Tag Archives: Transition and accession

Belarusobloggin’

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Want to know what’s happening in the Belarus civil war? Belarus Today‘s yer blog. Except, of course, it’s not. As it says at the bottom of the page:

This website is part of a foreign policy simulation. The events depicted are not actually taking place.

Thank God for that. After all, by the end of the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs’s scenario simulation, the NATO Secretary General had suffered a heart attack, Gerhard Schröder had made a fool of himself, Minsk was in flames and USAF and Italian aircraft were heading for their targets..

It sounds fun. Just a pity that the transcript isn’t on the web.

Update: (From Edward, apologies in advance to Alex for butting-in like this, but there didn’t seem to be enough for a separate post here). Events still seem to be tense in Belarus with Lukashenko opponents attempting to gain ‘orange-like’ traction, and EU observers keeping up the pressure. Also it may be worth pointing out that Belarus is another one of those incredible shrinking countries, and I’ve just posted a little data about this on Demography Matters, so either way – with or without Lukashenko – the future looks extraordinarily bleak for these long-suffering people (remember they were also hit by Chernobyl).

Update the second: The Patterson School’s website is here.

Montenegro III: Am Not, Are So

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Continuing AFOE’s first point-counterpoint debate between two posters, here’s my final post on Montenegrin independence.
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Enlargement Fatigue

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Heard the news from Salzburg?

If so, you must have been listening very carefully, for the informal meeting of EU foreign ministers held there this weekend was very quiet, and not just because of the extra dumping of snow the region received, in what has been a very snowy winter.
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Montenegro – the other side

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Well, we are united in our diversity here at Fistful. I have to say I disagree with almost every point Doug made about Montenegro in his last post, and will respectfully dissect his arguments below. But first off, a plea for some sanity here. Too many people seem to think that the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1990-93 was in some way the EU’s “fault”; that it failed to act quickly enough, to apply diplomatic pressure, or even (in contradiction to the evidence) that the EU’s recognition of Croatia and Slovenia in December 1991 somehow caused the wars. Nonsense. The fact is that Yugoslavia was broken up by the policies of the Serbian leadership. Outsiders tried to ameliorate or decelerate the process and the consequences; they largely failed. The international community does bear some responsibility for its inaction in the face of evil. But the larger share of the responsibility belongs to the local actors – especially, though not only, the Serbian political leaders. The fact is that we can plan all we like for international do-gooding, but the forces in action on the ground will always be the crucial factor. And so it is in Montenegro.

I’m sure Doug agrees with me on most of that. Now let’s get to the points of our disagreement. It’s important to realise that Montenegro has been effectively independent since 1997, when Djukanovic, then Prime Minister, threw the pro-Milosevic elements out of the ruling party and won the Presidential election against his former patron. Montenegro has had a separate customs area since roughly then. It adopted the Deutsch Mark (now the Euro) as currency in 1999, while Serbia retains the dinar to this day. The State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, established in 2003, remains largely fictional apart from the foreign ministry. Montenegro’s referendum, if successful, will merely formalise the reality of its independence. In fairness, Doug states most of this as well. Yet he seems to think that rolling history back is both possible and desirable.
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Montenegro: Jump higher

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So, Montenegro.

Little mountainous state on the Adriatic. Six hundred thousand people, mostly Montenegrins, a few Albanians and whatnot. Was an independent country until 1919, when it got swept up into Yugoslavia. Now it’s part of the “Federal Union of Serbia and Montenegro”, which consists of (1) Serbia, and (2) Montenegro.

And they’re arguing about whether they should leave. After all, the Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, and Macedonians all left, right? And the Kosovars are about to, any day now. Why should Montenegro be left behind? They had their own country for centuries; why not once again?

Why not indeed:
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Troglodytes in Turkey?

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Well it seems that Spain’s troglodytes aren’t the only ones hovering around the EU arena. Turkey’s Land Forces Commander Gen. Yasar Buyukanit might be another case it seems:

As we feared in our editorial on Monday the accusations from the prosecutor that the Land Forces commander tried to influence the judicial process by making statements on behalf of a defendant have been blown out of proportion that could well turn into a full-blown domestic crisis….

