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What do you think about this non-paper document
that is- as was reported Slovenian PM Mr. Janša has send to the
President of EU Council Mr. Michel?
KB: Such a Janša “non-paper” was reported received
by President Michel’s office, before they retracted the
confirmation… It’s hard to know what to believe. But given Janša’s
history of provocation (recall his congratulation of Trump after the
election), it is hardly inconceivable that he proposed “completing
the dissolution of Yugoslavia” as reported. In combination with the
reported question posed by President Pahor to the BiH Presidency
whether peaceful dissolution was feasible, it seems to reflect a
line of thinking I have heard from some Slovene political actors
before: that ethnic homogeneity is responsible for Slovenia’s
“success.” Dangerously, and not coincidentally if these reports of
the non-paper prove true, this taps into ideas put forward by others
in and outside the region.
Why do you think that Mr. Janša had enough
confidence to send something like this- I would say a highly
controversial suggestions to Brussel headquarter?
KB: Again, I don’t know for a fact that he did.
But if this were the case, it could be for two rationales – which
are not mutually exclusive. The first is that he might think that
such a “solution” might have “legs” with some other members of the
Council. I wish to state clearly could not be effectuated without
significant violence and external commitment to “manage” it, for
which there is no evident appetite, I detect no critical mass for
any course so dangerous, but the strategic posture of “the West”
remains quite listless, with intra-European disunity on display as
well. The second rationale would be to achieve lower order ends by
frightening EU member states into even tighter embrace with
illiberal leaders and agendas in the region. We see this at present
at the tactical/operational level in BiH with the EU-US push to
change the election law, responding to HDZ BiH leader Dragan Čović’s
(and his BiH ally Milorad Dodik’s) demands. The timing of these
reports, following Croatia’s sponsorship last month of a non-paper
that Slovenia signed onto (with Bulgaria, Greece, and Hungary) to
push the election law agenda (and link it to BiH’s ability to stem
migration), has a certain logic. I think the likely effect of these
reports will be to amplify EU and Western efforts to “stabilize” BiH
by proxy at the elite level, without regard for the likely long-term
negative impact.
Having in mind their policies and his closeness
with Mr. Vučić, I am not surprised that Mr. Orban supporting
something like this or Poland authorities, but what do you think
about Croatia or especially Austria PM Mr. Kurtz . What do you make
of this?
KB: The vast majority of Croatia’s political
spectrum – both HDZ and SDP, but others as well – view BiH through
the ethnic lens and support Čović’s agenda. And there is significant
congruence between the EU’s “illiberal democracy” bloc led by Orbán,
an ethnocratic worldview, and support for fellow ethnocrats. We saw
this with Gruevski (now in Budapest, Kurz campaigned for him); Vučić
is definitely the prime beneficiary now. And Orbán and Dodik have
forged an ever-closer relationship. Orbán and others would certainly
like to have more like-minded illiberal member states. But there are
benefits in the immediate term for their own narratives and
influence. Janša might be an outrider for the EU’s illiberal bloc on
Balkan issues.
What it your assessment about possible reaction
from Mr. Michel and other EU leaders? I mean this relatively new EU
leadership has shown as lot of weaknesses in their policies handling
until now - and this can be quite challenge -or you don't think so?
KB: I think most EU member states will simply not
respond – rather than openly repudiate such a view, which I think
would be more appropriate, but deviate from the normal club
etiquette. I think the greatest danger in this episode – whether a
non-paper text ultimately surfaces or not – is the further
“mainstreaming” of the idea of ethnocracy in the EU, at least for
the Balkans. And as we have seen over the past 30 years, the
societal regression you in the former Yugoslav space experienced has
unnerving echoes in societies such as my own in the US. We are far
from immune from exclusionist, national populism - which not
coincidentally is consistently linked to corruption and
malgovernance. That has become glaringly evident when one surveys
the political landscape in the West.
And what about President Macron and Chancellor
Merkel? Ahead of his- as he hopes re-election- Mr. Macron has gone
quite to the right from his previous position and he has quite warm
relationship with Mr. Vučić. From the other hand Ms. Merkel's new
successor in CDU Armin Laschet is also more right than she is or
more than center is- and has quite better opinion about Mr. Putin
then Mr. Merkel for example?
