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House of COMMONS MINUTES OF EVIDENCE TAKEN BEFORE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Tuesday 26 October 2004 DR OTHON ANASTASAKIS and DR NICHOLAS WHYTE Evidence heard in Public Questions 99
USE OF THE TRANSCRIPT 1. This is a corrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
2. The transcript is an approved formal record of these proceedings. It will be printed in due course.
Oral Evidence Taken before the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday 26 October 2004 Members present Donald Anderson, in the Chair Mr David Chidgey Mr Eric Illsley Mr Andrew Mackay Andrew Mackinlay Mr John Maples Mr Bill Olner Mr Greg Pope Ms Gisela Stuart ________________ Memorandum submitted by Dr Othon Anastasakis
Examination of Witnesses Witnesses: Dr O Q99 Chairman: The Committee is continuing its inquiry into the Western
Balkans. Today, for the first group of
witnesses, we have Dr O Dr Whyte: The two important factors about the Western Balkans both stem from the geography of the region. First, it is across a main transport route by land from Western Europe to the Middle East, and that is something we cannot get away from. All of the main roads, the famous Corridor X, of the pan-European corridors go through Belgrade, either south to Thessaloniki or south and east to Istanbul. That is just a plain fact of where it happens to be. The second point from the more political side is that the Western Balkans are right inside the enlarged European Union, once Bulgaria and Romania join, as they are programmed to do in 2007. Then you have an island of territory completely surrounded by EU Member States with which the EU is going to have to come to significant terms sooner rather than later, whose stability is crucial. It now becomes an internal rather than external issue for the European Union. Dr Anastasakis: Thank you for inviting me here.
Q100 Chairman: Gentlemen, in all the key hotspots of this small but significant
area both the United States and the European Union are involved. We see it particularly dramatically when EUFor Dr Whyte: It is very simple. None of
these countries in the Western Balkans is likely to become the 51st
through 55th state of the United States Q101 Chairman: Given the long-term implications for Europe of stability or instability in that area, and perhaps the other pressures on the United States in terms of over-stretch, do you see, over time, the commitment of the US to the area diminishing and that of the European Union increasing? Dr Anastasakis: I think we are already seeing that. There has been a decreasing commitment since the beginning of
this new century. We Q102 Chairman: But it is not the only game in town because the US is there and the US has a substantial commitment of troops. We are told, for example, that the US has far great clout in a key area like Kosovo. To what extent is it imperative for us as Europeans that the US commitment is maintained to that area and at what level? Dr Anastasakis: To follow up, I think it is important that those two co-operate as
smoothly as possible in that region, and I think they have done so. In the Western Balkan area, the way the
United States and the EU have worked together has proved that they can do it
without any major problems. The region
is very significant for the United States in terms of terrorism and also as a
transit route for illegal Q103 Chairman: And why we should beware of the precipitated US withdrawal from the area? Dr Whyte: As Dr
Anastasakis Q104 Chairman: As we have seen in Bosnia, are we likely to see the US increasingly seeking to disengage? Dr Whyte: Absolutely, and that is my understanding from conversations in Washington, that the Pentagon basically has other priorities at the moment. We can see that by watching the news. There is no great desire in the United States to keep troops in the Balkans any longer than they feel is necessary. Who defines what is "necessary" is a different question. Q105 Mr Illsley: Following Dr Whyte: The first thing that happened was the very failure of the EU in the 1990s caused a great deal of sober reflection among heads of government. It is often said that Slobodan Milosevic did more to build the European common foreign security policy than any other individual because he demonstrated the failures of the previous system. We do now have things we did not have in the EU. We do now have Javier Solana. We have a whole set of structures within the European Council Secretariat which simply did not exist before. Now the EU can actually put several thousand troops on the ground in Bosnia. That was unthinkable even two years ago, let alone ten. Things have progressed in the last ten years. Dr Anastasakis: I agree that there has been, in the last four years, an increasing
and growing engagement and commitment on the part of the European Union, but
there is also a difficulty in that Q106 Mr Illsley: Is the Stability and Association process model working effectively within the Balkans? Does that need to be altered? Does it need to be bolstered? Is there anything the British Government could do to try and encourage our European Union partners to improve the SAp process? Dr Whyte: The SAp process works well where you have well-functioning states
on the other end to work with, and that clearly applies to Croatia, and I would
argue that most of the time it applies to Macedonia as well. It has run into real problems in Albania,
due really to the failure and unwillingness of the Albanian Government to
undertake the necessary reforms.
I think it has clearly had a beneficial effect in Bosnia along with
all the rest of the international efforts.
It has certainly increased the credibility of the Bosnian state. But I think it has shown almost no tangible
results in Dr Anastasakis: To continue, and I agree with it, the EU has been used to dealing
with the central authorities. In that
way, that particular area of Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro is a new territory
for it because of the unclear borders and the non legitimate authorities
basically. The SAp process has been a
good step in the right direction. It is
just that the priorities have to be adjusted to the specificities and the needs
of the particular countries. I think
that has been acknowledged by the EU, especially lately, and they are trying to
be as specific as possible, focusing on the particularities of each country. There is the wider discussion about how
technical the understanding of the EU is and how technical it should be because
there are other developmental needs Dr Whyte: Could I add two points? You
asked for improvements that could be made and the two that I would suggest are,
first of all, that the process needs to include a better perspective for
economic development. Q107 Mr Illsley: Is there anything in the idea that maybe some countries within the
region are looking at European Union accession and the SAp process as the be- Dr Whyte: You would have to bracket that also with NATO accession, which, as we know, on the ground is of less dramatic effect but symbolically is of equally dramatic effect. Certainly, in terms of national goals, I think one could do worse than have that. Q108 Chairman: On that, would it be fair to say that although all the countries want to join the Euro-Atlantic structures, NATO would just be seen by them as a first step on the route? Dr Anastasakis: I think we do tend to put those two together but they are very different. The aim of NATO is different from the aim of the EU. NATO is a security organisation and in that respect it is much easier for NATO to commit and to engage those countries within its own ranks. For the EU it is a much more complex organisation and it has its economic dimension and also it has a growing political dimension as well. In that respect, the process which brings those countries closer together is much more complicated. I think there is a differentiation between the two and how easily the countries can become members of the organisations. Q109 Mr Olner: On the EU accession point, and I can understand all the choreography of the dance to join the EU, I just wonder whether we are going to be faced with the same difficulty that we have with Cyprus joining the EU where there was a promise of an amalgamation and a joining and the reality, at the end of the day, is that they are not joining now. I would hope that the EU is not going to face the same problem in the Western Balkans. Dr Anastasakis: This is a very interesting comparison. I have been thinking a lot about Cyprus lately and why the EU, in
the end, has not been so effective or maybe it has been effective in some ways
that we do not see and we might see in the future in that it is now gradually
engaging with the north of the island.
