For Serbia and Kosovo, Support Comes With Strings Attached

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- For centuries, small countries have relied on bigger ones to protect them. The trick was to avoid becoming too much of a pawn in the greater game of the superpowers.

Spanned by mountains that run more than 550 kilometers (342 miles) and bounded by the Adriatic Sea, the Western Balkan region is a case in point. The Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Ottomans, and Austro-Hungarians all used it as a gateway to expand empires, moving populations and redrawing borders in the process. A patchwork of small states might band together to form a buffer for a while before falling apart. They’d find protectors in each of these civilizations—after being conquered.

Nowadays big countries use means other than raw military power to exert influence over the Balkans. The carrots of trade and investment have the same effect. Russia and the U.S., and, potentially, China have aligned Balkan states with their own broader geopolitical goals. But that game can have incendiary results, especially with memories of the vicious ethnic wars that split Yugoslavia into half a dozen pieces in the 1990s still weighing on the region.

For now the possibilities for meddling are most acute in the two main protagonists in the Balkans—Serbia and Kosovo, backed respectively by Russia and the U.S. Ever since Kosovo, which is ethnically mostly Albanian, unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008—nine years after the conflict that effectively split it off—it has struggled for diplomatic recognition in the face of a Serb campaign against it.

The U.S. remains the most powerful nation with ties to Kosovo. In the Kosovar capital of Pristina—Prishtina in Albanian—locals speak in hushed tones of the U.S. as a savior after its intervention in the war with Serbia in 1999. Washington’s support for NATO bombing campaigns forced Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic to capitulate. Children in Kosovo were named after Bill Clinton. His posters still hang from sides of buildings. Still, they fret they’re too small economically and strategically to matter to a transactional leader like Donald Trump, especially as he’s mired in potential impeachment ahead of an election next year. They take some comfort from the recent departure of national security adviser John Bolton, seen in predominantly Muslim Kosovo as less supportive of their desire for independence.

Serbia has been a key factor in October’s parliamentary election in Kosovo. While the major parties in the country agree on the imperative to get Belgrade to the table for talks, they differ on terms. Especially heated and controversial is the prospect—floated by Kosovo President Hashim Thaci—of including a land swap in any negotiations on mutual recognition, a proposal backed by Bolton as well as Serbia’s leader.

In Serbia, President Aleksandar Vucic, head of the populist conservative Serbian Progressive Party, is expected to win again in a vote early next year. He’s led the efforts to squeeze Kosovo for slapping a 100% tax on Serbian products, an action that came in response to Belgrade’s lobbying to prevent Kosovo from joining Interpol.

Kosovo and Serbia do have something in common. Even as he pursues a hostile policy against his neighbor, Vucic is working hard toward greater engagement with the European Union and the golden ring of entry to that common market. Kosovars also look eagerly toward Europe; that’s where the jobs are and where investment could come from.

The EU, however, may be too distracted to offer Serbia and Kosovo the protection and patronage they want. The new European Commission taking office in Brussels is grappling with a host of challenges—including Brexit and rising anti-immigrant rhetoric from governments in Poland, Hungary, and Italy. The risk, therefore, is that the Balkans will drop down the list of EU priorities, leaving Kosovo and Serbia no choice but to lean on the U.S. and Russia. Indeed, the EU’s new foreign affairs head is from Spain, a country that doesn’t recognize Kosovo. And German Chancellor Angela Merkel has effectively slowed down the idea of talks, wary of Thaci’s idea of a land swap. Her concern, shared by others, is that it would reopen the wounds of the war—and not just between Kosovo and Serbia. There are also other neighbors with sensitive borders such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, and North Macedonia to think about. But the EU has offered few proposals to decrease hostility among the Balkans’ feuding communities.

For Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the fragile, febrile environment is a convenient place from which to needle France and Germany and to seek to limit Europe’s influence, says Agron Bajrami, editor-in-chief of Kosovo’s largest daily, Koha Ditore. “Russia wants to have a hot spot in southeast Europe that will be trouble for NATO and the European Union,” he says over coffee at a smart hotel in Pristina.

Two decades after the war, Pristina has shiny new buildings, designer shops with European brands, and a lively restaurant scene. But when the subject of Serbia comes up on a recent rainy day, references to Moscow follow quickly. Kosovo fears the hand of Putin. Most in the country blame Russia for deliberately perpetuating tensions with Serbia. We need protection from Russia, say two young women sipping coffee in a cafe. So do many others in Pristina’s main bazaar.

Ramush Haradinaj calls Serbia and Russia a collective “giant elephant on the other side.” At government headquarters, Haradinaj—who resigned in July as prime minister to face questions in a war crimes inquiry (he denies wrongdoing and has been acquitted twice in previous trials in The Hague)—says Vucic is playing a double game with the West and Russia. “Kosovo has no sympathy for Russia or Putin. We don’t agree on their agenda,” he says. “But we see them being very influential in this region, through Serbia. We see an attempt by them to enter into our lives, our domestic issues.”