KB: The center of gravity on the EU’s Balkan
policy, such as it is, was in Berlin. Opposition to the Vučić-Thaçi
land swap / “border correction” / “demarcation” – partition proposal
was most firm and articulate from Chancellor Merkel, for the correct
reasons. The departure of the UK from the EU has further weakened
the Union’s capacity and orientation on Balkan matters. London gets
hard power and deterrence; the EU evinces an allergy to the
responsibilities it legally has to maintain peace and security in
BiH under Dayton. Macron’s domestic shift to the right is not at all
encouraging; it is also reflected in his mentality in European and
foreign affairs. He made his peace with his adversary Orbán in the
formation of the European Commission. He already displayed an
ignorance of – and indifference to – Balkan realities, as well as
demonstrating his will to pursue a “cordon sanitaire” policy toward
the region. Germany pushed back, but the result remains
unconvincing. So the changing of the guard in Germany makes an
already strategically vapid policy even less predictable. I think
this helps explain the profusion of bad ideas being pursued.
Everyone with an unfulfilled agenda in the region – and there are
many – wants to see how far they can take it.
Somehow I guess we thought that with Trump's
administration an idea about the land swap between Serbia and Kosovo
and possible consequence with it has gone. This shows us obviously
it is not like that. Do you think that in this case US
administration will have to intervene although Balkan is not such a
priority for President Biden and Secretary Blinken? And how they may
react?
KB: What has become painfully evident in the past
three months is that the Biden administration’s Balkan policy, to
the extent is has coalesced, is an unappetizing amalgam of the Trump
administration’s transactionalism and a higher-level prioritization
of other issues in the transatlantic relationship, as seen with the
Obama administration (and others before it). The continuity with
Trump’s transactionalism is in part down to personnel: Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Palmer became an exponent of
the Serbia-Kosovo deal that thankfully never came to be; there
remains no Assistant Secretary of State for Europe (or even nominee,
to my knowledge). So there is a connective tissue issue. We see a
reflection of this “let’s make a deal and get a deliverable”
mentality in BiH right now, in pursuit of election law changes which
the fact pattern suggests would deepen ethnocracy and further
insulate political leaders from accountability. Unfortunately, now
Secretary Blinken has endorsed this retrograde policy, which makes
it that much harder to resist. On the latter point, prior to Trump’s
wantonly aiming to disrupt transatlantic relations, the US default
setting since the 2nd Bush term has been to defer to the EU on
matters European, to lubricate cooperation on issues beyond Europe.
This seems to be the Biden administration’s default setting, with
some important caveats, as well. Add to this a mentality seen in
Afghanistan of wishing to disentangle the US. There are
contradictions here. Biden and Blinken’s focus on corruption as a
national security concern and foreign policy priority is hardly
served by the policy autopilot we currently see in the Balkans. This
is a point my DPC colleagues and I underscore regularly.
Furthermore, this is a wasted opportunity for applied transatlantic
unity, in a region where at the popular level, there is a real
hunger for a return to values-centric Western engagement. Despite
the real inroads of geopolitical challengers, we maintain a great
deal of leverage – in BiH, perhaps more than anywhere else on earth,
collectively, IF we had a strategy and self-confidence. But the
EU-led policy continues to see its “partners” in governments rather
than in citizens and societies. And the US is tagging along on this.
Having in mind this so-called non-paper of Mr.
Janša are you surprised with some current political events in Bosnia
and with political moves of the new far right Montenegro government?
KB: The environment was already poor; the
trajectory for the region as a whole has been bad for a long time –
and we haven’t even mentioned government performance in the Covid
pandemic. So these reports are of a piece with – and an accelerant
for – reactionary agendas throughout the region. There has long been
a sense that taboos that exist for good reasons – against ethnic
divisions in states, for example – which had been a bedrock of US-EU
policy for two decades, are now more flexible. So everyone who
stands to gain from breaking them and pursuing agendas which will
predictably lead to violence and further societal regression is
doing so. This is the “long tail” of the Vučić-Thaçi proposal, which
found fertile ground with EU foreign policy chief Mogherini and
which Ambassador Richard Grenell sold to Trump. I had hoped that the
Biden administration would not only repudiate that effort, but
counteract the transactionalist mentality that infected the State
Department during the Trump era. Sadly, we have yet to see this.
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