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The Balkans Stability Pact The “Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe” was adopted on 10 June 1999 at an EU sponsored meeting of foreign ministers from east and central Europe and the Balkans, and ratified at a summit of heads of state in Sarajevo in July. The pact’s underlying principle was that the Balkans countries would only emerge from the wars of the last decade if they worked together to provide security, build democracy and expand their economies. Their incentive was integration into European structures such as NATO, with the promise of eventual membership in the EU. The idea of a regional pact had been floated in late 1998, but gained in strength only after the NATO intervention in Kosovo. The EU describes it as “the first serious attempt by the international community to replace the previous, reactive crisis intervention policy … with a comprehensive, long-term conflict prevention strategy.” But implementation of the pact was impeded by the continuing presence of ethnic nationalists in many of the Balkans countries, and especially by Milosevic’s control over the rump Yugoslavia. One of the pact’s first initiatives was the Szeged process launched in October 1999 to support opposition ruled local authorities in Serbia. In January 2000, the EU, U.S., Canada, Japan and South Eastern European countries founded the Business Advisory Council, and in February 2000 stability pact countries adopted an Investment Compact to introduce economic reforms. One of their first acts was to begin an anti-corruption drive in which member states would cooperate. As a first step towards integration, the EU created a new set of Stabilization and Association Agreements at the pact’s Zagreb summit in 2000, for Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (which became a member in October 2000 after Milosevic lost the elections). The first SAA agreement was signed with Macedonia in April 2001 and the second with Croatia in October 2001. Between 1999 and 2001 a number of further programs were agreed, to improve regional relations, control the flow of arms assist in the return of refugees.
Most of these agreements were easier signed than enforced. Though the EU and international organizations were able to implement a number of individual projects in each country, getting them to accept joint regional projects was more difficult. The Anti Corruption Initiative that was launched in February 2000 acquired a secretariat only in 2003. The network of Free Trade Agreements that were discussed in 2000, and considered a condition for eventual EU integration, finally inched from 11 to 21 three years later, in February 2003. The Police Forum that was set up in December 2000 also acquired muscle only in 2003, when a South East European association of national chiefs of police was set up. By late 2002 it had become clear that the Stability Pact would have to set priority targets if it were to fulfill its purpose of settling the Balkans. In November the pact adopted “Local Democracy and Cross Border Cooperation” as a core objective, applied especially to infrastructure development, refugee returns and border management. Future targets include:
Following the Kosovo-Macedonia-Albanian conflicts, and the unresolved tensions between Croatia, Bosnia and the rump Yugoslavia, creating stable as well as open borders became a key priority. In May 2003, at a regional border security conference in Ohrid, the EU, NATO, OSCE and Stability Pact recommended that the six work out a set of joint measures for border control.
The EU pledged to provide funding as well as on the ground cooperation from its military or police missions, for example in Macedonia and Bosnia. NATO pledged to include border management in its missions in Kosovo, Albania and Macedonia. And the OSCE pledged to train regional border police forces, while the Stability Pact would develop coordination centers on the ground, such as Regional Arms Control, Verification in Zagreb, the Migration, Asylum, Regional Return Initiative, and the Bucharest Center for Combating Trans-Border Crime. | |
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Text written by Radha Kumar and David Pacheco. Copyright, Radha Kumar, 2007. |
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