That seems to be an unavoidable pathway for the north to be integrated
into the EU. Maybe there are
differences because the EU did make mistakes with Cyprus in that it never held
out any stick to Cyprus. It only gave
the carrot of membership without us Q110 Mr Pope: I certainly agree with that analysis on Cyprus where the Committee is going in a couple of weeks. I wanted to ask, though, about the European Union's reconstruction and development funds. The EU has allocated over €4 billion to 2006. It struck me that that did not seem a great deal of money, given the scale of the problem. If economic stability and political stability go hand-in-hand, it seems to me that there is at least a case to be made for saying that the EU is trying to do this on the cheap and that it should allocate some more money. I wonder what your view is? Dr Whyte: I would agree with that in terms of development. As I said earlier, I think there is a lack
of an economic development aspect to the SAp, indeed to the EU's whole approach
to the region. On reconstruction, on
the other hand, I would give the EU quite good marks for the last few years. The European Agency for Reconstruction has
been a good model of how to do it Dr Anastasakis: I agree with you that there should be more money but there is one
qualification: what do you do with this
money? Q111 Andrew Mackinlay: You mentioned the meanness of the European Union states with regard to the visa regime. Are you saying there should be a relaxation in the visas, and perhaps not a visa required, or are you saying there should be full mobility of labour extended to this region by the European Union before they come in? Dr Whyte: I think you could certainly look at the latter alternative. I would be very surprised if the costs outweighed the benefits. If that is considered too radical a move, as I suppose it probably would be, let us consider what the consequences of the current policies are. Currently, Croatia and Bulgaria both actually enjoy visa-free access to the EU. It is very easy for most Bosnian citizens also to get Croatian citizenship; this undermines Bosnian statehood. It is very easy for Macedonian citizens to get Bulgarian citizenship; this undermines Macedonian statehood. The existing policy is actually making things worse. Q112 Andrew Mackinlay: As we know from experience, despite what the newspapers have said, the whole of central Europe did not move here on 2 May, did they? Dr Whyte: Certainly I did not see them coming. Q113 Mr Mackay: Can I move you on to the International Tribunal? We note and are perhaps slightly puzzled that the European Union and NATO seem to set slightly different standards in respect of the various Western Balkan states complying with the Tribunal. Would you like to comment on that and, in commenting, which end of the scale should we be on: the rather more relaxed view that the EU seems to take or the more stringent NATO view probably backed by American pressure? Dr Whyte: It is perhaps not fair to characterise it in precisely that way. First, I would say the view that should be taken is the hard line that is taken by the British Government inside both organisations, inside both NATO and the EU, and that tough line consisting of full compliance with the internationally mandated tribunal is the right one to take. What the EU has done is to promise a feasibility study on whether or not further integration is possible with the EU to Serbia and Montenegro. It seems, on present form, that that feasibility study will be negative because there is no co-operation from Serbia with the War Crimes Tribunal, apart from cosmetic things like the arrest of somebody from Srebrenica who nobody much had heard of. That simply is cosmetic. Until that happens, ultimately the answer from both is gong to be the same. Of course NATO's cut-off point comes a little bit sooner because of Partnership for Peace specifically dealing with the army of Serbia and Montenegro, and you cannot have a situation where you have indicted war criminals participating in joint exercises with NATO troops. Obviously, the wall has been hit a little bit sooner in that case but I think it is in the same place in both cases. Dr Anastasakis: I agree, and I think everybody agrees, that there has to be a hard
line. One also has to be careful,
especially in the case of Serbia because the people there really feel that they
are discriminated against on that particular aspect, that there is a lot of
punishment addressed to them, that everything revolves around that, and that
their sensitivities are not taken so much into account. As far as linking feasibility studies Q114 Mr Mackay: Are they high profile alleged war criminals, and obviously there
are Karadzic and Mladic? Are they just
symbols and are they very important or should it run deeper? Presumably, Mr Whyte, when you are trying somebody
fairly obscure, and this is Beara who was picked up recently, and this is a
question for both of you: is this all
just symbolic Dr Whyte: This is a part of the world where nothing is just symbolic, where symbols are of extreme importance, and there is an operational security issue as well in that as long as Karadzic and Mladic continue to be at liberty, then we cannot say that the security mission in Bosnia has been completed. That is an operational question but the symbolism is very important as well, the symbolism of coming to terms with what was done in the name of the Serbian people during the entire period of the 1990s. Does it matter? Yes, I think it does. Whether or not you then repatriate some of the war crimes trials to Serbia or not, that is a decision that is up to the Tribunal and it is fairly clear that the Tribunal will increasingly want to repatriate trials to Croatia, to Serbia and to Bosnia, but it must go through them first. I do not think there should be a short-cut to that. Dr Anastasakis: I think that apart from the issue of punishment, which is a fair
thing to do, if done in the right way, Q115 Mr Mackay: Finally, the repatriation of some of these trials is clearly, at
