniversary of the Dayton Peace agreement. I will have reason to come back to that more than once during the rest of the year.

In Serbia, expectations are increasing that one - the one way or the other - will be able to deliver also general Mladic - undoubtedly responsible for the massacre following the fall of Srebrenica - to the UN tribunal. This would create a good climate for the negotiations starting this autumn for a Stabilisation and Assocation Agreement with the European Union.

But it's next year that will be critical. Important issues en masse will be on the table. The status of Kosovo perhaps most difficult, but also the future of the state union between Serbia and Montenegro. And at some time during the year there will be a major EU conference to take decision on its future policies in the region, not least the enlargement perspective.

On Kosovo, the Ambassador of Norway Kai Eide has now been asked by the UN to assess how far one has come in fulfilling certain standards, notably in respect of minorities and other key democratic principles. His task is not an easy one, and I don't expect that we will hear much from him until September or so. He's a competent man with an integrity that can hardly be questioned.

Also this is an issue I'm likely to have reason to return to.

In Albania, the campaign for the July 3rd parliamentary elections is now entering its final phase. It will be crucial to see if the country can really run a free and fair election - the previous ones have been marked by irregularities and fraud - and possibly also a democratic and orderly transfer of power. Albania is the only country in the region which has not yet managed an orderly democratic change from one government to another.

And finally Macedonia - or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as the official EU and UN designation still is. Here, one is awaiting the opinion of the European Commission on its application for EU membership. It's excepted during the autumn. In all probability, the EU will then take its decision in some sort of combination with the other Balkan decisions expected during next year.

There will be much to discuss around the dinner tables in Dalmatia during the next few weeks. The coming twelwe months or so will be of critical importance for the region.

And the region is of critical importance for the future of Europe.

Macedonia Problems

Well, there were obviously more problems than anticipated in the local elections in Macedonia:

"Whilst the generally orderly conduct of the elections in most places is very welcome, the serious and persistent irregularities in a significant number of municipalities undermine the process as a whole," said Julian Peel Yates, heading the observer mission for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

"The behaviour of the persistent offenders must change before the (27 March) second round."

Balkan Summer

It might have been noticed that the pace of my blogging has slowed down rather considerably.

It's the effect of summer starting to set in.

I have now relocated to the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, and will have this as my base for some weeks, although with some excursions in different directions.

It's a world between the Mediterranean and the Balkan worlds. Italy is just across the sea, and Bosnia is just beyond the most immediate mountain ridge.

The politics of the Balkans is still very uncertain.

The elections in Macedonia yesterday seems to have resulted in big gains for the opposition, although no official results have been announced as of yet. It will not be easy to patch together a new government.

While Croatia moves ahead in its talks on accession to the European Union, the other parts of the region are more uncertain of what the future will bring for them.

Bosnia is heading for its elections in October, and its politics has all the characters of pre-election maneuvering. In Republika Srpska the independence of Montenegro and the coming likely independence of Kosovo has rather predictably lead to a discussion whether the Serb part of Bosnia could not do the same.

It's undoubtedly Serbia that is having the most difficult situation, and it also happens to be the key country of the region. Stability in Serbia means stability for the region - and the other way around.

With a its democrats in a rather fragile situation, it struggles to deal with the demands of the international community that it should immediately deal with the one existential question after the other.

The most difficult issue is undoubtedly Kosovo and its future.

And the risks are very real. We could end up creating a new Gaza in Kosovo and a new Belarus in Serbia. All of the region would be negatively affected for years to come. The European strategy would grind to a sudden halt.

We'll see what happens.

In Dubrovnik over the weekend some of the leaders of the region will meet at the invitation of the Croat government to discuss the future of the region within the broader Euroatlantic context.

A most pleasant location for a most important discussions.

I'll be there and offer also my perspectives.

And for the coming weeks there will be some blogging, although perhaps with a frequence more in line with the pace of the summer on the Adriatic.

Balkan Failure in Salzburg?

Yesterday and today the Foreign Ministers of the European Union are meeting informally in Salzburg in Austria under Ulrika Plassnik, the Austrian Foreign Minister.

It's the informal meeting that happens twice each year. Originally ment to allow a more free-wheeling and less prepared discussion, these meetings have over time become more formal as well.

Originally, the Balkans was supposed to be the great issue at this meeting. All the Foreign Ministers of the Balkan states have been invited for a discussion. And there will be a communique issues afterwards - most unusual.

But what was supposed to take the Balkan policy of the EU forward now risks taking it backwards.

It was at the summit meeting in Thessaloniki in Greece in 2003 that one formally opened up a membership perspective for all the Balkan states. It was a most important step.

And there has been progress since then. Croatia is negotiating for membership. Macedonia has been given candidate status.

But in the discussions leading up to Salzburg there has been fierce resistance against spelling out a firmer membership perspective for the region. On the contrary, new conditions have been added, and the language on the European perspective watered down and watered down.

It's primarily driven by France, although there are some others following in its wake.

What the French really want is beyond me. They are not saying that enlargement will never happen, but they are putting brakes on every single little step that could conceivable take the Union in that direction.

