Troubleshooting in the western Balkans
Hillary Clinton flies in to bump a few heads together
Oct 14th 2010
ON OCTOBER 10th hate came to Belgrade. Ostensibly protesting against a gay-pride parade in the city, an estimated 6,000 well-organised thugs, some of them bused in by far-right groups, rampaged through town, attacking police, shops, cars and buses, and setting fire to the headquarters of the ruling Democratic Party. Two days later, Serbian hooligans did the country’s reputation further damage when their violent antics forced the cancellation of a football match against Italy in Genoa.
This is exactly the kind of thing Serbia doesn’t need. Ten years after the fall of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader who plunged the Balkans into bloodshed in the 1990s, it is desperate to show the world that it is a normal, law-abiding European country tolerant of its minorities.
A gay-pride march was not the way to do it, said some. The authorities should not have allowed the event to go ahead, against the wishes of most Serbs, just to score brownie points with the European Union, which Serbia wants to join. Some commentators even compared forcing gay rights on to reluctant Serbs to the fait accompli of Kosovo’s independence.
Just as the recriminations began, with exquisite timing Hillary Clinton, the American secretary of state, flew in on the second leg of a Balkan tour (she also took in Bosnia and Kosovo). Despite the events of the weekend her talks in Serbia went well. She said she wanted to see Serbia and Kosovo talk about practical issues, such as utilities and telecommunications. In Bosnia she called for unity and criticised threats of secession made by Milorad Dodik, the president of Republika Srpska, the Serb part of the country.
So far, so ordinary. If this was all she had come to say, grumbled some, why did she bother? The answer is that outsiders are still needed to push Serbs, Bosnians and Kosovo Albanians into sorting out their many problems. Cajoling agreements out of Balkan leaders is necessary, says one diplomatic source, to avoid sleepwalking into new wars in a few years’ time.
After Kosovo Mrs Clinton headed for Brussels, where she planned to continue her Balkan talks with EU leaders. There are some kinks to be ironed out. On September 9th the EU and Serbia sponsored a UN resolution calling for talks on Kosovo. American officials were dismayed to find that the EU planned to host them without the participation of the United States.
A year ago a joint EU-US diplomatic push in Bosnia failed miserably. But efforts are under way to produce a new strategy for Bosnia that will help it to pursue the reforms it needs in order, eventually, to join the EU, and NATO as well. Western diplomats are also working hard behind the scenes to kick-start the Kosovo-Serbia talks that Mrs Clinton has urged. Diplomatic sources say the Bosnian strategy should become clearer soon.
In the next few weeks Bosnians and Albanians are expected to be granted visa-free travel to Europe’s Schengen area. Serbs hope that on October 25th EU foreign ministers will advance their application for EU membership to the next stage. Anything that moves the region forward is good, because, as Serbia’s hooligans have shown, there are always people happy to take things in the opposite direction.
Europe
the economist
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