least in theory, a good idea because Dr Whyte: This of course is why the Tribunal was set up in Q116 Chairman: Gentlemen, I am turning to Kosovo. We now have the result of the elections of last Saturday. It is very difficult to put any positive gloss or spin on them. So far as the Serbs are concerned, there was a massive boycott of those elections. Of the 108,000 possible Serb electors, both in Kosovo itself and the refugees in Serbia proper, only just over 500 actually voted. That seemed to be a response of the Serb community, as it were, denying the legitimacy of the institutions which are currently in Kosovo, and I suppose also responding to the appeal of Premier Kostunica, ignoring the appeal of the more moderate President, and really casting a question mark over the effectiveness of the work of the United Nations over the past four years or so in putting a massive block on any move towards a multi-ethnic community, which is the declared aim. Can you give me any glimmer of hope which arises from the elections last Saturday? Dr Anastasakis: Q117 Chairman: It was 53 per cent of the total, which is not disastrous in Western European terms. We only had 59 per cent in our last general election in the UK. Dr Anastasakis: If you look at it that way, it is just over 50 per cent. What I meant to say by that is that the legitimacy of those electors in the eyes of the Albanian community is something that has to be looked at, and not just the Kosovo people; this kind of political apathy is a general trend in the Western Balkans in general. There are regular elections everywhere, more elections than anyone can imagine basically, but people fail to go because they are not interested and there is a certain point of political apathy in that process. Q118 Chairman: Mr Whyte, does it signal a failure of the UN effort over the past four years, in spite of all the expenditure of money and a disastrous blow to prospects of a multiethnic community? Dr Whyte: You asked for a glimmer of hope, Mr Chairman. I think I would like to depress you still
further just for a moment. I would say
within the Albanian community, look at what happened to the one Albanian
politician who had started from a very hard line position and had consistently
tried to moderate his line, particularly by making overtures towards the Serb
community. Hashim Thaçi, the leader of
the PDK[1],
saw some of his vote fragmenting off to the new party led by Veton Surroi; he
saw other parts of his vote splintering off to the more hard line political
realities of President Rugova. The
Kosovo Albanian results were in fact even more depressing than you have
portrayed them. My glimmer of hope is that I think this
clarifies the issue. We have got two
very hard line positions. Yes, the UN
was unable, through five years of enlightened government, to persuade passions
to cool and more moderate alternatives to emerge, but anybody who believed that
was going to be the case in 1999 was engaging in very wishful thinking indeed,
given the history of the region, and indeed given the history of UN
interventions. If the UN was supposed to deliver liberal
politicians in Kosovo, it obviously failed, but I do not think it was ever
going to achieve that. Q119 Chairman: The policy of Belgrade is clear, that there was the vote in July in the Serbian Parliament in favour of this so-called decentralisation proposal, rather Bantustan like, of having a list or group of dots on the map grouping together the various Serb communities on an ethnic basis. Is this the end of the attempt to form a multiethnic society? Dr Anastasakis: Relating to what you are asking and on the previous comment, I was just wondering to what extent the involvement of the international community is really geared toward creating multiethnic, multicultural societies. This is a question that can be discussed both politically and practically. Q120 Chairman: It is the declared aim. Dr Anastasakis: It seems to me that the way things are going is not creating a
multicultural or multiethnic society but rather trying to divide them. I definitely think, particularly in Kosovo,
it had to do with the fact that the international community was not able to
deal effectively with
the creation of this kind of multiethnic society Q121 Chairman: Should the result of the election lead to a fundamental re-think by
the international community? Is the
plan put forward by the Secretary- Dr Whyte: No, I think it is even more relevant. I think Ambassador Eide identified very skilfully a number of key problems facing Kosovo at the moment. The fact is that while the final status question remains unresolved, all the other issues are going to be held hostage to that, including particularly the issue of interethnic relations. Basically, any concession to Serbs as citizens of Kosovo is seen by Albanians as a concession against their own future independence and vice versa as well. At the moment it is purely a zero sum game. Until you have a credible process that is going to resolve the final status of Kosovo, you cannot expect ethnic tensions to become calmer. Q122 Chairman: The Serbs are just not going to participate in such a process? Dr Whyte: Which Serbs? Q123 Chairman: Only 500 odd people of the total Serb community bothered to vote. Even with possibly some intimidation, that does suggest a massive lack of legitimacy of the institutions in the eyes of the local Serbs? Dr Whyte: That is absolutely right but it means, as I read it, that local Serbs have effectively given the mandate to Belgrade to negotiate on their behalf rather than to their own locally‑elected officials. That is how I see it. The Serbs will be involved but it will be Belgrade rather than the local representative. Dr Anastasakis: What seems clear is that Belgrade is guiding the whole game
here. As far as discussions on the
status are concerned, as you pointed out, the only unhappy thing is that the
policy of standards before status is Q124 Chairman: Before turning to Mr Illsley and Bosnia, a few questions in respect of Macedonia: I concede that because the result of the referendum is not now known, it is very difficult to speculate, but how significant do you believe is the referendum and the prospect of a "yes" vote, which some claim would undermine the Ohrid framework agreement? Dr Whyte: First of all, one lesson that comes out of this is that when you
are writing peace agreements, look out for loopholes that can be exploited by
other people, and that is what has happened in this case. It was not foreseen that a referendum could
actually overrun minority guarantees that were inserted into the Ohrid peace
agreements, but that nonetheless is what happened. Yes, the referendum is very significant. It is effectively a poll on one part of the peace agreement rather than the entire package, and this of course is very dangerous. If it is passed, at the very best it will mean a delay of at least a year in implementing the reform of local government, which was a key part of the peace agreement. That is the best possible result, without which further progress into EU and NATO integration for Macedonia is not possible. It will also, of course, result in a certain increase of internal tensions within Macedonia. That goes without saying, whatever the result of the referendum. Q125 Chairman: How significant is it? Dr Anastasakis: One aspect is that there will be a lot of internal tension, which
is something which can go to unpredictable levels. The second is that EU integration will also be delayed. FYR Macedonia in particular is an interesting
case in that it would act as a model for the other countries where you do have
two different ethnic communities and there is an overall consensus as far as
the EU goal is concerned. In that
respect, I think especially the Macedonian case would be particularly critical
