Thirty years ago, on the 22nd of January, the last Congress of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia marked the begnning of the dissolution of the Yugoslav federation. Since then, the Balkans remain in a condition of high political, economic and social instability.
The beginning of the Syrian armed conflict marked the start of an unprecedented outflow of foreign fighters from the Western Balkans to the Middle East. As of the end of 2019, about 1,070 nationals of Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, and Montenegro[1] had traveled to Syria and Iraq. Although arguably motivated by a variety of reasons[2], most of them ended up joining jihadist militias and designated terrorist organizations like the Islamic State (IS) and Jabhat al-Nusra.
While most think tankers and Policy makers are concentrating on how the Balkan EU accession process can be kept alive, they are missing a far more fundamental, if less sexy, topic: depopulation.
While Balkans-China relations have deepened in a number of policy areas over the last decade, two particular forms of interaction have been most visible and talked about: a) cooperation on large-scale infrastructure projects undertaken by the Balkan governments, funded via Chinese loans, implemented by contracting Chinese state-owned enterprises (with the notable exception of the Pjelešac Bridge in Croatia, which is financed primarily by EU funds); and b) Chinese greenfield and brownfield investments in other infrastructure assets as well as manufacturing capacities in the
In May 2019, Serbian Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic and Chinese Minister of Public Security Zhao Kezhi signed a three-point memorandum of understanding in the field of security. Two of the agreed initiatives came into effect in September: joint police patrols and the installation of cameras with facial recognition technology. Together with Serbian colleagues, an undefined number of Chinese police officers will be deployed in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Smederevo.
Last April, a Bosnian court sentenced Munib Ahmetspahic to three years in prison after a guilt admission agreement with the prosecutor. From 2013 to 2018, Ahmetspahic fought in Syria with Jabhat al Nusra and returned to Bosnia with a serious leg amputation. He was detained at the airport in Sarajevo in November 2018. However, Ahmetspahic was not the first returning foreign fighter to be convicted in Bosnia.
Ever since the foundation of the 16+1 cooperation platform with Eastern European countries, China has become one of the most influential players in the Balkans too.
China’s Increasing economic presence in the region has led many analysts to focus on the effects of rising Chinese influence. While this is a sound observation, it must necessarily be followed by two questions – to what end is China building its influence in the region and why are Balkan leaders so keen to accept Chinese propositions?
The presence of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the Balkans has come under rather intense media scrutiny in recent years. This is mainly due to high-profile investments in the construction sector, whose premier example is the controversial Belgrade Waterfront project – a luxury citadel to rise on the banks of the Sava River in the Serbian capital. In the context of the receding allure of the European model in the Western Balkans, the UAE have started to be analysed as one of those non-EU actors that could ‘fill the void’ of the value vacuum in the region.
There is a fundamental misperception with regard to Turkey’s relationship with the Balkans. Turkey is not external to the region, the way Russia is for instance. Its history and geographic location make it a part of southeast Europe. Millions of Turks have their family roots in what was once known as ‘Turkey-in-Europe.’ This includes the founder of the republic, the Salonika-born Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Ties run deep at the political, economic, and societal levels.
Twenty years have passed since NATO’s bombing campaign on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that ended the wars that shook the Balkans for a decade. Since then, the region has changed considerably, but it has retained its role as a bridge between the East and the West, because of the great influence from both Western institutions like the EU and countries like Russia, China or Turkey.
In 1999, the NATO bombing of Serbia and Montenegro put an end to war in Kosovo and to the long, bloody process of the collapse of Yugoslavia. The legacy of the destructive Nineties dictated the future political agendas for Balkan countries, which committed themselves to EU integration, though keeping doors open to other international players.
Following a Constitutional Court decision in December 2016 and the EU's failure to turn the technical measures it tried to propose as part of an ambitious "Reform Agenda" into a comprehensive political strategy, Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing possibly its biggest political crisis after general elections will be held in October 2018 [1].