First, the “conflict over the 25km on the sea” as recently described by Kouchner, has been around since the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Two bordering former republics suddenly realised that the border among them is not fixed in stone and so remains today.  I will completely ignore the arguments of both sides, these are enough to write something longer than Marx ever did. Bottom line: well used 17 years.

Secondly, in 17 years Slovenia and Croatia never managed to really isolate the problem of the border from other. It remains linked to the unsolved issue of the old Ljubljanska Banka (see short news from BIRN) and the co-ownership of the nuclear power plant in Krško. The first prohibits the Slovenian bank to operate in Croatia and gives rise to some anti-Slovenian slogans around Croatia, the second ends sometime in courts, while the nuclear waste continues to be deposited in Slovenia only. Bottom line: again, well used 17 years.

Thirdly, the issue is now being blow out of proportions. Kouchner’s comment was of course out of place and explains why Sarkozy took him on board – they’re personally compatible. Both ideologically flexible and loose cannons – first shoot and then think. But in its essence, it cannot be so complex to drag on for 17 years and not to see any progress. Mind you, both countries claim they’re modern western democracies…There are international legal experts, courts…you name it! Bottom line: 17 years passed and the only result is that the situation is getting worse.

Now, I’m not objective on the issue. I think Slovenia would have a good case if the issue is brought to arbitration or a court. Our diplomacy should have been more forceful and more decisive on the matter and should have stopped the spiraling of the dispute by advocating international arbitration. We are now entering a lose-lose situation: Slovenia losing credibility and Croatia losing time on its progress towards the EU. On the top, bilateral relations will be severely damaged for a long time.

What I’m quite happy about is that 1 million Slovenian (out of 2) go to the Croatian coast every year in the summer and have tremendous time. Shows how little people care about politics – good in this case. Hope they will do so for the next 17 years.

P.S.: I can also not refrain to add a comment on our former Foreign Minister’s performance. Dimitrij Rupel has been heading slovenian diplomacy for 10 years all together. Almost nothing to reproach on the multilateral level (EU, NATO, UN…), but bilaterally he has been a big disappointment. Slovenians have good relations and substantial relations on the state level only with Hungary. All others (Austria, Italy and Croatia) are not really what you would call “friends”.

Well…ergh, little one would say. The 2009 will see the European Parliament elections and even before the campaign really heats up we already ended with a single candidate. The current President of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, got the backing from nearly everyone and opposition from few. Consensual politics, some might say, rubbish might say others.

The European Conservatives (=European People’s Party) have not surprisingly backed Barroso. But some of us might have expected at least the Socialists to try and gather support for an alternative (many have been floated: Pascal Lamy being a strong contender). However, with the Party of European Socialists meeting in Madrid these days, little agreement is to be found. Actually, on the most important issue – because politics in the end are about personalities – there was none. Recently even Socrates and Zapatero have supposedly expressed their support to Barroso – the first probably for domestic reasons (=keep Barroso away from Portugal), the second for pragmatic ones (=weak Commission is less annoying for Spain facing the breach of the Stability and Growth Pact). The Socialists will thus leave Madrid without a single candidate from the European left and therefore open the doors wide open to Barroso for a second term.

Others have criticised Barroso’s performance at the helm of the Commission, but this is not the point here. He might be good or bad, difficult to tell in European politics and certainly subject to a lengthy debate. But the fact that in 2008, after 50 years of existence, the EU politics are not able to face serious political confrontation, is rather disappointing.

Why should Europeans bother to vote, if there is no choice?

For those that care, visit http://who-is-your-candidate.eu/ – the campaign for a proper political contest.

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P.S.: In a more radical form Jon has materialised his objections to Barroso, Jean Quatremer also writes similarly here.

This comes at least to me as a surprise, but on a second thought – was there any way out? In the last 17 years both NATO and the EU have tried to steer away from this issue, saying it was not related to the memebership in the two organisations. NATO was to fall first at the Summit in Bucharest this April, EU followed suit with the European Council meeting in June (PDF).

The EU was, to use a nice metaphor that Jon really likes, “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. In addition to the June European Council, the elections in Macedonia just before didn’t go very smooth (see news here). The long awaited invitation to start accession negotiations with the EU therefore didn’t follow with the Progress Reports on the 5th November.

But let’s speculate on the reasons why Macedonia made this move:

1) To set the issue aside of any pending membership applications: this would be smart, if it wasn’t for one detail = they did so unilaterally. It would have been better of course to agree with Greece to submit the issue of the name as such to the court, instead of waiting for the “mediators” to suggest a solution. Now the suit is only about the Greeks’ role, not about the name issue

2) It was done for domestic political reasons: after the less-than-perfect elections and the negative response from the EU, both the Government and the President (although less-than-friends) were perhaps happy to distract the public.

3) There is nothing they can lose: any move towards the EU will not come in the foreseeable future, unless the name is settled. After the offer of candidate status was made to Serbia (=that would put Macedonia and Serbia at the same stage in the enlargement process), the Macedonian authorities simply let it go.

Probably it was a combination of all three. Let’s see how it goes…Bear in mind Macedonia still has some internal issues to solve.

The Balkans are even more central to my current job. And today we organised an internal screening of the “Return to Europe” documentary on Albania, even the Commissioner Olli Rehn joined us. I’ve seen the documentary before and today met part of the team behind – from the ERSTE Stifting and the European Stability Initiative. The Albanian piece in particular is good and above all positive. As I spent some time there in summer 2007, I know how the place looks like. True, Albania has been remote from Europe for far too long, but it has been growing impressively. A country that was subject to a complete chaos in 1997 nowadays looks relatively modern and on the way up. Something to be proud of – many thanks also to people from MJAFT. I wonder if such a civic movement would work in some of the EU countries…Make sure you take your time to visit the website www.returntoeurope.org.

Anyway, moving on to what I actually wanted to say. After the screening I jumped to the presentation of the first Balkan Monitor – a public opinion survey of the Balkans. Put together by Gallup Europe and the European Fund for the Balkans, it gives statistical data for some proper analysis on the patterns & trends in the regions. Of course, one would need to dig a bit more into it to see the full value, something I don’t intend to just now. But the debate that followed offered some points to argue about. Goran Svilanović, the former foreign minister of Serbia, floated the idea of “Copenhagen minus”. Those familiar with the EU Enlargement policy might get a bit nervous…While Copenhagen criteria are criteria on the basis of which the EU evaluated a potential member – and then gives or not candidate status – Svilanović argued that the EU should keep the regional governments busy with any kind of processes and contracts. “Just keep us busy!”

He was suggestion that the EU should open membership negotiations with all the countries from the Balkans and negotiate on everything, without the constraints of the formal procedures. But let me disagree here. 1) Such a procedure would first be messy to monitor, 2) Such a procedure would be difficult to compare accross the board, thus injecting feelings of unequal handling of individual countries, 3) Such a procedure would even further delegitimise the current EU Enlargement policy (=which is suffering a bit from lack of support recently), 4) It would also be without focus, thus bringing about many frustrations.

Of course, it might have short-term gains for some governments, but…as far as I’m concerned the EU Enlargement policy works OK. It’s meant to force countries to organise their administrative capacity better and to encourage political stability. The long negotiations are there for a reason – they offer clear benchmarks to the government, but not only. What better for any opposition and society, than having a rule book to which to hold accountable the politicians? Keep it as it is…just get rid of visa requirements as soon as possible, so people can start travelling and making business.