to what happens with other divided societies Q126 Chairman: The US Ambassador in Skopje has warned, and perhaps an interesting intervention in the domestic affairs of Macedonia, that if there were to be a "yes" vote, that would put back the prospects of Macedonia joining NATO beyond the next possible opening of the door in 2007, possibly for many more years. Is that a message which, in your judgment, is getting through to the electorate in Macedonia? Dr Whyte: As far as I can tell, yes. There is still another two weeks to go in this campaign but it is very interesting to follow the comments in the Macedonian press. The Ambassador's statement I think is absolutely unchallengeable. If Macedonia has to wait another year, then they basically miss the window that is currently opening for them, Albania and Croatia to join NATO. Q127 Chairman: In 2007? Dr Whyte: Precisely, and if they are not ready to join by the middle of next year, which they will not be if the referendum passes, then they do miss that opportunity. It is a straight statement of fact. Dr Anastasakis: I would say yes in principle, but in reality I would look differently at this and to what extent a factor such as NATO or the EU can be a gear, not just for people voting in a certain direction but also for reform. I think this is much more complicated, especially when one is inside this kind of society which is going through unemployment and poverty. Those issues are really important to the people. NATO and the EU are there as a long-term goal, and that means prosperity and strength and all that for them, but I think when people are in a referendum frame of kind, that kind of blackmail can have an adverse effect. If you blackmail them and say "you are not going to get into the EU or into NATO", that can have the opposite effect, as the case of Cyprus teaches us. Chairman: I think President Mitterrand said the French always answer the wrong question in a referendum. That may be the same. Q128 Mr Illsley: I have a couple of questions relating to Bosnia and the hand-over from the NATO stabilisation force to the European Union force in December. There is a suggestion that because of the situation in 1992-95 the Bosnian perception is that the European Union will not act militarily or does not wish to act militarily. What implications does that have for the hand-over in December? Dr Whyte: The clear implication is that there will be a trial of strength at quite an early date, I would anticipate. Of course, things are very different in Bosnia now from ten years ago. This is no longer a country at war. This is a country that has at least a sullen peace for the last nine years. On the other hand, if the EU does come into it, despite the improvements that we have both referred to earlier, with this very unfortunate legacy of failure, we can expect that people will be putting it to the test, so it has to be ready to face those tests and to pass them. Q129 Mr Illsley: What exactly does it have to do to face them? Dr Whyte: What form it takes we cannot precisely predict right now but I
would have thought that there will certainly be challenges to the EU military
authority of some kind, whether that is through rioting Dr Anastasakis: W Dr Whyte: Can I raise a slight technical point on this? I do not know whether this committee has considered this in the past but the EU force will not just be an EU force; it will include at least I think 11 other countries that I have seen listed as likely participants. I am a bit concerned about the lines of command and control in this case when you have Moroccan or Canadian or Turkish soldiers under EU command in an operation that is run by the Political and Security Committee in Brussels on which there are no Canadian, Moroccan or Turkish representatives, but there are indeed representatives of Denmark and Luxembourg, two countries which will not be participating. I think there is an issue of accountability there which I hope does not become a political crisis point but I can see that is a possibility. Q130 Mr Illsley: Are there likely to be difficulties within the EU as well between
EU members and is there any likelihood Dr Whyte: I think people are bending over backwards to try and prevent any such conflict, and this is why the two main military officers in charge of it are British. This is clearly an attempt to finesse the differences between the EU and NATO. There were problems in Macedonia when a similar situation was applied, with a much smaller force, specifically to do with what exactly the role of the NATO AFSOUTH[2] in Naples was to be within the command structure. I understand that they are working on that as we speak in Brussels to make sure it does not happen again. There will always be unforeseen problems. Q131 Mr Illsley: Given that the two forces are likely to have different mandates,
would that make it easier for EUFor Dr Whyte: Yes, provided that there is joined-up thinking, and I think the
prospects for joined-up thinking are fairly good in this particular case. As a general point, I think it is a bit
unfortunate to separate civilian and military lines of command, as has been
done in the Bosnian case. In general
for any intervention, I would have thought it would make more sense to have
parallel and converging li Q132 Chairman: Dr Anastasakis: Yes, and the EU is involved in a broader way in Bosnia and Herzegovina through its feasibility report and on all the particular points it has been advising the government to work on. Of course, the problem with Bosnia is that because of its protectorate situation, it is difficult to expect the government to act in a very active and passionate way on the demands by the European Union. I think it is high time for the EU to act in a much more broad way and deal not just with reconstruction or reconciliation, because I would say that has evolved in quite a satisfactory way, but also with development issues, which are particularly acute in that part of the Western Balkans. Dr Whyte: One specific security issue that we are facing in Bosnia in the next few months is the question of police reform. You may be aware that Lord Ashdown has set up a special commission to look at this. I would not be surprised, in fact I would welcome it, if his recommendation turns out to be a kind of nationalising of the Bosnian Police, removing security responsibilities from the entities; in other words, a greater incentive--- Q133 Chairman: On the precedent of the Ministry of Defence, on a statement? Dr Whyte: Precisely, yes. One does find other countries where the main police force is national rather than local, particularly if, as there is in Bosnia, there is a problem with local competence, local corruption of the police force that happened to be on the ground. I think that could be a very interesting development and that could well be the crisis point where we see the EU's courage being put to the test. Q134 Ms Stuart: I would like to take you back to Serbia and Montenegro in particular and turn to something which you