Europe's Balkan Dilemma

Paths to Civil Society or State-Building?

Adam Fagan

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781780764061
• eBook ISBN: 9780857736383
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique européenne

Through the intervention of the European Union, the lives of people living in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo have been transformed beyond recognition. From the perspective of the Western Balkans today, the EU looks and acts like a development agency with a broad brief and deep pockets. Yet until the end of the twentieth century, external relations and foreign policy were minor aspects of EU activity. How and why has the role of the EU changed so dramatically and what does this reveal about the future development of the Balkan states? Europe's Balkan Dilemma offers the first comprehensive analysis of the impact of EU assistance and intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo. Adam Fagan places the fundamental question of what has been achieved through the EU's increased involvement in the region in the context of the EU's ambitions in global security and conflict management beyond the Balkan states. Europe's Balkan Dilemma will be a vital resource not only for students of International Relations and European Studies but also for anyone involved in helping to equip this tumultuous region for the next phase in its eventful history.

1

The EU and the Western Balkans

The EU and Post-Socialist Europe: assistance, association and accession

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the revolutions of 1989, post-socialist Europe has been configured and re-configured by EU enlargement and integration. Conditionality, phases of enlargement, regular reports, and preaccession negotiations, aid and assistance have not only become the lingua franca of the post-socialist world, they have imposed a political and economic rationale on the group of states that were, during the Cold War era, referred to as ‘Eastern Europe’, or that constituted Yugoslavia. For the post-socialist states of this diverse region, it is a rationale that extends far beyond foreign policy or external relations; the accession agenda is all embracing and has become the defining political and economic imperative for countries that have now joined, are about to join, or that seek membership at some as yet unspecified point in the future. It is perhaps no exaggeration to claim that, just as Soviet-style socialism imposed a political, social and economic homogeneity on the East European nations between the late forties and 1989, the enlargement agenda has harmonised and standardised what is, after all, a rather disparate group of post-socialist and post-conflict states.

In its dealings with applicant states the Commission has adopted what has been described as a ‘regatta approach’ to enlargement (Smith 2005: 127). In practice this has meant that, based on their political and economic progress in meeting set criteria, the more successful post-socialist states have been able to propel themselves forward in the membership race. Others, after initially gaining pace, have lagged behind and faced relegation (Albania); in other cases (Slovakia) promotion to the first round of entrant states was quite rapid once political reforms began in earnest (Henderson 2002). Though in many respects the regatta approach is the only viable strategy for stimulating progress and development, it has nevertheless added to the fragmentation of the postsocialist bloc and contributed to a sense of uncertain demarcations. With regard to the former Yugoslav republics of the Western Balkans (Serbia, Croatia, BiH, Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo) in particular, the approach seemingly runs contrary to the key EU objective of strengthening co-operation and fostering regional coherence. Whilst the decision not to necessarily grant membership to all CEE states at the same time mobilised pro-EU reformers in Slovakia and brought about significant political and economic change (Henderson 2002), injecting a degree of competition between the candidate countries and potential candidate countries, in the context of the Western Balkans, may yet prove divisive and act as a powerful disincentive for progress and reconciliation.

The EU in the Western Balkans: entrants, candidates and potential candidates

The particular states under examination in this study – Bosnia-Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo¹ and Serbia – are part of the group of countries referred to by the EU as potential candidate countries (PCCs); former Yugoslav or South East European/Western Balkan states (Albania) to whom the Commission has ‘promised the prospect of EU membership as and when they are ready’.² It is important to acknowledge that such delineation is the product and consequence of the EU accession and enlargement agendas as it has unfolded in recent years, rather than being bound to precise political, geographic, historic or cultural rationalities. The Commission’s decision to include and exclude, to relegate, to set specific conditions, and to create distinct assistance packages is what has led to the grouping of these states (plus Albania and Montenegro) as potential entrants as part of a future and as yet unspecified enlargement. Of course, the EU and its accession agenda cannot be blamed entirely for such delineation: the Yugoslav crisis of the 1990s, differentiated development during the socialist period, varying resources, diverse political cultures and historic legacies have configured the region, and this group of countries in particular, since the somewhat forced homogenisation that both Sovietisation and Titoism attempted to instil upon the region in the four decades after the Second World War.

