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| SLOVENIA'S E.U. PRESIDENCY By ELIZABETH POND December 30, 2007 LJUBLJANA Tiny Slovenia's daring in presiding over the giant European Union in the first half of the new year is mind-boggling—to everyone except the Slovenes. "We do not shy away from challenges. We in the recent past have faced challenges bigger than this one—independence, and before that the democratic process that led us out of Yugoslavia" in 1991, explained Janez Lenarcic, State Secretary for European Affairs and Prime Minister Janez Jansa's top organizer of the half-year adventure. "Those were real challenges, existential challenges. The fate of the nation depended on how well we faced them….In the very recent past we faced bigger challenges, and we were able to handle them." Lenarcic, who won his law degree at the University of Ljubljana less than a year after Slovenia won a brief skirmish with the Yugoslav army and asserted its independence, acknowledged in an interview that "it is an ambitious undertaking to take on this task three and a half years after [EU] accession" and 16 short years after the state's birth. Slovenes, however, deem it a sign of "great recognition and trust" that the 500-million-strong European Union invited the two-million-strong Slovenia be the first of its post-Communist members to take on the presidency. It intends to acquit itself well. Borut Grgic, founding director of the Institute for Strategic Studies in Ljubljana, echoed Lenarcic. "I think Slovenia said, OK, this is our opportunity once again to prove that we are making enormous progress on equal footing with other states," he commented. "Slovenes always had an identity crisis. We never liked to be associated with the Balkans. Now that we are part of the EU, we feel we have finally made it into the club where we thought we belonged." Slovenia is a "new country trying to make a name for itself." CRISIS MANAGEMENT IN KOSOVA More than anything else, the name Slovenia makes for itself in 2008 will depend on its and the EU's management of the imminent Kosova declaration of independence from Serbia. Normally, it is hoped that small EU member states will take their turns in the rotating presidency of the intergovernmental European Council in calm interludes, when they will have to deal only with EU and Council representation and routine chairing of the myriad summit, ministerial, and subministerial meetings in their half year of prominence. Slovenia will not have that luxury. Yet if Ljubljana had been forced to choose which crisis to confront, it could hardly have selected any better suited to its talents than resolution of the last major quarrel over sovereignty in the wake of Yugoslavia's disintegration. Slovenia is something of a model for other post-Yugoslav states as the first, and so far only, one to make it into the European Union. With its quick transition to a centrist democracy and market economy—and a current per capita gdp of $32,000 per year—it is also a foil to Serbia, given Belgrade's penchant for ultranationalism and martyrdom, even at the cost of stagnation at an annual $3200 per capita. And Slovenia is the sole EU member that knows intimately the mentalities of the Serb and Kosovar protagonists, both from its 70-year history as a part of Yugoslavia and from its trend-setting escape from Serbian hegemony in 1991. Obversely, the Slovenes understand the dynamic of the EU better than any other post-Yugoslav state. They agree with the EU judgment that strongman Slobodan Milosevic forfeited Serbian claims to sovereignty over Kosovo (to use the Serb orthography) when his security forces murdered thousands of Kosovar Albanians and ethnically cleansed more than a million of them, triggering NATO intervention in 1999. They agree too with the Berlin-brokered consensus of last month that the least-worst course now is for the United Nations protectorate in Kosovo of the past eight years to be replaced by "supervised independence" for Kosova (the Albanian orthography) under the stewardship of the EU. This handover, the EU decided, must occur even though Russia has blocked UN Security Council sanction of it. The Slovenes agree, finally, that the EU must act now—in part out of penance for its failure to stop the Srebrenica massacre in 1995—and that it must succeed in this most ambitious joint foreign-policy operation it has ever planned if it wants to become a serious global political actor. The double challenge, then, will be to contain the damage of the anti-Western eruption among Serbian politicians as the 90-percent Albanian population of Kosova declares its (supervised) independence in the next few weeks—and to preserve EU solidarity in the process. Handling the Kosova transition, said State Secretary Lenarcic, "will be one of our most difficult tasks, not so much because one must find the solution or settlement of the Kosovar issue, but even more to assure unanimity in the EU, meaning that the EU [must maintain] a common position. Lobbying for unanimity will be "the most important job of the presidency. We will lobby, persuade, ask, and consult with everyone and then propose something that has the potential" to win consensus. Certainly Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica intends to make such consensus as difficult as possible for the European Union. In late December he went beyond the threat to break diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes Kosovar independence and declared for the first time that Serbia will stop trying to join the EU at all (and, he has suggested, turn to Russian patronage) if current EU members recognize the new state. This is a linkage that the European Union itself has always deliberately avoided, in never making Belgrade's acceptance of de jure as well as de facto secession of Kosovo a precondition for Serbia's advance toward eventual EU membership. Political allies of the ardent nationalist Kostunica have further opposed the impending EU mission in