Albanian activist and party leader Albin Kurti is even more blunt. “Putin’s idol is Stalin,” he says in his offices on the outskirts of Pristina. “He wants to think he has the cunning of Stalin, and financing new fascist parties across Europe makes him the biggest danger today.” An official close to President Thaci describes Russia as “dangerous” in that it prefers the status quo—that is, preventing Kosovo and Serbia from drawing closer to Europe.

In Belgrade, political observers say Vucic has both pro-Kremlin and pro-Western officials in his administration but that he is genuine in wanting closer ties to Europe. They say the narrative in Kosovo is misplaced: It underplays Vucic’s desire to engage with the West and overplays Putin’s influence. Yes, the Serb president has learned to speak Russian and meets Putin several times a year (Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev is set to visit Belgrade in October). But the officials say Vucic must be careful not to pull away too far or too fast from Russia.

Russia offers natural gas at better prices than the U.S. does. It’s also Serbia’s third-largest trading partner, after Germany and Italy. The country has supported the Serbs for centuries, including when the region was united as socialist Yugoslavia. Both countries are Eastern Orthodox, which deepens the ties. Boris Yeltsin, who led Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, backed Milosevic and condemned the NATO-led bombings. Belgrade still relies on Russian MiG-29 fighter jets for its air defense (six stripped-down, used aircraft). Serbia’s army needs Russian technology for tanks and antiaircraft systems.

Diplomatically, Moscow has Belgrade’s back, saying Pristina’s actions since its 2008 declaration of independence have violated Serb sovereignty. This kind of support is part of the reason opinion polls show Serbs have a generally favorable opinion of Russia. Alexander Dynkin, president of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, a state-run think tank in Moscow that advises the Kremlin on foreign policy, says Serbian voters strongly support Russia, so Vucic can’t ignore that. Nikita Bondarev, a Balkans expert at the Russian State University for the Humanities, notes that Serbia is set to join the Eurasian Economic Union.

Even so, Dynkin, like other analysts in Moscow, insists “Russian economic involvement in Serbia is not significant.” Bondarev warns against conflating Serbia’s traditional Russophilia “and our real influence.” Indeed, Putin’s failure to get his way with countries such as North Macedonia shows the Serbs the limits of his power. Brussels may authorize the start of formal negotiations—perhaps this month—with North Macedonia as well as Albania for EU membership.

Some Russians argue that China has greater momentum in the influence game. The country has become a significant investor in Serbia, including in infrastructure, mining, and steel production. Chinese companies construct highways, bridges, and railways, usually backed by loans from the Export-Import Bank of China. Belgrade puts the figure at $8.2 billion, including some projects still in the pipeline.

China tends not to insert itself into conflicts. It does business with democracies and dictatorships alike. But its investments often carry a broader goal: to further Beijing’s political interests by cultivating influence with states that will then advocate for it. That includes international forums such as the EU, World Trade Organization, and United Nations. Beijing says it supports Serbia’s territorial integrity and hopes Belgrade and Pristina can come to a solution through dialogue. At the same time, China would be uneasy about the prospect of an expanded NATO in the area. “China’s position on Kosovo is clear,” says Gao Zhikai, a former diplomat and interpreter for ex-Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. “For the foreseeable future, China will keep the status quo. It has seen many overtures from Kosovo but will not recognize it.”

The U.S. role in the region is increasingly uncertain, even after the recent appointment of Matthew Palmer as special U.S. envoy for the Western Balkans. For now officials in Pristina say U.S. diplomats on the ground invariably express support. But they say the combination of a Department of State that’s cycled through a number of chiefs and the president’s distracting interventions creates the risk of inconsistent policy out of Washington. A State Department spokesperson says the U.S. expects Kosovo’s new leadership to suspend the tariffs on Serbia (calling them an obstacle to talks) and be prepared to engage with Belgrade.

In the Kosovo episode of the Balkan wars, more than 1 million people were displaced and up to 13,000 killed. The country’s ethnic divisions remain. Just a 15-minute drive out of Pristina is a small Serbian enclave built around an orthodox church. An official proudly emphasizes the area’s role in Serbian history, saying that services have run consistently for 700 years despite the myriad conflicts. Locals gather for a service as evening falls. They’re mostly elderly, and they speak sadly of the young people who’ve left.

Clutching at a shawl covering her hair and walking toward the church, one woman repeatedly beseeches the visitors to say hello to a granddaughter called Sanja, who works on a ship somewhere in Australia. A local official says Serbs feel increasingly squeezed and unwelcome. He says Pristina—a city of about 200,000—has fewer than 20 Serbs left. They cluster ever more tightly together. Eventually, given the departure of younger Serbs, there will be none, he says.

At the cafe in Pristina, one of the young women—well-traveled and from a well-connected family—remembers, in the years before Kosovo broke away, having to be schooled at home when the local government, under instructions from Belgrade, banned anything but the Serbian curriculum. Nowadays, she says, she chats often with her Serb neighbors. She insists that the conversations are perfectly civil and commonplace. When pressed, she concedes that there’s an undercurrent to even the most mundane exchanges. Although the war was 20 years ago, she says, “there is always something awkward in the air.” —With Misha Savic, Ilya Arkhipov, Stepan Kravchenko, Peter Martin, and Nick Wadhams

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Howard Chua-Eoan at hchuaeoan@bloomberg.net

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