Eurasia Press & News
The fact that territorial changes in the Balkan region are becoming a reoccurring debate suggest that these dangerous ideas are gaining traction, even within the EU.
Much has already been said about the now infamous “non-paper” apparently composed by Slovenia’s Prime Minister, Janez Jansa, which mulls the possible partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia on top of a broader process of regional territorial re-organization.
As has been established previously in the earlier debates about partitions and “land swaps” in the Western Balkans, all such ideas are blueprints for new rounds of inter and intra-state violence, and almost certainly genocide.
But the fact that this has now become a reoccurring debate is perhaps the most alarming aspect of the entire phenomenon.
It suggests that ideas that were once the exclusive domain of fevered reactionaries are now gaining traction and staying power among a constellation of EU governments, albeit largely illiberal ones.
That, in turn, gets to the heart of the matter: the EU has no coherent agenda for the Western Balkans.
The era of enlargement in practice is over. The accession process will continue, but no one, not even the most optimistic analysts, believes there will be an intake of new members this decade.
That is easily attested to by the increasingly elaborate “alternative” arrangements being workshopped by various European think tanks.
If this failure to expand occurs, it will mean that by 2030 the EU will have gone 17 years without enlargement – the longest such stretch since the signing of the 1957 Treaty of Rome. And in politics, as in nature, that which ceases to grow soon ceases to exist.
That is not to say that the EU itself is likely to dissolve. But, as the Slovene non-paper suggests, it does mean that the post-2003 status quo that anchored the region to the orbit of Brussels will disappear.
This process is already underway. Russia and China are no longer mere “spoilers” but genuine geopolitical competitors, aggressively advancing opposing political projects in the region, including ones that hint at a willingness to use force.
Or, as the political scientist Aida Hozic recently framed it: “The proliferation of non-papers about [the] Western Balkans confirm its status as a non-space in the EU political consciousness, amply exploited and exploitable by other non-actors in this non-time.”
The phrase “non-space” also evokes another famed maxim in international relations, paraphrased by Amos Gilead as “geopolitics abhors a vacuum”.
The gap left by the EU’s inability – or, more accurately, refusal – to articulate a compelling post-enlargement vision for the region means that both its rivals and blocs within its own midst can fill that space with their own machinations.
Prime Minister Jansa, along with his likely co-conspirators in Budapest and Zagreb, but also Belgrade and Moscow, may appear like a cavalcade of fools, but they are also pushing on an open door.
As has been pointed out for nearly half a decade, at least, neither local elites nor local citizens will tolerate being indefinitely sequestered to the EU’s waiting room.
Of course, Brussels is within its rights to close the door on enlargement, and the region’s collective democratic backsliding has not made that a hard sell for those already opposed to further expansion.
But blocking further enlargement will not magically relocate this region to the moon.
The Western Balkans will remain on the EU’s immediate border. And, if anything, the (re)establishment of a permanent boundary between the EU and its southeastern “neighborhood” will make it an even more enticing place for malign elements within and without the EU to try all manner of political adventures.
Especially if, as appears to be the case, the creation of that boundary comes with no plan or policy for the likely consequences.
None of this is news. The region is in predictable straits because at each preceding step in its political metastasis, the EU – and the US – have chosen either to look away, or opt for quick fixes.
That has meant enabling recalcitrant elements like Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic, who since being dubbed a “factor of regional stability” in the previous decade, has gone on to become an outright autocrat, presiding over a de facto one-party regime.
One need only also rehash the situation in Bosnia, especially in the Republika Srpska entity under the tenure of the secessionist Milorad Dodik.
Or recall how close to outright chaos the whole region came during the tenure of Nikola Gruevski in North Macedonia. Or remember the shameful embrace of earlier partition policies by the EU’s former foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini.
Each of these individual data points to a larger, more disturbing picture: an EU Western Balkans policy, adrift and listing.
The US has the capacity to step in and significantly alter the situation on the ground, but appears hesitant to do so given the enormous challenges the new administration faces at home.
In practice, Washington is again passing the buck to EU. Except that today, unlike in 2003, everyone including local and international actors knows that Brussels is not up to the task. So, they are taking matters into their own hands.
The Slovenian non-paper, as such, is unlikely to be the last such stunt. It is more likely an omen of the turbulence to come.