Kosova, speculated about sending Serbian security forces back into any independent Kosova, and warned Slovenes that their considerable investments in Serbia could be at risk if Ljubljana recognizes Kosova. Even before Ljubljana formally assumed the presidency on January 1, Slovenian Foreign Minister Dmitrej Rupel felt compelled to dismiss as election rhetoric the Serbian talk of spurning EU membership, and to ask publicly how Serbia, "a country surrounded by European Union member states," could survive if it isolates itself. The political danger Rupel alluded to is that Kosova's proclaimed independence could mobilize the fraction of vocal ultranationalist Serbs in the January 20 presidential election against the more apathetic Serb majority, even though (according to opinion polls) that majority already accepts separation from Kosova and wants to move on to secure Serbia's future in the EU. Specifically, the question is whether the acting leader of the ultranationalist Radicals, Tomislav Nikolic, will become president, with Kostunica's support, or whether the more pragmatic pro-European incumbent, Boris Tadic, will remain in office. Neither the Serbs nor the Kosovars invest their ex-Yugoslav Slovene fellows with the authority they accord Berlin, Brussels, and Washington, of course. The main contribution of Ljubljana in the crucial next half year will therefore not be as an intermediary in the dispute, but rather as a knowledgeable interpreter of Balkan dynamics for the primary EU actors in the matter, the supranational European Commission and the big states in the intergovernmental European Council, especially Germany. It will be up to the Commission to decide what carrots to offer Serbia in progress toward EU accession, in an attempt to minimize Serbs' current self-isolation. And it will basically be up to Germany—which last month brokered what Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt called the "virtual unanimity" of the EU behind present Kosova policy—to guide the momentum of staggered recognition of Kosovar independence by EU member states. Britain, France, Germany, and Italy, the EU members of the Contact Group that has been coordinating American, Russian, and EU policy in the Balkans for a decade, are set to be first in line, followed by others as the Kosova Assemby translates into law the Albanian politicians' pledges to protect and guarantee rights to the six percent minority of Serbs. Even Cyprus, which is expected to refuse recognition, will still maintain solidarity by supporting the EU supervisory team of 1800 administrators, jurists, and police trainers in Kosova, according to German Ambassador to Britain Wolfgang Ischinger. Slovenian officials seem to be confident that the Commission and the Council—along with the continued NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers—can preserve EU unity, while keeping the Kosova crisis from sliding into destabilization or violence during the crucial transition in the first half of 2008. Some indication of the likely Slovene attitude in this endeavor was given by a diplomat who spoke anonymously in order to be frank. He stressed the importance of strong nerves and firmness in the half year in which he expects the Serbs to explode before calming down again. He doubted that the Serbs would actually carry out their more dire threats of retaliation, since these would hurt Belgrade more than Belgrade's targets. He stressed further that the Serbs themselves need to be "liberated" from the "millstone" of the Kosova problem that has been holding them back economically and politically in recent years. He then recounted a conversation in which a senior Serbian official compared Serbia's forthcoming "loss" of Kosovo with Slovenia's "loss" of Trieste to Italy after World War II. The diplomat replied, he said, "But if I go to Trieste now, I am welcome there. I drink coffee in cafés and read Slovene newspapers. My children go to Slovene schools. But if you go in Pristina into a dark alley, you may get a knife in your back. If you let Kosovo go, though, it may start to grow into a kind of normal society. So who lost what?" He elaborated, "Kosova will be independent anyhow. The only question is, do we need more bloodshed in between, or we can keep it under control and let it go in an organized way, with international control?….If the Serbs lose Kosova now, they will be in shock for six months. But then I think it will be over," and borders will in any case progressively lose importance as all the Balkan states join the EU. THE REST OF THE WEST BALKANS Ljubljana should find it simpler to deal with the other issues in the overall priority it defines as strengthening the European perspective of the "Western Balkans"—a neologism covering the Yugoslav successor states plus Albania. Slovenia wants to ensure that movement toward fulfilling the EU's 2003 promise of eventual accession for all the West Balkan lands, as they qualify, does not slow to a halt. "Our hopes are limited because of the November [2007] report by the Commission" highlighting the sluggishness of democratic and economic reforms in the region, State Secretary Lenarcic conceded. Nonetheless, he thought it would be helpful for the EU to restate for the West Balkans "that their destiny is EU membership." Concretely, he hoped that the two laggards on the long road to accession, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, would now push reforms and cooperate sufficiently with the Hague war-crimes tribunal to justify signing of the first-step Stabilization and Association Agreements that both recently initialed with the EU. He stressed, "Of course, we are not advocating any shortcuts or disconnects. This will not come soon, and conditions will have to be met and fulfilled. But [in the meantime] we should do everything we can," including expanding practical pan-Balkan cooperation in transportation networks and among police and judicial officials. Ljubljana, he said, will also aim for "full