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The Western Balkans is a political term that
includes six Balkan countries: Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia.
Although rightly defined as Western, in reality it
is not entirely Western, except for Serbia which is pro-Russian, and
a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina known as “Republika Srpska” against
the will of the Bosnian people.
In the geopolitical era we are living in, Russia’s
geopolitical war against Ukraine has influenced the clear division
of the Western Balkans along geopolitical lines, so today we have a
Western Balkans between the West and Russia.
Despite this clear division, the Western partners,
the US and the EU, are hesitant to draw the geopolitical boundary in
the Western Balkans, namely, to draw the clear line of spheres of
influence between the West and Russia or the pro-Russian bloc that
is increasingly being outlined.
The West's hesitation in this regard has left the
Western Balkans living between ambiguity and clarity, detrimental to
the fragile peace of our region where the security risk is evident.
Why am I saying this and what do I mean by
‘ambiguity’ and what by ‘clarity’ in our region?
In fact, the academic and political debate on the
Western Balkans is focused on the security challenges in Europe but
much more in the Western Balkans generated by Russia as well as the
Ukraine-Russia war, this because of the existence of Russia's
"Trojan Horse" in the Balkans, which is Serbia.
Ambiguity has to do with the uncertainty of the
peaceful and Euro-Atlantic future of the Western Balkans while the
clarity is in the daily security threats to the Western Balkans in
this geopolitical era.
Ambiguity prevails in positive dynamics, this
because the uncertainty over the prospect of more peace, more
stability and more security, which seem far away - as far as the
Euro-Atlantic integration of countries that are not yet part of the
EU and NATO.
The EU's ambiguity in relation to the Western
Balkan countries aspiring to European integration begins since the
Thessaloniki Summit EU in 2003, when the EU and its leadership
assured that the future of the Western Balkan countries lies in the
EU. In successive summits since the latter, including this year’s
the EU-Western Balkans of 18 December 2024, the very same assurances
were given in statements but not in practice- this prolonged policy
of ‘open doors’ in words but ‘closed’ in practice seem to continue.
A fundamental difference was that this year's EU-Western Balkans
Summit Declaration mentioned the geopolitical context. So, three
years after the war in Ukraine, the EU dared to mention geopolitics.
However, the EU has further ambiguity in relation
to the pro-Western and pro-Russian states of the Western Balkans,
for example, the EU tolerated Serbia to pursue a policy of
‘two-chairs’ namely being with both Russia and the EU.
Furthermore, pro-Russian Serbia did not follow the
European policy of sanctioning Russia for the invasion of Ukraine,
the EU did not punish Serbia, while the pro-Western states that
followed this line were not rewarded.
When it came to the issue of Serbia's geopolitical
attack on Banjska in Kosovo during 2023, the EU easily punished
Kosovo while did not punished Serbia. These sanctions against Kosovo
have been continuing for entire 2024, while EU easily did not remove
them. The least that the EU could have done is to tell publicly to
the people of Kosovo what the reasons were for punishing Kosovo and
what were the reasons of not punishing Serbia. Of course, this
explanation should have been also made by the Government of Kosovo,
but the lack of transparency of this government over has been known
since it took office. Whereas Serbia as unpunished party got
encouraged to again attack Kosovo through an orchestrated sabotage
attack of the water supply system “Iber-Lepenc” endangering entire
population of Kosovo.
Meanwhile, the EU's ambiguity continues in the
Brussels Dialogue for the normalization of neighboring relations
between Kosovo and Serbia, which has been going on for more than a
decade and has no end in sight. In this way, the EU is demanding
association from Kosovo but is not demanding recognition of the
state of Kosovo from Serbia. For those who might not be clear why I
claim this, as the Chief Negotiator of Kosovo in the Brussels
Dialogue (2011-2017) would like to remind that the recognition of
Kosovo’s independence from Serbia is the unimplemented Serbia’s
obligation from the Vienna Status peace talks between Kosovo and
Serbia mediated by the UN envoy Marti Ahtisari, in which talks
Serbia participated but failed in implementation of its obligation,
while Kosovo implemented entirely its obligations provided to Serb
moritiy rights and competencies outlined in Ahtisaari Plan of 2008.
(
https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/eur/rls/fs/101244.htm )
The same is happening with NATO's approach to
countries aspiring to NATO, although NATO earlier began to mention
the importance of the geopolitical and geostrategic approach, but
did not open the doors to Kosovo and Bosnia, both had gone through
wars and genocides by the Milosevic's Serbia. Meanwhile, Serbia does
not even aspire to NATO, openly siding with Russia.
Highlighting the uncertainties in the sky over the
Western Balkans, I would like to emphasize that the clarity in the
sky of our region is unfortunately negative, so the clarity is in
the negative dynamics for our region including the clear threats to
security and destabilizing dynamics in the Western Balkans, in
particular towards Kosovo, Bosnia and recently towards Montenegro.
Clear is Serbia's invisible geopolitical war
towards Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina instigated by Russia,
which has been ongoing since the end of the Kosovo War, which was
the last war in the Balkans after Croatia and Bosnia. Serbia,
through destabilizing interventions towards Kosovo and Bosnia and
Herzegovina, is advancing its geopolitical and nationalist agenda.
Even clearer is Serbia's pursuit for the creation
of the "Serbian world", namely the creation of a "Greater Serbia".
What Russia is desperately doing to recover the losses from the
collapse of the Soviet Union after the Cold War, Serbia is doing
similarly to recover the losses from the collapse of the former
Yugoslavia, from whose ruins it unsuccessfully tried to create a
“Greater Serbia” at the expense of territories of other federal
parts such as Kosovo, Bosnia and Hercegovina and Croatia against
which it lunched war on territories, in last wars of dissolution of
former Yugoslaviain the Balkans.
Faced with the clear geopolitical ambitions of
Russia and Serbia in Europe and the Western Balkans, the West must
give a clear geopolitical response.
While Russia, by bombing Kiev, deliberately
damaged the embassies of pro-Western countries, the Embassies of
Albania and North Macedonia, this was an indirect way of Russia to
draw its own geopolitical boundaries in Europe.
The struggle of the geopolitical doctrines of the
West and Russia is increasingly clear, with the “Heartland” Doctrine
on one side and the Russian “Eurasia” Doctrine on the other, where
the Western Balkans have a specific weight.
It is therefore evident that the security
challenges in the Western Balkans have been redefined by the war in
Ukraine, which has not only revived classical geopolitics but has
also severely damaged the international order created by World War
II.
In this context, the fragility of peace in the
Western Balkans requires geopolitical and geostrategic decisions and
actions by the US and NATO. It is time for the West to establish its
geopolitical border in the Western Balkans, to protect it and create
the conditions for a sustainable peace. The first step is for NATO
to admit Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a guarantee of
security and peace in our region.
It is time for NATO geopolitical decisions and
actions to counter the Russian geopolitical war against Ukraine and
to counter Serbia's invisible geopolitical war in the Western
Balkans.
It is time to establish clear lines of spheres of
influence between the West and Russia in the Western Balkans.
2024
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