started to address in your answer earlier to my colleague Mr Illsley and also to Mr Mackay and that is around the whole Stability and Association Agreement and the divergence between the progress the two countries are making. Do you think the new twin-track approach will actually help that or is there simply just such a big gap to be caught up on that it just leaves them behind? Dr Whyte: That is a really good question. I think that the twin-track approach recognised the reality that the attempts to make Serbia and Montenegro integrate with each other before joining the EU simply was not working and, in a sense, the EU thus avoided making one of the several Cyprus mistakes that my colleague referred to earlier. I think you are quite right to say that the interests of Serbia and Montenegro remain very divergent. I understand that the Montenegrins now plan to make the best go they can of proving their European credentials within the framework of the new proposed feasibility study, and they hope to be in a position to be able to turn around to their own voters and say, "Look, Serbia is holding us back from our European integration", and that will then be used as an argument for separation. Doubts are sometimes expressed about the capacity of the Montenegrin Government to deliver on this strategy but it is certainly an interesting approach for them to take. Dr Anastasakis: I also think this is an interesting development because it shows a genuine attempt by Chris Patten and the Commission to understand what exactly the problem is. My deep conviction is that the understanding on Serbia is still a bit underdeveloped. The centrality of Serbia in the Western Balkans is really crucial. I think one has really to try and approach this country in the right way in order to be able to have positive side effects in the other parts also. In that respect, I think maybe they recognise that this kind of (Solana) state was a kind of failure and they had to make up for it. Showing this kind of flexibility will definitely create this kind of competition between the two and end the antagonism in trying to approach the standards of the EU. We all know of course that in Serbia there is still this kind of polarisation and we do have a more clear distinction between the reform forces on the one hand and the more nationalistic forces on the other. There is a real battle going on between those two sides in Serbia. Q135 Ms Stuart: We have talked a lot about outside players and whether they have failed or succeeded. Something which struck me through the whole evidence session was that you talk about what the US does, what NATO does and what the EU does. Is there not an argument made that the people on the ground need to take a bit more responsibility? There is another outside player, which no-one has mentioned so far in particular in relation to Serbia, and it strikes me that could play more of a role and that is actually Russia? Dr Anastasakis: I agree with you. The international factor is always the easiest target to which to address criticism and to attack, but, by being critical towards local actors, and even sometimes being very critical towards them, one also shows them respect because that is how they should be treated. It is definitely the case, and that is why I tried to indicate this in my previous remark, that there is this kind of polarisation between the Serbian forces themselves. This is a country with a background and with human capital and really able people who can deal with the international environment. If the international community wants to work with people in Belgrade, they can find people who are really interesting and who know their way about. In that sense, the Serbian people, yes, and from my contact with them, do have a strong victim attitude and it is sometimes over-emphasised because that explains for them why their situation is not better. There is definitely a lot of work that needs to be done within the local actors themselves. Dr Whyte: I would just like to make two points in addition. One of them is that engagement by Western
political figures with the local actors on a continued and sustained basis is
the only thing that will work. For
instance, Mr Chairman, it would be great if this Committee's report, when it is
finalised, were to be launched in the Western Balkans as well as published
here. I think it would be very
interesting for the local media to pick up on that. It would certainly be a sign that you were taking them seriously,
and they will take you very seriously, whatever you say. It will be a sign of respect in the other
direction. My second point on Russia, Ms Stuart: the Russian attitude, I am afraid, is, frankly, irresponsible at the moment. On the one hand, they call for the United Nations to crack down more heavily on Kosovo. On the other hand, they have withdrawn their own troops, thus fighting to the last drop of somebody else's blood, in other words. On the one hand, the Russians describe the Kosovo authorities (dubious as they may be but legitimately elected under UN mandate and by UN structures) as terrorists and thugs; on the other hand, Russia continues to support separatist regimes which have much less legitimacy, in South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh and Transnistria. There is a real problem there. It will take sustained attention from the Kremlin, not from the Russian Foreign Ministry, and at the moment the Kremlin has other things to think about. Dr Anastasakis: It goes further. Russia is going through an interim period because of its own problems within its own country. I think the importance of the Balkans for Russia is decreasing and will now be seen to be decreasing. Chairman: Gentlemen, you have contributed much to our own study of this fascinating area. We thank you both for giving us of your expertise. Witness: Mr Misha Glenny, Balkans analyst, examined. Q136 Chairman: Mr Glenny, we welcome you back as a young, old friend of the Committee! We have read your many commentaries with great interest and we now look forward to hearing from you with your perspective on the Western Balkans, the subject of our inquiry. Perhaps we can begin, as we began our last session, if you could give some indication of the strategic importance which you think the area has? We will then turn to Mr Maples. Mr Glenny: I have always considered it
to have considerable strategic importance, firstly for the reason that Nicholas