visa liberalization for all of the Western Balkans." Recalling that twenty years ago he traveled everywhere, east and west, on his Yugoslav passport, he commented, "We should not remain fixated on what was going on here in the '90s. That terrible decade is over, and we should now move on and restore" the free travel that used to be the norm. In the West Balkans, next-door Croatia is a special case. It is the one candidate for EU membership that is far enough advanced to enter the club soon, under the easier rules for accession that predated recent EU revisions of the process. Its membership is already a "done deal," as ISS Director Grgic put it. At the same time, however, Croatia is the one country that has outstanding quarrels with Slovenia over land and sea borders and fishing rights in the Adriatic. Ljubljana is bound by the injunction on the EU's presiding country to maintain impartiality and not use its office to advance its own interests. Since there is no urgent need for action—and since no candidate may enter the EU without first resolving territorial disputes—Slovenia will probably let the argument lie dormant for now and wait for the last stage of accession negotiations to exert its own pressure for settlement. In the meantime, Ljubljana has been at pains to preserve as much freedom of movement as possible for Croats after last month's extension of the European passport-free Schengen zone to include Slovenia and eight other of the newest EU members. As the Slovenia-Croatia line became a robustly guarded external EU border, Ljubljana dismantled footbridges and other informal crossing points between the two countries. It worked out special arrangements with the EU, however, to let Croats continue to enter Slovenia without passports or costly visas by issuing free stand-alone documents at the border attesting the date of entry of visitors. This flexibility showed "how far we are willing and ready to go to minimize the impact of the Schengen external border on our Croatian partners," commented State Secretary Lenarcic. "Our Interior Ministry was in the forefront to preserve the ability of Croatian citizens to cross the border without passports, and we were successful, so they will continue to cross the border with [simple] identity cards….Since we would like to see Croatia enter [the EU] as soon as possible, we don’t want in the meantime to erect new barriers. And I think this was one of the successes for us and Croatia. Croats will not have to pay for this paper." THE FOUR OTHER PRIORITIES For the EU, the most urgent of the Slovenian presidency's four other top priorities is "institutional reform." This is the codephrase for completing ratification in 2008 of the stripped-down reform treaty that Germany brokered last summer during its presidency of the European Council. Berlin's tour de force ended the EU's two-year semi-paralysis after French and Dutch voters rejected the more grandly titled "constitutional treaty" in referenda in 2005. The reform treaty picks up the main institutional reforms EU governments had agreed on in the rejected draft, such as naming a single EU foreign minister, expanding the category of common decisions that can be made by high majorities rather than veto-prone unanimity—and transforming the European Council's present rotating national presidencies into a more permanent presidency to be held by a statesman appointed by EU member governments. If all goes as expected, the more modest treaty will be ratified by all member states (preferably by legislatures rather than risky popular referenda) in time to enter into force in 2009. By now, however, ratification lies with member governments that do not always welcome meddling by EU officials, noted Lenarcic. Ljubljana will therefore be ready to organize any presentations of explanatory material or provide other help that might be asked for, but will not otherwise intrude on domestic politics. A third priority on the Slovenian list is the "successful launching of the new Lisbon Strategy cycle." This refers to the contest between the European Commission, which is trying to implement the market liberalization ordained by the European Council in Lisbon in 2000, and protectionist France and Germany in particular. Here too the real locus of substantive negotiations will lie outside the presidency; no one expects Ljubljana to resolve the clash of giants. Institutionally, the one area of EU cooperation that could demand the most adroitness from Slovenia's chairing of ministerial meetings is the growing coordination among EU members in what used to be exclusively "interior" matters. Under the pressure of immigration and terrorist threats, the next meeting of EU ministers of what are now termed "justice, freedom, and security" affairs is poised to accelerate the shift of these concerns—to the distress of Great Britain—away from the purely intergovernmental "pillar" toward the EU's "Monnet" method of consensus action. The dynamic will be determined by the big players in the corridors, but Ljubljana will also be called upon to facilitate consensus by skillful moderation of the formal sessions. It may defy common sense to expect Slovenia to act as an effective moderator of the rolling EU consensus on such fraught issues among member states that are far more powerful than itself. Yet deference to small states is part of the EU ethos, punctiliously observed by German chancellors Helmut Kohl in the 1980s and Angela Merkel today, if not by Gerhard Schröder in between. According to Dietrich von Kyaw, former German representative to the Committee of Permanent Representatives in Brussels that negotiates all but the most purely political Council decisions, "the equality of each sovereign member state" is fundamental. "Of course, for most of what the presidency does, a small presidency is well advised to take the decisions made in Brussels and work closely on the advice from the Commission and the [Council] secretariat," he added. "A clever presidency