The designation of BiH, Serbia and Kosovo by the European Commission as ‘potential candidate countries’ (PCCs) – placing them behind Turkey, Croatia and Macedonia in terms of possible future membership – requires some careful consideration in order to grasp fully the implications of such categorisation. As it stands, there is not a category of post-socialist states assembled behind, nor any notion of a subsequent expansion beyond the four ‘potentials’. This immediately suggests that these states are at the bottom of the EU’s pecking order of post-socialist countries with which it seeks an engagement concerning possible membership. It also has to be acknowledged that as of late 2009 there is no planned enlargement involving a large group of countries entering at the same time. The reality therefore for individual PCCs is entry according to the pace of reform and the realisation of what amounts to extremely rigorous standards and conditions, but in the context of a global recession and declining enthusiasm for further enlargement amongst EU member states.

However, assuming that the process of moving through the various stages from ‘potential’, to ‘candidate’, to ‘acceding’ is a linear and progressive one, then the entry of Bulgaria and Romania in January 2007 means that Croatia, which began accession negotiations with the Commission in October 2005, and Macedonia, which signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) as early as April 2001, are now next in line for accession, assuming a future accession takes place. This has, in theory at least, implications for the membership prospects as well as the process of potential entry for BiH and Serbia (Kosovo, as noted in note 1 below, is more complex). Assuming Croatia and Macedonia follow the accession route of Bulgaria and Romania (a Europe Agreement, signed with both states, will provide a framework for accession), they will nevertheless do so by a distinct route compared to the path trodden by the post-socialist states that entered in 2004 or even 2007. They will have entered the EU in the context of, and according to, a distinct contractual relationship with the EU, involving the Stabilisation and Association Agreements, established in 1999, and Stabilisation and Association process (SAp), plus the more recent European Partnership (EP), launched in March 2004. Their path of entry will thus essentially provide a blueprint for the ‘potential candidate’ states. Thus, the accession experiences of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, and even Romania and Bulgaria are of limited relevance to the Western Balkan states in the sense that they are negotiating with the EU in an entirely different context, with more stringent conditionality, and with far greater emphasis placed on stabilisation and dealing with the specific legacies of conflict and ethnic fracture. If and when Croatia and Macedonia enter, they will therefore be providing a road map for Albania, BiH, Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro that implicitly acknowledges that SAp and the EP route does lead to eventual membership.

Europeanisation

One of the more oblique questions posed by this study is whether or not EU assistance is contributing to the Europeanisation of BiH, Kosovo and Serbia, and the extent to which assistance channelled through NGOs in particular is fostering ‘European’ values, norms and modes of behaviour. With such an endeavour in mind a definition of Europeanisation is required. Radaelli offers the following:

Europeanisation consists of processes of (a) construction (b) diffusion and (c) institutionalisation of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, ‘ways of doing things’ and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the EU policy process and then incorporated in the logic of domestic (national and subnational) discourse, identities, political structures and public policies. (2003: 30)

It is immediately apparent that Europeanisation is a multi-faceted concept involving rule formation and enforcement based on shared values. But according to Radaelli’s definition, the concept also has implications for the interaction between state and non-state actors, new behaviours and means of conducting policy-making and enforcement. Much like the related concept of integration, Europeanisation is broader than and somewhat distinct from enlargement, and as a process of transformation is likely to occur both before and after accession. Thus, a country under consideration for EU entry may well display lower levels of Europeanisation than anticipated whilst still having met the conditions of enlargement and having successfully adopted all tenets of the acquis.

Such considerations notwithstanding, the concept of Europeanisation remains important to this study insofar as it offers a framework for measuring both ‘soft’ as well as ‘hard’ impact; a means of assessing change in ‘ways of doing things’ as well as in formal rules and procedures, transformation in ‘styles, and shared beliefs and norms’ (Grabbe 2006: 46). Whilst the measurement of progress and the focus of conditionality tend to initially at least be the enactment and implementation of policy and the harmonisation of laws (‘hard’ impact), this book is interested primarily in the impact of EU assistance on civil society and the extent to which aid channelled through NGOs is triggering good governance, cultivating interaction between formal/state and informal/ non-state actors (‘soft’ impact).

