Berlin
Meeting the newly appointed coordinator of the Stability Pact of Southeastern Europe, Bod Hombach, Slovenian President Milan Kučan took the guest to a map on the wall to explain that Ljubljana is several dozen kilometers west of Vienna. The German politician politely thanked the host and admitted that until he left for Ljubljana, he didn't even know exactly where Slovenia was or what its position was in relation to the west, and there was no reason for him to be interested.
Geographical and other lessons have been mostly mastered in the meantime. During the past two years, the Slovenian authorities, which at the beginning of the Stability Pact did not want to be connected with the rest of the Balkans, became a more active participant in the political and economic integration in the region encouraged by the Pact. They realized that regional political and economic cooperation is a prerequisite for connecting with the European Union and other Western integrations. Meanwhile, Hombach realized that it is easier to convince Slovenians and Serbs or Romanians and Hungarians to cooperate with each other, than to encourage the bureaucracy of the European Union, the Pact's main financier, and other international mega-organizations to do their work quickly and in a straight line.
DEPARTURE HOMBAHA: Hombach's "parforce" in the Balkans ends at the end of the year with the departure of the corpulent German to head the largest German regional newspaper group - WAZ in Essen. If fatigue from work is the reason for his departure, then it was primarily due to the constant struggle against bureaucratic indolence and indifference in Brussels and other international institutions, as well as in Western governments on whose will and money everything depends. In the meantime, Hombach's relationship with regional political players became more and more relaxed because the knowledge spread everywhere, including in Zagreb, that regional cooperation does not mean the resurrection of the SFRY. Even if the "Feral Tribune" regularly refers to the head of German diplomacy, Jozef Joska Fischer, as Josip Broz Fischer because of Berlin's alleged effort to corner the former Yugoslav republics into some kind of regional community.
Hombach's difficulty is that the Pact's political hinterland is giving way. In any case, the European Union apparatus has never fully "digested" the fact that someone from the outside should push it to do its job faster and differently than it was established. Additionally, the Franco-Italian-British assessment is that the Pact actually strengthens German influence in southeastern Europe at the expense of the political and economic reach of the other European "middle powers." At one time, for the sake of order, Washington launched SECI, an initiative for cooperation in Southeast Europe, whose ideas intertwine and stumble with Pact projects. Despite the fact that the American initiative does not make much noise, it seems that the Stability Pact is not among the ideas whose success is believed in Washington either.
At the regional conference of the Stability Pact for Southeast Europe on October 25 and 26 in Bucharest, the European Union intends to disclose the strategy for the continuation of that undertaking. The buzz around Hombach's place is considerable, but regardless of who will fight to succeed him, he is already marked with a "soft sign". The interest of the European Union and the West as a whole in the area of the former Yugoslavia and Southeastern Europe has subsided in the meantime - and that is natural. Everyone is tired of long-term seemingly intractable conflicts, so that even the absence of war, as now in Macedonia, is enough to escape external attention. No one wants to put more money into the bottomless pit, especially at the moment of the decline of the world economy and hints of higher military expenditures by the countries of the European Union as part of solidarity with the USA.
FREEZING: A kind of "Cypriot state" seems to be emerging in South-Eastern Europe, the hallmark of which is that the conflict is frozen and placed under international control, but that its causes are nowhere near being overcome. No side in the post-Yugoslav wars, not even the Albanian nationalists, is strong enough for a final showdown, and there is not enough interest in the West to force a far-reaching solution. In addition, all important political and military agreements from the beginning of the dissolution of the SFRY until now were, in the final outcome, an expression of American judgement. For the USA, however, a new era has dawned after September 11, and it is unlikely that the attention of American foreign policy will again be focused on Southeast Europe in the foreseeable future.
This creates new difficulties for Serbia, but also a new opportunity. The most serious problem may become the lack of external financial support and, due to the weakening of the binding political framework for regional and wider cooperation, such as the Stability Pact, the long-term weakening of the economic interests of the West, especially the European Union, for Southeast Europe. In addition, the declining political interest of the USA and the West favors the indefinite postponement of the resolution of crisis hotspots in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, thereby preventing the permanent internal stabilization of Serbia.
The chance is that the authorities in Serbia try to fight for an active role of the subject of international politics in the region, instead of remaining in the position of an object that mostly trots along the lines established in Vienna (OSCE), Brussels (NATO, EU) or Washington.
The main obstacle to such a foreign policy transformation is still burdens from the past, embodied in Milan Milutinović, Nebojša Pavković and other "living fossils" from the previous government. As long as people on international warrants speak for Serbian officials, external doubts about the democratic commitment of the new authorities in Belgrade are fed. Instead of self-consciously advocating for the interests of the state on the international stage, the new government still too often has to justify itself and face pressures and demands, not only from The Hague.
No less an obstacle to the introduction of new incentives into foreign policy is the existence of noticeable differences in the approach of the head of the federal state, the federal minister of foreign affairs and the prime minister of Serbia. The three-vote also conditions the fact that the federal and republican assemblies do not fulfill their constitutional obligations to guide and supervise foreign policy officials. Likewise, the influence of scientific research institutes, non-governmental organizations and the media (civil society) on Serbia's foreign policy is hardly visible.
A well-thought-out, uniform and decisive foreign policy is now necessary for Serbia to the same extent as rapid and thorough internal reforms. Hombach's departure is a reliable indicator that the West's interest in Southeast Europe is waning. The states of the area will now have to show whether they are capable, after a decade of tutelage and clientelism in relation to external powers, to be aware of their interests and influence the shaping of regional political, economic and security structures. This is especially true for Serbia, which still has the most to lose.