utilizes this knowledge." The chief way Slovenia has utilized the cumulative knowledge of larger EU members in its three years of preparation has been the "trio" system that was set up in 2005 for the interim before a more permanent presidency starts in 2009. In this arrangement, a small, a medium, and a large country holding successive half-year presidencies team together to draw up a cohesive 18-month action plan for their combined terms. Germany and Portugal, which acted as presidents in 2007, have been Slovenia's partners. "The exercise turned out to be extremely successful, in spite of the fact that three very different member states in size, experience, and generation of EU membership were working together. In spite of this, the trio functioned very well, including also in the full equality of the countries involved," explained State Secretary Lenarcic. "Each of us supported each other. Each of us brought similar contributions to the table. Also we had strong input from the Commission and the General Secretariat of the Council." Ambassador von Kyaw agreed with this description, noting, "The bulk of the responsibility is with the Slovenes. We are available for advice. And if the Slovenes do not have enough personnel, we will help them, but under Slovene authority….The Slovenes make the decisions. They may ask for advice, but they have the responsibility and will make the decisions." Help for Ljubljana is available as well through the German, British, and French officials who have been seconded to Slovenian ministries for the duration of the presidency. In addition, Slovenia is depending on Portugal to organize the forthcoming EU-South American summit and is outsourcing to France (Slovenia's successor in the second half of 2008) representation of the EU presidency in more than 100 countries where Slovenia does not have its own embassies, especially in Africa. Negotiations in the two final priority areas on Slovenia's official list are expected to run fairly smoothly—opening of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue and "a step forward in addressing climate-energy issues." One intercultural initiative Ljubljana will float is establishment of a Euro-Mediterranean University in the Slovenian city of Piran south of Trieste. In the ecological field Ljubljana does not intend to launch initiatives of its own, but will help design roadmaps toward goals already established in the EU emissions trading scheme, carbon capture and storage, and wider use of renewable energy. Energy policy will cover domestic liberalization and unbundling of energy firms, diversification of supply away from Europe's heavy dependence on Russia for oil and gas, and improved integration of the West Balkans into the European grid. Last year Slovenia launched a blue-ribbon international Caucasus-Caspian Commission of officials, former officials, and representatives of civil society to explore possibilities for direct European access to Caspian fuel independent of Russian pipelines. Realization of this oft-stated EU goal will be a long-term affair that requires few immediate decisions, however. MATURATION In its brief three and a half years in the EU, Ljubljana has made a success of its membership. It was already the most industrially developed republic in Yugoslavia, and in the 1990s it got the macroeconomics of transition to a capitalist economy right from the beginning. It was the first of the post-Communist EU members to adopt the euro as its currency a year ago. It has survived the recent global financial turbulence, in part through its still semi-closed economy in this transitional stage. And it has becomer a leading investor in the Balkans, with its retail outlets and supply chains. The country got democratization right too. Elections bring party changes in a stable political environment. By and large, political elites perceive the constant compromises of EU membership as empowering Slovenia and enhancing its role in Europe rather than undermining the country's new-found sovereignty. They see proof of this not only in their assignment of the EU presidency, but also in its previous chairing of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (2005), which in turn built on its experience as an elected member of the UN Security Council (1998-2000), and as a founding member of the World Trade Organization (1995). Grass-roots voters agree with the elite's positive assessment. Despite the painful economic reforms, popular support for the European Union remains above 60 percent, and there has been no right-nationalist backlash to match the reaction in several other new EU member states; even the small Slovenian National Party approves of EU membership. Human-rights activists fault Slovenia for expelling thousands of nationals from other Yugoslav republics at the beginning of its independence, but otherwise give it good marks. Some foreign observers criticize Slovenia for not having purged its inherited civil service of the old Communist cadres, but others praise the bureaucratic continuity for helping to preserve and build essential state capacity—and for averting bitter domestic polarization. Today, after their recent existential challenges of democratization and birth, Slovenes are taking a mere EU presidency in stride. Musing about his country's past as an object of Yugoslav, Habsburg, and Hungarian decisions rather than the subjective determiner of Slovenia's own destiny, the Slovenian diplomat concluded, "The times when others decided for us are over. Now nobody does. More than that, with the EU presidency, we are co-shaping a European voice….Now nobody is taking care of us. In a way we are maturing." ELIZABETH POND is a Berlin-based American journalist and writer and a non-resident Fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations. She is the author of Endgame in the Balkans: Regime Change, European Style (2006) and The Rebirth of Europe (2002). | |||||||||||||||
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