Whyte mentioned Q137 Mr Maples: Inevitably I will cover some of the same ground that we have covered already, but we are interested to know your views on some of these things too. In that context, the role of Russia in the West Balkans; what is your view there? Do you think they are troublesome and irresponsible? Mr Glenny: I do not think that Russia has political ambitions in south-eastern Europe. It has considerable economic ambitions in the region. Just as a pointer, Bulgaria's single most important contributor to its revenue earning annually in terms of taxes is Lukoil, and you will find Lukoil and Gascom with a very significant presence all over the region. But in political terms Russia's only interest in the Balkans that I can identify is Kosovo, and that pretty much as a bargaining chip which it uses in a similar but less intense fashion as it does the regime in Transmistria; and it will continue to hold those chips, particularly if it feels aggrieved about the United States' influence in Georgia and places like that, until it feels it has a political incentive to do something about it. I have just spent some time in Russia discussing these issues, amongst others, and there is no popular sentiment of any particular significance in support of Serbia, and inside Serbia itself there is a realism that Russia is not somehow going to come to its rescue under any circumstances; but also the Serbs do understand that in terms of Kosovo Russia will not give it away for nothing, if push comes to shove, on the issue of independence. Q138 Mr Maples: You and our previous
witnesses mentioned in the context of, is this region of strategic importance
to us and the United States Mr Glenny: My answer is very clearly
yes. What we are looking at at the
moment is a problem in Kosovo, which is extremely severe. If the problem in Kosovo were to get out of
control it would impact on the stability of Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Montenegro and possibly the Republic of Albania as well. We have seen in March the capacity for very
serious civil unrest in Kosovo. We have
also seen in March the incapacity of KFor Q139 Chairman: You do not think that the military authorities in Kosovo have learnt the lessons in terms of smaller, more deployable, more flexible units, so that if a March situation were to recur that they would be better prepared? Mr Glenny: The proof of the pudding
will be in the eating, regrettably, but I accompanied Denis MacShane to Kosovo
just after the March events and we both saw the video of the Irish Battalion
making a very good job of trying to contain an extremely large and unruly
crowd. The Irish battalion, who we
spoke to, said very clearly, "We do not have the equipment, we do not have the
capacity for crowd control and riot control and this is what we are dealing
with. We have effectively been deployed
here in order to prevent the a Q140 Mr Maples: If something like what
happened in March flared up again, are you saying that you think that f Mr Glenny: No, it would depend on how it would develop, but I am extremely concerned that the international community, both as it is deployed politically and militarily, will find it very hard to deal with a return match of March, and that certainly if you had large numbers of Serbs being killed then in that event there would be tremendous pressure from Serbia and Montenegro to respond militarily. Q141 Mr Maples: Might they act militarily themselves? Do they have the capability to do so, and would that just involve the northern and Mitrovica part? Mr Glenny: I think it would just
involve the northern part. One of the
things that the Serbs do not fully understand, have not taken in about Kosovo Q142 Chairman: Before I come on to the recent elections, a question about the Russian motives and the Russian background. To what extent do you think Russian authorities are constrained by public opinion in Russia itself and also of the ramifications of any settlement in Kosovo and Chechnya? Mr Glenny: The first issue, I do not
think that they are constrained at all by this. Really my sense in Russia, talking to politicians, diplomats,
journalists and ordinary folk was that Kosovo is a very far away place, of
which they know nothing, and in which they are little interested. The same, incidentally, would go for Serbia
as well. But in terms of its strategic
importance vis-à-vis Chechnya, I think you may have a more serious
point, that it sets a poor precedent Q143 Andrew Mackinlay: Mr Glenny, with Serbia and
Montenegro, it seems to me, it might be more sensible for us at least not to be
in any way trying to bolster what I deem to be a wholly artificial federation;
that Montenegrin independence not only has some justice but also you could
offer advance membership
into the European Union for Montenegro Mr Glenny: It is difficult for me to reply without looking at the totality of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, but essentially my assessment has been for a long time that there are two regional motors of growth and stability in the entire region, which are Croatia and Serbia, and that the dispute between Serbia and Croatia in the early 90s was what provoked the war. In order to reintroduce stability you have to guarantee the stability of those two territories. For Serbia it is more complicated because Croatia was only involved with Bosnia and Herzegovina as another territory. With Serbia there is the relationship with Montenegro and there is the relationship with Kosovo. I feel very strongly that the key relationship for the European Union in this region now is Serbia; that because Montenegro is so small that absorbing it into the European Union actually would not make much difference. It would probably be very easy to do it, although it is still a pretty highly criminalized state, and so on and so forth, and there are problems in association with it. Q144 Andrew Mackinlay: Which I accept. Mr Glenny: Rather than concentrating on
a swift way to get Montenegro into the EU I would be looking very much at what
is the quickest way to get Serbia moving towards the European Union. So it is looking at a different point of
view. That may well mean jettisoning
the relationship with Montenegro and it might mean jettisoning a relationship
with Kosovo Q145 Andrew Mackinlay: You said that the trajectory
which we are now on Mr Glenny: I will get to the core of
the matter and I will address the Kosovo election issues. First of all, you have to look at the social
reality of Kosovo. With the exception
of Transmistria this is the only territory in Europe at the moment which
registers a negative economic growth.
The difference between Transmistria and Kosovo is that Transmistria's
economic growth is in consequence of the population having halved over the last
ten years. Kosovo has a growing and
very young population and every year 50,000 young people come on to a
non-existent job market. Another reason
why the economic growth is negative is that there is further pressure from
refugees from Western Europe being sent back to Kosovo because they no longer
want to be maintained by the host country, and that means a reduction in
remittances, which are very, very important in Kosovo's economy. What happened in March was that finally
people had had enough. With youth
unemployment running at 70 per cent, with no movement on the status issue, but
also a government (UNMIK) which, frankly, has been lamentable in its failure,
its economic record is simply unspeakable.
