Testing times ahead as EU prepares for historic peacekeeping debut in Macedonia

Date: 13/03/03

By David Cronin

THE EU's first ever military operation has undergone a painful labour, prolonged due to wrangling between Greece and Turkey. Is it now guaranteed a trouble-free birth?

Ominous reports in the Macedonian press hint the answer could be 'no'.

They suggest that ethnic Albanian guerrillas in the former Yugoslav state are planning a spring offensive against the Skopje government.

The newspaper Dnevnik has gone so far as to claim that Brussels diplomats are set to abandon their plans to take over the reins of peacekeeping mission Operation Allied Harmony from NATO in the face of such threats.

"This rumour [about a possible uprising] circulates every year," says Nicholas Whyte, a Balkans specialist with conflict resolution advocates the International Crisis Group. "Unusually, two years ago it turned out to be true."

For much of 2001, Macedonia teetered on the brink of civil war. Following a grenade attack on a police station in the mainly ethnic Albanian village of Tearce, a series of clashes erupted between government forces and the so-called National Liberation Army. By June 2001, the rebels had succeeded in taking over the Aracinovo area, just outside Skopje.

Javier Solana, the EU's high representative for foreign policy, brokered a short-lived ceasefire before the UN eventually clinched the Ohrid agreement in August.

It granted key concessions to ethnic Albanians, who make up 30 of the Slav-dominated population. Albanian was accorded the status of second official language in areas where ethnic Albanians were in a majority, for example.

The deployment of a 3,500-strong NATO-led force later in 2001 has helped smooth over tensions. But they haven't gone away; shootings took place almost daily in the run-up to parliamentary elections last year. More recently, there has been unrest involving ethnic Albanians in surrounding regions, particularly in the Presevo valley of southern Serbia.

If the domestic political scene in Macedonia doesn't appear conducive to a smooth baton-change for Operation Allied Harmony, then international events appear to promise even more turbulence.

The formal decision needed to authorise the handover from NATO to the EU is expected to be taken by the Union's foreign ministers next week (18-19 March). Coincidentally, many pundits predict that the US and Britain will start bombing Baghdad around the same time.

EU and NATO insiders insist that an Iraq war should have no bearing on Macedonia. They recall the case made by Condoleezza Rice, now national security advisor to George W. Bush, before the last US presidential election, that US troops should be withdrawn from the Balkans.

"The Americans are quite glad the Europeans are taking over," adds Nicholas Whyte. "They are in Macedonia quite reluctantly in the first place and the decision to renew the NATO mandate [for leading Operation Allied Harmony] was only taken quite reluctantly last year.

"It would take a serious meltdown [between EU states and the US] over Iraq [to put the handover in jeopardy]. Of course, that can't be ruled out. But the Americans have insisted every single detail be nailed down in advance [of the changeover] and rightly so."

During last month's stand-off within NATO over whether Turkey should be provided with the wherewithal to protect itself against a possible Iraqi attack, it was suggested that a failure to secure a deal on that dossier would also have consequences for the EU's ambitions in Macedonia.

Yet those suggestions appeared to vanish after the impasse was broken.

A NATO official explains that the 350 troops due to be deployed under the changeover "wouldn't have gone to Iraq anyway". The official describes any suggestion that Iraq could scupper the changeover as "a joke".

"Short of completely unforeseen circumstances, the EU will take over Allied Harmony. There's a willingness for this to happen.

"There have been some delays but these have been mainly for technical reasons. I think it has to be said that some of the EU's predictions about timing have a lot more to do with wish-fulfilment than reality."

The political breakthrough needed for the move came during last December's Copenhagen summit.

EU leaders finally reached the so-called Berlin Plus agreement - paving the way for the Union's fledgling military command to utilise NATO assets.

Until then it had proven elusive because of objections by Greece and Turkey - largely over concerns about potential EU military activities in historical hotspots such as Cyprus and the Aegean.

NATO sources say any expectations among EU politicians or officials of a swift post-summit changeover weren't shared by those working for the Alliance, who predicted it wouldn't take place until late March or early April.

"There's a misleading impression of people dragging feet," says one. "They weren't dragging feet but the fact is that the EU has never done something like this before and it found it harder than it originally thought."

The Union's force will be headed on the ground by French Brigadier-General Pierre Maral, who will report to Rainer Feist, the deputy supreme allied commander in Europe.

But a number of hurdles still have to be cleared before they can get down to the nitty-gritty of trying to prevent simmering tensions in Macedonia from boiling over.

This week EU and NATO diplomats were putting the final touches to a draft agreement due to give practical effect to Berlin Plus.

The deal is needed, for example, for the EU-led force to be able to use strategic planning facilities at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Mons, Belgium.

Officials at the Council of Ministers envisage that the necessary accord will be signed by Lord Robertson, the NATO secretary-general, and George Papandreou, Greece's foreign minister, on the margins of this weekend's meeting of EU defence ministers in Athens (15-16 March).

While EU governments agreed in January they would pool €4.7 million from their national coffers to fund Allied Harmony this year, several aspects of the financial package remain unresolved. An ad hoc committee of EU diplomats met for the first time this week to review that deal.

"The special committee is due to fine- tune it," says one official, adding it is highly unlikely they will arrive at a figure substantially different from the €4.7 million already cited.

"They are going to play around with internal subheadings," he suggested.

Allied Harmony is due to be a litmus test for the Union in more ways than one. It will give the EU the opportunity to prove that it is up to the challenge of safeguarding a peace in what has historically been one of Europe's most volatile regions.

The declared ambition of Javier Solana for the EU to assume responsibility for NATO's Stabilisation Force in Bosnia next year will hinge a great deal on how the Union's troops perform in Macedonia.

But it will also give the 15 a chance to forge closer links with those Balkan states hoping to become members of the Union. Romano Prodi, the European Commission president, explicitly linked Macedonia's declared wish to enter the EU with Allied Harmony when he visited Skopje last month.

"This has to do with a small dose of quantity and a fantastic innovation with regard to quality, because we have never had such an engagement before," he told Macedonian radio.

"This brings us something new - the military field. I believe we have prepared well for this experiment and that you will like it. This is not something coming from outside. It is connected with the idea that this country will be a member of the Union."

The EU's first ever military operation has undergone a painful labour, prolonged due to wrangling between Greece and Turkey. Is it now guaranteed a trouble-free birth?