It's a policy without an aim. It's tactics without a strategy.

The discussion during the day will show the extent to which other member states are prepared to accept that the entire European policy in the region is dragged down by this.

Salzburg will be an important debate.

Christmas Coming!

Behind us lies a week in which things, after all, moved forward somewhat.

There was a budget deal for the European Union in Brussels, as well as an agreement on candidate status for Macedonia. There was an orderly election in Iraq, although the major issues are still in front of the country. And there a limited deal at the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Hong Kong, allowing the global trade talks to move forward.

Forward movement on all of these fronts.

But now I would expect things to slow down. In large parts of the world we are rapidly approaching Christmas. At the least for the Protestant and Catholic Christians - the Orthodox prefer theirs to be a little later.

As for myself, I'll be going to Rome in Italy to spend at the least part of Christmas there. No snow, but numerous other attractions.

There will be time to reflect on other things than the state of the world, the turmoils of Europe or the prospect of politics.

Welcome to Dinner!

Linked you'll find the formal letter of PM Tony Blair inviting his colleauges to the European Council meeting starting in Brussels tonight.

As you can see, this will be the budget summit, although there will be an element of the Middle East as well.

In addition, there are some issues of VAT rates, with the French holding everything hostage to that as well.

And then there is the seemingly small, but in fact very important issue of candidate status of Macedonia.

This is the last time that Tony Blair will chair a European summit. To a not inconsiderable extent, his place in the history of European integration will be decided by whether he succeeds or fails tonight and tomorrow.

Let's hope that he succeeds.

UK EU Presidency 2005 Latest News

Interim Plan for Balkans

During the last week I have been in numerous discussions on how the European Union should move forward with its policies in Southeastern Europe.

Some things are moving forward. So called SAA negotiations have now been started with both Bosnia and Serbia.

Other things might be moving as well. The European Council next week ought to follow the Commissions recommendation and give candidate status to Macedonia, although France has been trying stop the entire thing. But when Angela Merkel went to the Elysée Palace for the first time and made clear her support, the issue was evidently settled.

And then there are of course the Kosovo negotiations. Teams are now being formed, and things will start to get more serious in the beginning of the new year.

When we issued the report of the International Commission on the Balkans in March of this year, one of our ideas was to develop a more advanced pre-membership option for these and possible other countries. In economic terms, this should be based on them becoming members of the customs union of the European Union, thus driving trade integration and economic reform.

The case of Turkey since 1996 clearly shows how succesful such an approach can be.

The idea seems to be gathering a certain amount of momentum. in a recent paper, Michael Emerson at CEPS in Brussels takes up and develops the idea, combining them also with the need to do more to facilitate the freer movement of people in the region.

It remains to be seen how ambitious the Commission will be in its approach.

It is now preparing a paper to be the basis for the meeting that will be held in Salzburg in early March under the Austrian presidency. That meeting will take stock of developments in the region and chart the way forward.

Someone has to take the policy lead on these important issues - it remains to be seen if the European Commission will do it.

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Bosnia 10 Years After Dayton

Today it's a decade since we managed to get final agreement on a peace agreement that ended the brutal and more than three years long war in Bosnia.

We spent three weeks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton in Ohio in the US trying to get all the details right. But in the early morning of November 21 it still looked as if it was all going to fail. Only last-minute concessions made the deal possible.

When looking back at the decade that has passed it's obvious that Dayton was a success in ending the war and setting Bosnia on the path to a sustainable peace.

But as the country today is on the verge of a transition from international semi-protectorate to European integration, it is a more open question whether Bosnia has been a success.

The greatest challenge that Bosnia faces is the economic and social one. Official figures speak about an unemployment over 40 %, but this applies only to the app. third of the adukt population that is to be found in the labour force. In spite of the the revival of Sarajevo, poverty remains widespread.

The politicians of Bosnia have been far to tempted to blame all their problems on the international community, or to descend into different constitutional squabbles, and far too little ready to tackle the hard realities of profound economic reform.

It's by giving its people a better prospect of the future that Bosnia can really make itself a success in the years to come. The road towards European integration will be a powerful help, but will not in itself solve the challenges that are there.

Today the European Union in Brussels will give ahead for the start of talks on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Bosnia. That's significant, but doesn't automatically solve anything. There is even a risk that it lulls the leaders of Bosnia into a sense of complacency.

In parallel, talks in Washington are likely to result in a limited agreement on limited constitutional changes. That's also a good step, although one that in itself does not address the core challenge of the country at this time. And there is always the risk that continued squabbles over its implementation will deflect them from the key tasks.

We do see important progress in the region. Croatia is negotiating for membership in the European Union. Serbia is making progress in economic reforms. Macedonia has been recommended for candidate status for EU membership by the European Commission.

There is a risk of Bosnia falling behind.

A decade after Dayton, it is high time that the leaders of Bosnia concentrated on the real challenges of peace.

y10 years after Dayton I: Bosnia still has a way to go - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

Another Week

Well, another week coming. And for me it starts exactly as last week did.

Monday in Stockholm. And then Tuesday off to Washington again.