I could go into details but for the moment take that as read. It has alienated the population. The Serbs were the first targets in March
because they are very identifiable sitting ducks. KFor Q146 Andrew Mackinlay: The tools being what? Mr Glenny: The tools, I would suggest,
being a much clearer vision of how Serbia Q147 Chairman: But Tadic urged the minority in Kosovo to vote. Kostunica and the church urged them not to vote. Surely the result of the vote, this massive boycott, was a disavowal of Tadic? Mr Glenny: No, it is not a disavowal of
Tadic, it means that on certain issues, firstly in Northern Mitrovica Q148 Chairman: I can understand that
argument in respect of Mitrovica and the northern border areas, but you said to
the Committee earlier that the greater part of the population in the south of
that Mr Glenny: Because they are integrated into the municipalities and the local structures. They serve on the municipalities as deputy mayors, and so on and so forth, depending on where you go. I run a project called GPKT, which brings together municipalities from eastern Kosovo, southern Serbia and northern Macedonia, which all have minority issues that have been resolved through integrating the minorities, whether Albanian, Serb or Macedonian, into the political process. They will come out every time and vote for those local councils because they feel they have a stake, and they feel they have absolutely no stake in the political process in Prishtina as it is currently structured. When Western Europe and the United States come in and say, "You must go out and vote," their response to that is, "Why? What do we get out of this?" because what their immediate memory of the political process inside Kosovo is, is March; that is their immediate memory. They do not see any tangible benefits at the moment through cooperation. Q149 Chairman: What would be your advice to the British government and other EU countries in seeking to get over this obstacle? Mr Glenny: My first advice would be to accelerate the dismantling of UNMIK, to give --- Q150 Chairman: A transfer to the EU or local --- Mr Glenny: No, transfer to the Kosovo Assembly but insisting upon a real transfer of powers from Prishtina to the municipalities and so that there is a primitive system of accountability in that political process. At the same time this would have to be tracked with a vigorous attempt by the international community to establish a proper dialogue and not, frankly, the excuse for a dialogue that we have at the moment, identifying those people in the Serbian and the Kosovo elite who are prepared to talk and deal in terms of compromises and move towards serious solutions. The other thing for the Serbs is to get serious about refugee return; there is a lot of pressure inside southern Serbia to move refugees back. This is one thing that we are doing in Gilan in eastern Kosovo, supporting the local Albanian mayor, who is appealing for Serbs from the Nish area to come back and integrate into Kosovo. The problem we have is not political in many of these areas where the Serbs are considering returning, the problem is economic because what happens is they return to Kosovo and then there are no jobs and they no longer get the support as IDPs[3] that they receive in southern Serbia. So one of the things that the people I am working with, including local mayors, what we are doing is trying to appeal to the international community to set up programmes of economic sustainability and refugee return, so the Serbs can see that something is actually being done to assist their integration. Q151 Chairman: But we have the reality of the election result. How serious a blow, in your judgment, was that to prospects of progress in a multi-ethnic direction? Mr Glenny: It is a serious blow but I
cannot see at the moment how the idea of partition or the idea of creation of
enclaves is going to work, and the reason for this emerges from the population
distribution that I mentioned early on, and to which you referred again, and
that is if you want to do that you have to start this operation by moving up to
40,000, 45,000 Serbs physically from disparate parts of Kosovo into these
enclaves. It is a population transfer
which began in '23 with the Greek/Turkish Agreement in Q152 Mr Chidgey: Mr Glenny, I was rather
intrigued by your remarks regarding accelerating Serbia's accession to the
European Union in the context of Kosovo Mr Glenny: I am not suggesting that
this be done immediately. I would
reiterate what you said, that if you look at the current enlargement of ten
that there is barely a country there where we have not lowered the standards of
certain criteria. So this is not
without precedent, the way that we do this.
In terms of political perceptions inside Serbia vis-à-vis the
European Union, the Croatian case is difficult as well because of the Gotovina
issues. The fact of the matter is
Gotovina is not in Q153 Mr Chidgey: It is not just about war
criminals though, is it, the deal being done?
The most important thing, surely, for EU entrance is that you do not
just pass the laws that give you the rule of law, which give you human rights,
which give you equality and so forth, you actually implement the laws so that
the population does benefit from the same society that we cherish and protect,
if I may say so? My concern is that you
sign on the dotted line, you exchange war criminals but you do not actually Mr Glenny: Except that if you look at
the impact and the accession on the most recent round of enlargement countries,
but also on Romania and Bulgaria Q154 Mr Illsley: Turning to Bosnia and
Herzegovina, the High Representative of Bosnia, Mr Glenny: I think that Bosnia represents
a similar but not identical problem to that of Kosovo Q155 Mr Illsley: You mentioned incentives on Bosnia's politicians. Can you expand on that? Would that be moving towards European Union accession? Mr Glenny: No, it means so that they are accountable to their electorates for what they do. I am talking on that level. At the moment there is a strong element of Bosnian politics which has most successfully got the ear of Lord Ashdown. As long as so much power is concentrated in the centre they are not having to address the concerns of their electorate, and this is a key problem in Bosnia and a key problem in Kosovo, because whatever one says about Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, all the politicians there are actually up for election next time and are held to account for their actions, which is one of the reasons why you see changes in government so dramatically, because there is very little they can do about the economic situation. But it is their responsibility. Q156 Mr Illsley: Is there anything more the international community could do to try and get the Bosnian entities to hand over people to the War Crimes Tribunal? Mr Glenny: That is regrettably very difficult. No. It is very difficult to see how to do that. Karadzic is very effectively hidden; nobody knows where he is; they have come close to getting him a few times. I cannot see any way of trying to incentivise the local population; there are already large rewards on these people's heads. Serbia and Mladic is a different business. I do not know if the President or the Prime Minister in Serbia know where Mladic is, but I am sure military intelligence knows where he is. I think Mladic is going to be easier to get, paradoxically, because he is more powerful than Karadzic. Q157 Mr Illsley: Does there come a time when we have to turn to each other and say, is there any point continuing with this search for these people? Perhaps more Karadzic than Mladic because of the military involvement. Does there come a time when the civilian population do not want to give him up, he has obviously been able to hide, to conceal himself, there are rewards on his head, yet people do not take advantage of that, and is it not time to say, "Let us forget it"? Mr Glenny: I observed from an article
in the Washington Times that I read this morning, that John Bolton in
the United States has made strong indications that it is time to wind-up the
ICTY. Under the Bush administration it
was fairly obvious earlier on that if the Serbs had handed over Mladic and the
Bosnians Karadzic then the Americans would have withdrawn their support from
the ICTY as a whole. And it now looks
as if they are looking into this again with the transfer of cases to Belgrade
and to Zagreb and to the local instances.