The background to this situation is explained here:

The reasons for the tension between the government and the military, which are now rising over Gen. Buyukanit, are briefly as follows:

Erdogan’s presidential bid: Some circles claim that the AK Party leader wants to become president through majority support in Parliament in 2007. But people close to the AK Party indicate that Gen. Buyukanit, who is set to become chief of General Staff this August, is the biggest obstacle to Erdogan’s presidential aspirations. That’s the reason for rumors about Gen. Buyukanit sparked before he became Land Forces Commander and that some circles argued that the AK Party didn’t want to see Buyukanit helm the land forces

Uneasy AK Party members: The AK Party deputies see the presence of Buyukanit — who often inveighs against fundamentalist movements, uses Kemalist undertones in his statements, makes statements contradicting the AK Party’s policies on many issues ranging from Cyprus to northern Iraq, and terrorism to religious vocational Imam Hatip high schools — as a direct threat to their rule. Some AK Party deputies don’t want Buyukanit to assume the post to show the AK Party’s power to everyone. It’s striking that some AK Party deputies say, “He did what we couldn’t do,” referring to the prosecutor that prepared the indictment.

Now from the standpoint of my sparse knowledge of Turkish politics it is hard to tell just what sort of a ‘troglodyte’ General Buyukanit actually is, or indeed whether or not he is a troglodyte at all. One thing however is clear: the balance between military and political institutions in Turkey is far from ‘normalised’ and a right royal battle seems to be going on.

On another front, this article by Ayhan Simsek draws attention to the extent to which developments in Iraq may cast a long and important shadow over Turkey’s EU accession aspirations.

Bulgaria Says “Thanks, But No Thanks”

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Over at TYR, I argued that the explanation of the Ukraine-Russia gas dispute was an effort by the Russian side to break up the European gas customers as a negotiating block by exploiting the conflict between the transit states (like the Ukraine) and the customers (like Germany). This gave rise to further discussion down-blog right here on AFOE, in the comments to this post of Tobias’s, where this was said…

I think he was trying to play off the customer states against the pipeline states, in order not to deal with a European monopsony. Unfortunately, the pipeliners and customers were rather induced to hang together rather than swing separately, and he backed down in order to prevent the point of payment being moved to the Russian-Ukrainian border, which would have effectively put the Ukraine in the EU for gas purposes.
Posted by Alex at January 5, 2006 10:50 AM

“I think he was trying to play off the customer states against the pipeline states”

Interesting theory, but how do Moldova and Armenia fit into this. The former was cut off and the latter has been badly threatened?
Posted by Edward at January 5, 2006 11:02 AM

Armenia – rather different case. The pipeline/customer thing doesn’t apply (AFAIK), but as Armenia is a small customer relative to Russian gas production, the relationship is very different. No need for anything complicated, just a shakedown for more cash.

Moldova – interesting question. It’s not on the way to anywhere is it?
Posted by Alex at January 5, 2006 03:32 PM

“It’s not on the way to anywhere is it?”

Not that I know of. It just seems to have been……forgotten.
Posted by Edward at January 5, 2006 03:43 PM

It seems Moldova is sitting on the pipeline to Romania and Bulgaria.
Posted by Oliver at January 5, 2006 03:53 PM

That’s it, then: a power grab for control of (or at least cheaper rates on) two export lines, by trying to play off the customers against the pipelines. Armenia was pure opportunism.
Posted by Alex at January 5, 2006 04:43 PM

“It seems Moldova is sitting on the pipeline”

“That’s it, then: a power grab”

Fascinating! This certainly gives plausibility to the idea that they were going for control of the landline installation. The issue now is how will the customers respond.
Posted by Edward at January 5, 2006 09:28 PM

Now, though, we may be about to find out. Bulgaria has been faced with a demand from Gazprom very similar to the one to the Ukrainians, and it seems they’ve given them the brushoff in much the same way. A very similar logic applies, as Bulgaria is both a transit provider (it’s odd how this Internetworking terminology creeps into what is after all a discussion of networks) and a fair-sized gas customer. The Russians seem to have been of a mind to use the latter fact to force changes on the former, and the Bulgarians have adopted an identical strategy.

Which would predict a settlement in double quick time, if we’re right.

Balkans moving forward…

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The European Commission released its annual reports on enlargement yesterday, including a recommendation that Macedonia be recognised as an EU candidate. Eagerly anticipated (including by Doug Muir a few weeks back), but also pretty stunning given the difficulties the region has had, and given the general perception of enlargement fatigue.

However in my view this piece of good news is put in the shade by this morning’s Guardian story about likely Bosnian constitutional reform. Apparently a deal brokered by the Americans, but lubricated by the prospect of EU entry, “would give Bosnia the ‘normal’ trappings of an integrated, non-ethnic parliamentary democracy: a national parliament with full legislative powers, central government and cabinet enjoying full executive power, and a titular head of state”.
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