It's another - this time somewhat larger and distinctly more public - meeting to take the temperature on the trans-Atlantic relationship. This time more German and Austrian in its orientation and attendance.

It will coincide with the European Commission in Brussels releasing its opinion on whether Macedonia is ready to start accession negotiations with the European Union or not as part of its evaluatgion of the different accession countries and candidates. Most important.

And Wednesday is also the day when the new minority government in Poland will face its vote of confidence in the Sejm. Will it be a government of conservative populism supported by the votes of leftist and nationalist populists?

From Washington I go later Wednesday to the Los Angeles area and Santa Monica by the Pacific.

It is the autumn board meeting of the RAND Corporation. In addition to attending to the business of the corporation, we review and discuss some of the recent research products of this the world's first, finest and probably still most influential think-thank.

A focus of the discussions there will be the global health issues, now very much the centre of attention due to the danger presented by the H5N1 virus. But there will also be discussions on recent research on the development of both India and China.

Simultaneously in Geneve there will the final preparatory meeting prior to the World Summit on Information Society to see if one can bridge the gap between the US and Europe on Internet governance. Geneva during the week will also be the scene of important talks preparing the Hong Kong ministerial of the WTO.

But I will be in California, returning from there to be back here in Stockholm a week from now.

New Balkan Beginnings?

The time when the Balkans can be on the back-burner in terms of policies is fast coming to an end. It’s no longer enough just to handle the crisis of the moment, but necessary to deliver a strategy for the entire region that is comprehensive, clear and credible.

For too long, the talk was mainly about devising an exit strategy for NATO, when the key task is really to develop an entry strategy for the European Union. Increasingly, there is the realisation that without such a strategy the tactics of dealing with the individual challenges from Macedonia to Bosnia will simply not succeed.

This might not be the best of times to talk about starting bringing new members into the European Union. There is a noticeable enlargement fatigue in many of the existing EU members. At the same time, it is obvious that several of the countries in the region are at a considerable distance from meeting the Copenhagen criteria of readiness for membership negotiations.

But ten years after the peace in Bosnia, and more than five years after the end of the war over Kosovo, it is as obvious that only European integration can bring the peoples of Southeaster Europe along the road of reconciliation as it once was for the peoples of France and Germany. It’s a leap into the unknown, for sure, but the unknown brings hope of something better, while the known unfortunately brings very little.

The recent report of the International Commission on the Balkans does recognize the necessity of both dealing with the painful and unresolved status issue of Kosovo and of devising a coherent European strategy for the region and sees the intimate link between the two. It’s only within the framework of the later that the former can be handled.

There are obvious risks in the Kosovo situation. At the moment we see the economy declining at the same time as frustration is building up. It makes little sense to make the UN the scapegoat – the UN mission was set up for failure when the key powers for years simply refused to deal with the status issues. As has happened before, the UN was ordered to implement a policy that just as well could have been devised by an ostrich as by the Security Council.

Seen in isolation, we might well be on our way towards setting up a failed state in Kosovo. There is talk of it as a centre of organized criminality, and in view of the absence of honest alternatives for the rapidly growing population this would hardly be surprising. The political system seems to be driven by an unhealthy tendency towards revenge for real or imagined events in the past.

Nevertheless, there aren’t very many other alternatives than to continue along the path of state-building in Kosovo, and in the view of the European perspectives of the region, the aim ought to be that Kosovo gets the its full independence as it enters the framework of interdependence of the European Union.

In the meantime, the present holding operation of the UN should be replaced by a more focused member state-building operation under the direction of the EU, although still with the authority of the UN.

There will also have to be a far more effective effort at integrating all the economies of the region – irrespectively of if they met the political criteria for become candidates for membership or not – with both each other and the European Union. The extension of the customs union of the EU to the entire region, certainly including also Kosovo, could be as positive for its economy as it proved to be for Turkey during an earlier stage of its road to Europe.

Serbia and Croatia remains the most significant countries of the region, and it is only to be hoped that their leaderships can sort out their remaining issues with the Hague war criminal tribunal so that both of them can proceed on their European paths. A customs union arrangement for the region would make the earlier membership of Croatia into more of a possibility than a problem for the region, and create better possibilities for Serbia to speed up its progress.

If Serbia and Croatia moves forward along a European path, this should easy the situation for Bosnia as well. As it approaches the 10^th year anniversary of the Dayton agreement, it is high time to close down the Office of the High Representative and hand powers to the elected representatives of Bosnia, making them responsible also for the new constitutional deals that may be necessary to move the country towards its European destination.

There are no easy or fast solutions to the remaining issues on the table. But if Kosovo status issues and customs union arrangements are sorted out during the period of this European Commission and Parliament, a fast track for membership for those ready for it should be perfectly realistic during the coming five-year period.

It was in the summer of 1914 in the Balkans that a long period of relative prosperity and peace for Europe come to its end, and we entered the horrible 20^th century of wars, dictatorships and genocide. It should be in the summer of 2004 – with perhaps the possibility of also most of the peoples of the Balkans having the possibility of electing their representatives to the European Parliament – that Europe can finally but those horrors behind itself.

It’s possible, but it requires far-sighted and determined policies – and it requires them now.