What constitutes evidence of Europeanisation and how can it be measured?

It has already been ascertained that evidence of Europeanisation should not necessarily be seen as an indicator of successful reform or the completion of a particular enlargement condition or objective. Indeed, the influence of EU capacity assistance may well deliver degrees or aspects of Europeanisation without necessarily realising the specific enlargement outcome for which the aid was intended. For example, an EU-funded environment-related project may serve to get NGOs working with government without dealing with the particular pollution issue that the project was intended to address. Moreover, conditionality and external intervention are likely to generate certain unintended consequences, particularly when the intervention engages multiple actors and agencies and where objectives are perhaps less than clear and concise. In other words, Europeanisation must be distinguished from progress towards accession, can look very different across states, manifest itself in various ways, and generate differentiated outcomes and consequences. Some candidate countries will borrow norms and patterns of interaction from the EU without being compelled to do so; others will need to be offered extensive assistance and be subjected to considerable pressure. Certain aspects of political and economic life in a particular state may well appear Europeanised without the country making progress towards realising accession conditions (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005a).

Equally important is to avoid assuming that all change in the region is occurring as a consequence of EU influence. As Grabbe notes in the context of CEE states, there was a tendency on both the part of the EU and the candidate country to exaggerate the degree of Europeanisation for political purposes. The EU obviously is keen to portray itself as ‘the principal driver of most reforms’ (Grabbe 2006); the government of the candidate state is equally concerned to demonstrate the extent of its compliance, but also ‘to blame the EU for unpopular reforms’. It is important also to remember that the EU’s political legacy on the CEE states has been largely an indirect rather than direct one: the EU did not directly bring about democratisation in these states, it merely responded to dynamics and processes already underway. It is also fair to say that the commitment on behalf of the CEE governments to Europeanisation was unanimous and largely unwavering, expressed at the time of the democratic revolutions in terms of a ‘return to Europe’ (Hyde-Price 1996). As will become evident from this study, the situation is somewhat different in BiH, Serbia and Kosovo.

A more important reason for not attributing all reforms and change to the EU in post-conflict states is the over-arching and significant presence of the UN, the OSCE and various other American and European development agencies, working either separately or in conjunction with the Commission, but fulfilling specific peace and state-building roles. Although the EU has undoubtedly become in recent years the most significant single donor and agent of external governance across the region, it remains difficult to disaggregate the exact impact of the EU, and even harder to measure Europeanisation. The factors likely to impact on Europeanisation are: ‘goodness-of-fit’ between the EU objective and the existing institutional or behavioural reality, the extent to which there is political will to enact new policy or build new partnerships within a particular area, the actual reform or objective itself, as well as the discursive framing and particular politicisation of the issue (Börzel 2003).

Several of the methodological difficulties in measuring the ‘soft’ impact of EU assistance on NGOs and the extent to which good governance is being triggered were referred to in the introductory chapter of the book. The most appropriate and reliable method adopted for this study, is, broadly speaking, to use a functionalist approach focusing on the specific interaction between actors, in the context of specific EU assistance programmes and initiatives, and to measure outcomes and outputs, both during the designated project tenure and beyond, that is, to also evaluate the interaction beyond the terms of the project. In addition to the emergence of sustainable partnerships emerging between state/government and non-governmental actors as a consequence of funded projects, actual policy change brought about by NGOs, or their role in the development of new policy frameworks would be a significant measure of impact or effect. A more subtle and nuanced indicator of positive impact would be the empowerment of reform-minded elites who, by engaging and forming partnerships with pro-EU NGOs, are able to use EU conditionality and assistance to bring about substantive change, by bypassing obstructive national political and administrative processes and by engaging NGO networks in the formation and enforcement of EU-compliant policy. The somewhat optimistic premise on which the research is based is that as established conduits for transnational assistance and development aid, NGOs in BiH, Serbia and Kosovo are theoretically well placed to facilitate linkage between national political actors and the EU. As Grabbe observes, this is not to imply that Europeanisation is resultant in a decline of national sovereignty; in fact

membership of the EU has been an integral part of the reassertion of the nationstate as an organisational unity, with the integration process strengthening the ability of national actors to develop bundles of domestic policies to satisfy coalitions of political interests. (Grabbe 2006: 14)