I think that the ICTY has a function but I think that it has become too
politicised and I think it has too negative an impact on local politics. If there is some way of reaching a
compromise on this issue in terms of devolving the court's powers into local
capitals I think it should certainly be explored. There is a long list of people sitting there waiting to be tried
in Q158 Andrew Mackinlay: Some time before the break I want to ask about policing, but when you literally stop there you are saying that we have to anticipate this shopping list of indictees coming up from Kosovo, and you say that is going to be an aggravant? Mr Glenny: Yes. Q159 Andrew Mackinlay: The other thing I want to ask you about is, Mr Whyte earlier drew attention to the fact that many of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina will be able to claim Croatian citizenship and if they did do so of course that would diminish from nation building, they would not feel Bosnian, and then presumably the people who cannot claim Croatian citizenship would say, "You are not Bosnian." Presumably this is something which we need to take into account, both in terms of negotiations in accession of Croatia and, again, going back to this whole business of mobility around Europe. We exaggerate this business, points which both Mr Whyte and you have made, the fact we are not going to let people into Europe, we are going to return them, and visas and so on. Would you flag this up fairly high for us to address this, in the sense we address the Foreign and Commonwealth Office? Mr Glenny: When I learnt about Croatian accession I immediately anticipated that when this gets nearer you will see the first voluntary mass conversion of religion inside the Balkans for 150 years or so, as a lot of people become Catholics in a short space of time. I think there will be an element of that; I think there will be an element of selling Croatian passports inside Bosnia and Herzegovina as well, but the dual citizenship for Serbia and for Croatia was laid down in Dayton and that is not going to stop. Whether the EU can come up with a new formulation saying that only Croats not living in Bosnia and Herzegovina can get in, I do not know, but it seems to be unrealistic. As regards access to labour markets and moving around Europe, the other thing that I am doing at the moment is working at a book on trans-national organised crime, and I can tell you quite categorically that keeping people out of the European Union and keeping them in distressed economic areas is manna from heaven for organised crime syndicates. They provide labour, very cheap labour. The one cultural specificity you can level at the Balkans is that people are good at smuggling there. I do not think that they are congenitally genocidal and I do not think that they are congenitally criminal, but they are good at smuggling because they have been doing it for a very long time, and every time the borders of the EU are raised, the walls go higher, and all you are doing is maximising the profits of organised crime syndicates, who have penetrated our capitals ten years ago. The dam burst on that one a long time ago. So for me, particularly with the issue of the ageing population in Western Europe, the fact that we often cannot fill up the employment places that are there, it seems to me, if I may use the colloquialism, a "no brainer". We have unemployment that leads to instability in south-eastern Europe, we have under-employment. These people have been determined by us as European and candidates for the European Union, and it seems to me an obvious place from where we could consider drawing labour. Q160 Ms Stuart: Let us take this "no
brainer" a little bit further. Most of
the issues which I wanted to raise in relation to Serbia and Montenegro you
have in many ways answered those points in relation to other questions. Let us look at the FCO's approach to
this. I remember when Mr Glenny: On that issue, on the issue
of representation in the EU, believe you me you could do a deal with this
region very, very quickly, for them to say, "Hell's teeth, we will have one
Commissioner every five years; we do not care.
What we want is structure and cohesion first. We want our economies to have the same kind of incentives and
inputs and targeted work and data collection, all the things that happen in
Ireland, Greece, Portugal and Spain, and transformed those countries within the
space of 20, 25 years." That is what
they are looking for. So on that issue
I am sure you can do a deal; they are good at making deals, these people, as
well. That is another cultural specificity.
I agree with you that it is another thing to swallow, particularly after
the last ten, and the security arrangements are going to be difficult. Where I think Tim was right ten years ago is
what in their murky, hazy, violent way the Serbs and the Croats understood was
that the European Union on the whole Q161 Ms Stuart: What about Montenegro? Mr Glenny: It depends what
happens. My own feeling is that the
Agreement will fall apart after three years; that is my sense. Even if Montenegro does not become a member
of the EU straight away it has an economic relationship with parts of the
Italian establishment, of various varieties, which will ensure that it becomes
a sustainable economy Q162 Ms Stuart: One final question on nationalist feelings, particularly in Serbia. I remember reading an article by a Serbian journalist where he said, "My identity is about to be stolen by a blue flag with 12 golden stars." Is he a single voice or is that a problem over there? Mr Glenny: If you look at the nationalist vote across Eastern Europe and south-eastern Europe the patterns in Serbia are pretty consistent. The radicals have two sources for their electoral strength. One is poverty and economic decline and the other is nationalism. Personally I think that the economic decline is a more significant percentage of that vote and the radicals will also suffer reverses in fortunes. It looks as though we may well have early elections in Serbia in the Spring. This is the time when Tadic and his party organisation are really on the line and I think this will be an absolutely crucial event. But I think you will see a fairly significant decline in Kostunica's vote. No, I do not think the voice that you read in the article is the defining voice of Serbian political consciousness. Q163 Chairman: We have not turned to Macedonia. May we have some final reflections on what are the bases of the current instability? Is it essentially economic? I have heard, for example, that in the past the Macedonians had most of the jobs in the bureaucracy; that those have been reduced. The out grouped Albanians became more entrepreneurial; they travelled; they are bringing in money now, causing certain resentments. How do you describe to us the roots of the instability in Macedonia and the prospects, which, since Macedonia appears to be, certainly in respect of NATO, well placed? Mr Glenny: I think it is partly as you
described it there, in an extremely succinct, it seems to me, summary of one of
the ESI papers, arguing exactly that.
That is part of the problem with the Macedonians and the Albanians,
there is no question. The Ochrid
Agreement has always had some detractors in the Macedonia population which see
it, (a) as selling out to the Albanians, but (b) as having been imposed from
the outside. This, given the parlous
state of the Macedonian economy, has not been helped by the way that the
government has handled the whole r Q164 Chairman: So the roots being economic, social or ethnic? Mr Glenny: Consistently before, during and after the civil war of 2001 opinion polls in both communities in Macedonia put ethnic relations and ethnic tensions down at about fifth and sixth of ordinary citizens' major concerns, after the issues of unemployment, health, education and all those other things which we all recognise from our lives. What happens is that when you have a very weak economy in Macedonia, and what is culturally undoubtedly quite a divided community, when there are political tensions and failures associated with that then the economic tensions are very quickly translated and manipulated into ethnic tensions. On the ethnic issue the current Albanian and Macedonian parties in power have done pretty well, but they are both currently very weak and one hesitates to guess as to what might come after. Chairman: Mr Glenny, as always, you have been most helpful. Thank you very much.
[1] Democratic Party of Kosovo [2] Allied Forces, Southern Europe (NATO) [3] Internally Displaced Person [4] Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation programme |