Turkish Daily News

Date: June 12, 2008

Endgame in the Balkans?


Gerald Knaus
In the coming weeks the vision of a truly democratic South East Europe will once again be put to the test in two of the most important countries of the region: Serbia and Turkey.  While different in size and recent history most EU decision makers perceive them similarly in one crucial respect: As societies undergoing fierce power struggles between forces which embrace a European future and those who dream of a nationalist “third way.”

For the last five years there has been much talk about the beginning of a new era in South East Europe.  As Elizabeth Pond summed it up in her inspiring book Endgame in the Balkans:

“The EU process of tutoring, hectoring, and funding candidates for membership has implanted hope in today’s parents for the prospects of their children … Balkan peoples stumble often enough, but they are rushing through the political, economic and social revolutions that it took Britain and France and the United States 200 years to get through – and this in one generation. In their attempt to escape from the 19th into the 21st century the Balkans are already light-years away from what the most optimistic observers foresaw in 1995 or 1999, or even 2004.”

At the EU Thessaloniki Summit in 2003 the prospect of full EU membership was held out to all the countries of the region.  Croatia and Turkey opened accession talks in 2005, Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007.  The argument that the whole region was moving in the same direction was compelling then.  

It became less compelling, however, due both to EU hesitations and domestic politics in a number of Balkan countries. Contrary to even the most pessimistic expectations in 2000, Serbia until 2008 failed to make the fundamental choice whether to break with the nationalist legacy of the 1990s or not.  Despite a series of elections political elites did not deliver the man most responsible for genocide in Srebrenica, Ratko Mladic.  The Serbian intelligence services and “deep state” structures responsible for the assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic have also not yet been reformed.  Serbia always appeared to be tantalizingly close to making the choice for Europe and then hesitated. It was after, not before, 2000 that Serbia fell far behind its Croatian neighbor that is likely to join the EU in 2011.  

There was a similar enthusiasm about Turkey not long ago. Few people back in the optimistic days of December 2004 would have ever expected that Turkey would be on the verge of another (this time “judicial”) coup in 2008. The fact that the Turkish Constitutional Court agreed unanimously on March 31 this year to hear an appeal by the chief prosecutor to close down the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) and to consider banning its leaders from politics is serious blow to the credibility of Turkish democracy, noted across the EU. Its recent decision in its power struggle with the Turkish Parliament and a possible decision to close down the AKP would make things a lot worse. It would then be a hard sell to say that Turkey still meets the Copenhagen criteria of being a fully functioning democracy without further radical change.  

Since Serbia and Turkey are the two largest and most important non-EU members in this region a lot hinges on the outcome of these power struggles.  The paradox is that while the former front-runner, Turkey, is falling behind and could see its European journey come to a dramatic, unexpected and self-inflicted halt the former laggard Serbia could be catching up and overtaking Ankara in the next months. Two elections held this year (first presidential, then parliamentary) strengthened the Democratic Party led by Serbia’s pro-European president Boris Tadic. Pro-EU forces still do not have a sufficient number of seats to form a government by themselves. However, Tadic’s party started to negotiate with the heirs of Slobodan Milosevic (the Socialist Party) that holds the balance in the parliament. People involved in these talks assure me that the Socialists will almost certainly come around and support a pro-EU government. A Serbia then making concrete progress – such as delivering Ratko Mladic, the general responsible for Srebrenica and reforming its security system – would get a lot of sympathy in EU capitals. And if Serbia would be then be granted candidate status – and perhaps get a date for negotiations – soon the stage would be set for it to make rapid progress.  

There are lessons here. First, Serbia lost many years because it could not make up its mind after 2000 pursuing the full democratization of all of its institutions, including its security sector. It also paid an economic price for this with some of the highest unemployment rates in Europe. Second, the EU, having failed to strongly encourage Serbia’s first pro-democratic government under Zoran Djindic, contributed to Serbia’s later stagnation. It has since sent more encouraging signals to Serbia, vowing to speed up progress towards EU accession. These are lessons here to ponder, as Turkey and Serbia are setting out to trade places, one moving ahead, the other falling into a trap of its own making.

Gerald Knaus is the president of European Stability Initiative (ESI), and a fellow of the Open Society Institute (OSI).

Turkish Daily News