The legacy of previous enlargements: external governance and conditionality

As noted by the Commission in a recent communication regarding future integration capacity, ‘enlargement has been at the heart of the EU’s development over several decades. The very essence of European integration is to overcome the division of Europe and to contribute to the peaceful unification of the continent.’³ However, each enlargement has been distinct, involving different strategies, conditionality and assistance. The reason for this is broadly twofold: even amongst the post-socialist states that entered during the fifth enlargement (May 2004 and January 2007) significant differences in terms of political reform, economic progress and state capacities necessitated bespoke approaches and refined strategies. Secondly, whilst the overriding sense is of enlargement strategy becoming more refined and developed, and the fine-tuning of the process, recent enlargement have also been shaped in large part by the capacity of the EU to increase in size further, and to successfully integrate new members (Hughes et al. 2004).

It should also be noted that whilst the Commission has made political and macro-economic stability conditions of accession for all post-socialist states, the decision to open negotiations with Bulgaria and Romania in 2000 seemed to have been driven more by security and foreign policy considerations than by a sense of these states having made significant progress. Bulgaria and Romania had both supported the Kosovo military operation in 1999 and commentators saw the opening of negotiations as a reward. Indeed, in the case of Romania the EU’s decision actually coincided with the Regular Reports, undertaken by the Commission, pointing to a worsening of the economy and the political situation having certainly not improved (Grabbe 2006). Despite exercising a degree of pragmatism, the Commission subsequently stuck quite rigidly to political and economic conditionality in dealing with the two states in the run-up to their entry in January 2007, even going as far as to add additional criteria as the basis for judging readiness (Grabbe 2006).

Enlargement for all post-socialist states has primarily been about the importation of EU norms and the development of a particular mode of ‘network governance’ (Peters and Savoie 2000). The model of external governance employed by the EU for the CEE and SEE states has broadly been the external incentives model, whereby ‘the EU sets its rules as conditions that (post-socialist states) have to fulfil in order to receive EU rewards . . . ranging from trade and co-operation agreements via association agreements to full membership’ (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2004: 663). The EU’s negotiations with all post-socialist states has involved the Commission exerting significant influence over policy development, the restructuring of domestic institutions, political, legal and social reform, and economic transformation (Schimmelfennig and Sedelmeier 2005a, 2005b). The extent and nature of such external governance stems from the Accession Partnerships that, established in 1997, provided a clear list of objectives that had to be met by potential applicants. They also re-orientated aid and assistance towards countries meeting the conditions for accession. Prior to 1997 PHARE aid had been geared rather loosely towards economic reform and democratisation and had been somewhat demand-driven. Thereafter the focus of assistance was tightened and targeted at CEE states meeting the third Copenhagen condition, the obligations of membership. The Accession Partnerships, negotiated separately with each contender state, marked a significant juncture in EU external governance (Schimmelfennig and Wagner 2004). They were based on the EU exerting profound influence over regulation and, to a lesser extent, redistribution which, as Grabbe points out, ‘both . . . are normally policy preserves of the nation-state’ (Grabbe 2006:24). Reflecting the EU’s role at the time within existing member states – which was to encourage governments to strengthen their enforcement capacity – the pre-accession strategy placed increased emphasis on establishing regulatory control and implementation rather than simply enacting policy frameworks. The Commission set objectives and left it to the CEE states to devise the legislative means to achieve the prescribed ends. As Grabbe observes, ‘the emphasis at this stage was on having coherent policies and functioning institutions, rather than the EU specifying prescriptions for policy content’ (2006: 24). However, in the realm of the economy the Commission was far more dirigiste, specifying neo-liberal economic reforms, such as privatisation, reduction in state expenditure and intervention in...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Author biography
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 The EU and the Western Balkans
• 2 Theorising EU assistance and intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Kosovo
• 3 The EU in Bosnia-Herzegovina
• 4 The EU in Serbia
• 5 Quantitative analysis of EU assistance to Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia
• 6 EU assistance and intervention in Kosovo: lessons learnt?
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References