Testing times ahead for EU’s Balkan strategy

Date: 20/01/2000

The EU and its international partners believe that the stability pact offers a way to anchor the countries on Europe's southern fringe into a framework of peace and prosperity. But it has been beset by problems and dogged by scepticism since it was launched last July. Simon Taylor reports

AS EUROPE enters the new millennium, the problem of what to do about the Balkans is as great as it was at the start of the last century.

As recently as the end of the 1980s, Yugoslavia was seen as a model of relative openness and prosperity among the Socialist economies. By the end of the 1990s, the multi-ethnic entity had fractured into a myriad of different states, becoming synonymous with ethnic conflict and a bloody nationalism not seen in Europe since the first half of the century.

But despite the last ten years of the region's history, the EU and its international partners believe they may have found a way to anchor the countries on Europe's south eastern fringe into a framework of peace and prosperity.

The stability pact is a joint initiative by the EU, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, the Russian Federation, Slovenia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the US and Turkey. International organisations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, NATO, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Western European Union, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Council of Europe, Canada and Japan are also heavily involved in the initiative.

Launched with great fanfare in the closing stages of the NATO air campaign against Serbian forces in Kosovo, the pact was seen initially as a new Marshall Plan for the region, following on from the US' post World War Two aid programme which pumped €13 billion into Europe's shattered economies.

But like the original Marshall Plan, which was inspired by US economic self-interest, it does not offer any free rides to the Balkan countries. As its special coordinator Bodo Hombach constantly stresses to the nine countries in the region: "I am no Father Christmas. The stability pact gives help to countries to help themselves."

The pact has been beset with problems and dogged by scepticism since its launch back in July. It was inevitably attacked as another well-intentioned talking shop, especially by governments in the region which took enormous financial and political risks by supporting the West's action in Kosovo.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Ivan Kostov, who is never slow to criticise the EU's more grandiose schemes, warned in September that "scepticism within the Bulgarian government over the stability pact is growing".

Proper assessment of the initiative's achievements has also been made harder because of the negative publicity surrounding Hombach since he landed the job of special coordinator in Brussels thanks to his former boss, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

Media coverage has dwelt on allegations of tax improprieties and spats with External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten rather than on the substance of the scheme.

Winning public understanding and support for the pact has also proved difficult because Hombach's role is to coordinate work on a variety of initiatives instead of seeing them through in a way which delivers concrete results.

The pact's complex structure of 'working tables' dealing with the three core areas of economic reform, democracy and human rights, and security cooperation has also proved hard to explain to outsiders.

Despite the lack of concrete achievements since the pact got up and running last year, Hombach is adamant that it has already delivered real results by getting the countries of the region to sit down and work together. "In the middle of August, there was no agreement among the countries of the region. Some did not even want to be part of the region at all. Then countries who were not even talking to each other at the end of August started sitting together and, at the last economic conference, six finance ministers of the region presented projects together. That is a major step forward," he argues.

But Hombach freely admits that the true test of the pact's success lies ahead. On 27-28 March, he will chair a financing conference which all participants hope will deliver on the pact's promises. At the meeting, the pact's international sponsors will try to agree financing for a large number of regional cooperation projects designed to draw the countries of the Balkans together.

"We have closed the first chapter and done our homework. Now there is a new chapter coming and the point of this chapter is that construction sites should emerge from the projects," insists Hombach.

He explains that the meeting will not be like the Bosnia and Kosovo donor conferences where parties pledge money for a central fund. The March get-together will instead actually award funding to a shortlist of projects which the countries of the region themselves have drawn up. An initial list of more than 400 proposals have been whittled down to 118 which have gone into a closer assessment stage.

But the pact's slightly novel approach to bankrolling the international community's strategy for promoting peace and stability in the region has prompted fears that the West will fail to honour its high-level political pledges.

Hombach has embarked on a tour of national capitals and international banks to drum up financial support for the conference, arguing that the international community must keep its side of the bargain or risk losing momentum in the drive for for economic and political reforms in the Balkan states.

"When I travel through countries of the region, I say 'what has happened to the reforms you promised?' When I travel through European countries, I say 'where is the support you promised?' Without reform, there can be no support but the opposite must also be true. There must not be any disappointment because expectations are so great," he insists.

Officials point out that there will be further sessions after the March conference at which other projects will be approved and receive funding.

While most of the cooperation projects focus on large infrastructure schemes such as road construction and building cross-border energy grids, the special coordinator stresses that the West's aid is equally dependent on progress on the democratic front.

"Countries in the region are orientating themselves very strongly on the economic support projects - infrastructure and energy networks - but are more hesitant when it comes to implementation of the other reforms. That is why this sort of conditionality is also a constituent part of the financing conference," he stresses.

Yet despite the encouraging signs of regional cooperation among those Balkan countries which enjoy peaceful relations with one another, the situation in Kosovo and Serbia gives little cause for optimism about the chances of an outbreak of ethnic harmony and democracy in the short-term.

Lack of effective policing in Kosovo has meant that the Serbian population has fled all but the smallest pockets of the province for fear of attacks from ethnic Albanians. In Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic's grip on power seems as strong as ever despite the international community's efforts to bolster the opposition's challenge to the regime.

But Hombach is confident that these problems can be resolved in the long-term. Commenting on the situation in Kosovo, he argues: "My travels in the region have taught me that the basis of the ethnic conflicts is a demagoguery which exploits economic and social inequalities, the poverty of opportunities and real poverty."

He believes that over time, the aggression between the two communities can be overcome. "I would not see the present situation in Kosovo as inevitable. On the contrary, I believe that when the economic and social deficits have been worked out, the situation will be less tense," he says, pointing out that the region had long periods before the Nineties when different ethnic groups lived together peaceably.

As for Milosevic's rule in Serbia, Hombach says it is impossible to predict when the opposition forces might be strong enough to topple the autocrat. "No one can say exactly how long the Serbian people will stand by while the economy and the European perspective crumbles," he admits.

But he points out that the international community is using the stability pact to build close links with democratic groups in Yugoslavia and says it is a way of showing anti-Milosevic forces what is on offer if and when democracy and human rights are restored in Serbia. "As soon as Serbia has solved its political problems, it can be a partner in the stability pact," he stresses.

Major feature. The EU and its international partners believe that the stability pact offers a way to anchor the countries on Europe's southern fringe into a framework of peace and prosperity. But it has been beset by problems and dogged by scepticism since it was launched in July 1999.