WORLD NEWS FOR MONTENEGRO DIASPORA
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AUTHOR: M.J. GDNUS
Brussels is losing influence in the region and I will tell you what my impression is, and I have been involved in the political life of the Western Balkans for more than 30 years - today the situation in the region is worse than ten years ago. Reforms have practically stopped, and these are reforms that were supposed to ensure a standard that would make us an organic part of European civilization.
This was stated by former Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic at the Globsec forum, as a participant in the panel "The Western Balkans at a Geopolitical Crossroads: European Integration or Growing Regional Tensions?".
"Integration is no longer the main topic, nor the most important topic. Especially since there is skepticism even towards the prospects that could be called achievable – the Western Balkans in the European Union. You know, in 2013, Croatia became a member of the European Union. Since then, nothing has happened. And ten years before that, in 2003 in Thessaloniki, at the EU-Western Balkans summit, there was an initiative for the European Union to accept the idea that by 2014, by the centenary of the Great War, all the countries of the Western Balkans would become members of the European Union. And only one of them became a member – Croatia, and the rest are now further from the European Union than they were in 2003," Đukanović assesses.
As a result of all this, he says, we are not having the main effect that we want to achieve through integration, which is the emancipation of Balkan society.
The EU has been indecisive for an unacceptably long time
"Unfortunately, Balkan society is deeply backward, and what we all want in the Balkans, and I assume in the European Union as well, is to see reforms, to see standards established, because we want these societies to adapt to live properly in the European Union, united by common values. And there is currently no such effect. And I will tell you why. First of all, the European Union has been very indecisive for an unacceptably long time about what to do in the Western Balkans, what to do with its most successful policy – the enlargement policy. If you remember when Romania and Bulgaria became members, then they started talking about enlargement fatigue. After that, they started talking about dilemmas – whether to continue enlargement before the internal consolidation of the European Union is completed, although it is quite clear that this consolidation does not depend on whether the EU has 27 or 35 members. The EU with 27 members is dysfunctional in certain segments and requires reforms, but this does not mean that we should hesitate to admit new members, members from the Western Balkans.
Then ideas about Europe of different speeds emerged. After that, they changed the methodology of negotiations with candidate countries.
In the end, we got the European Political Community and whatever you call it, my impression is that it is some kind of alternative, a replacement, which is offered as something that comes before membership. So, the EU was thinking about what to offer the Western Balkans, instead of offering the most logical thing - a process of aggressive enlargement and admission of new members from the Western Balkans to the EU," said Đukanović.
As he added, everyone knows that a geopolitical vacuum does not exist.
Russia has strengthened its representatives in the Western Balkans who are spreading the narrative that NATO is the "Fourth Reich"
"If the EU is not present, someone else will be. So Russia came, and Russia is present, and it has activated the legacy of its historical presence in the Western Balkans. First of all, strong pro-Russian sentiments. Russia has strengthened its representatives in the Western Balkans. It has put them at the service of its goals and has begun to destroy values in the societies of the Western Balkans.
The narrative that Russia is sending through its representatives, primarily through the Orthodox Church, is that Europe is a rotten civilization, and that NATO is the "Fourth Reich". That is that narrative. That is why the public in the Western Balkans is seriously beginning to doubt the possibility of membership in the European Union at all", said the former president of Montenegro.
The West neglected the Russian destruction of the region, and the Balkans saw space for nationalism
He concluded his presentation by saying that he believes that this type of destruction of values has been greatly neglected by Western politics, especially the EU and the United States.
"They simply did not see what was happening in the Western Balkans, and the Balkans actually saw an empty space – a space for nationalisms.
So, whenever there is some turbulence from Russia and whenever Russia turns its attention towards the West, especially Europe, the nationalists from the Western Balkans think that their time has come.
What we thought was buried in the blood of the 1990s, in the blood in which we buried the former Yugoslavia, has now reawakened and we again have nationalist narratives in the Western Balkans, which threaten the stability of the region, the European perspectives of the region, and experience has taught us that this is a threat to European stability as well," said Đukanović.
Finish the enlargement process without too many experiments
Is there still a functional pro-European consensus within the Montenegrin political establishment, was the moderator's question for Đukanović.
“Well, that was seriously questioned because of what state policy in Montenegro has been doing in the last five years. For years, Montenegro has been an excellent role model and example in the region – a country where there was the broadest consensus on the people’s desire to become part of the European Union as soon as possible. But in the last five years, thanks to the chaos that I described in response to your first question – and that chaos is, in my opinion, largely generated from the geopolitical level.
Most of the problems in the region, in my opinion, stem from that geopolitical level. Our current politicians are not finding their way, and that has led to wavering. And I am convinced – regardless of the poll results – I am convinced that support for European integration is declining. You know, Montenegro cannot be in a vacuum. If you read the media from Serbia on this topic, it is clear that the entire region has begun to doubt the certainty of membership in the European Union. And Montenegro cannot be a complete exception to that,” Djukanovic stressed.
The key question, he added, is how to get out of that situation.
“I don’t want to be a pessimist. I have never been a pessimist. I think there is a way out of this. And the way out is to reactivate the best policy that the European Union has ever had, which is the enlargement policy. The European Union has shot itself in the foot, it must complete the enlargement process without too many experiments. That policy, the enlargement policy, was good as long as it was based on clear standards and clear rules. You meet the standards – you become a member of the European Union. Today we hear different explanations.
What worries me is that in recent years we have been able to hear that the administrative and technical approach to enlargement is becoming dominant. And I think that the European Union should return to a political approach to enlargement.
If the European Union wants to be a geopolitical actor that will be competitive in the new geopolitical order – which is emerging before our eyes – we are talking about wanting to compete with China. No, we are not going to argue with China. China is here. It is a very important geopolitical actor – whoever does not see that is blind. And we want to see where Europe is in all this. If Europe wants to be competitive, it must cover its weak points, and "The weakest point for it is the Western Balkans.
It does not have to be lenient towards the Western Balkans. The Western Balkans must meet the conditions to become a member of the European Union. And in this way the European Union will be united and geopolitically competitive," concluded Đukanović.
In addition to Đukanović, the panelists are Christian Schmidt, High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sebastian Hartmann, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Defense of the Federal Republic of Germany, Stevo Pendarovski, former President of North Macedonia, and Christopher Hill, former Ambassador of the United States to Serbia.
