ANALYSIS – Clock is ticking for the Balkans

By Jahja Muhasilovic

The writer is a journalist and political analyst.

ISTANBUL (AA) - The recent parliamentary elections in Croatia show that the country’s prospects do not seem bright. Due to the failure to form a government over the last 10 months, parliamentary elections had to be repeated. The nationalist Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) won the elections last November with only a slight lead and thus will have to look for a coalition partner to form a functioning government. Founded by Croatia’s first President Franjo Tudjman, HDZ is a right-wing party that, in its governing body and voting base, incorporates members who are not hiding their sympathies for the infamous Ustashas, an organization responsible for the killing of hundreds of thousands across the region during World War II. One of the well-known people who openly sympathize with the Ustashas is Croatia’s Culture Minister Zlatko Hasanbegovic. What is more important is that HDZ’s victory is raising the question of where the region is headed, as Paul Mason points out in his piece for The Guardian. He is warning of the rise of nationalisms across the region. Victory for HDZ came at a moment when right-wing movements all across Europe are gaining momentum, triggered primarily by the influx of migrants coming from war-torn Middle Eastern countries; a migration wave in which the Balkan Peninsula played an important role as the main route. When the post-election euphoria ends, the new government – if it has been formed by then – will have to take the leadership through a period marked by tense relations with Belgrade. Neighboring Bosnia is day by day approaching the referendum announced by the leadership of the Bosnian Serb entity, which has the potential to spark an inter-ethnic conflict again. Given that more than 10 percent of Bosnia’s population is comprised of ethnic Croats, Zagreb will have to monitor the referendum with watchful eyes.

Besides the political deadlock that the country has passed through in the last 10 months, socioeconomic prospects are also increasingly gloomier. With 16 percent, Croatia has the third-highest level of unemployment in the EU after Greece and Spain. Unemployment reaches as high as 40 percent in some parts of the country, which is further troubled by uneven regional development. This has created a brain drain, which is among the highest among EU members. Since joining the bloc, the emigration rate of the well-educated middle class has skyrocketed. Germany, for instance, hosted some 50,000 Croatian citizens in 2015, according to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. Since it entered the Union in 2013, almost 120,000 Croats have migrated to Germany alone, amounting to almost 3 percent of the country’s population. These numbers clearly demonstrate the urgency of resolving the problem of mass emigration. After reaching a peak in the early 1990s with a population of 4.8 million people, Croatia’s current population is less than 4.2 million, and the UN estimates it will have dwindled to 3.5 million by 2050. Wars, a low natural growth rate, and emigration have depopulated the region to an alarming low. Croatia in this sense is no exception in the region, which suffers from the same problems. Besides a low natural population growth, the region is passing through socioeconomic trauma as it loses its youth to economic emigration, a problem mostly ignored by Western powers as the attention is on the refugees coming from the Middle East. Along with Syrians, Afghans, and Iraqis, asylum-seekers from the Balkans are the largest group.

In neighboring Bosnia, all eyes are on the upcoming referendum planned for Sept. 25. After the Constitutional Court ruled that the commemoration of Republika Srpska Day is unconstitutional, the populist president of the entity, Milorad Dodik, decided to take the issue to referendum. Since it is going to be conducted in the Serbian-majority part of the country, it is not hard to predict the outcome. Bosniak leaders are afraid that September’s referendum will only be a prelude to another one on secession. In his populist speeches, Dodik has hurled threats of secession on many occasions but never went this far. This concrete step comes at a time when Russia, his close ally, has launched a more aggressive foreign approach in the region and across Europe. It is not hard to see that Moscow will use the opportunity in its cold war with the EU over influence, as when it tried to intervene in Macedonia over the crisis with Nicola Gruevski’s government. A more aggressive policy from Banja Luka was expected as the crises in Ukraine and Crimea unfolded. Many had hoped that the EU and NATO would work harder to prevent a crisis of this kind to gain momentum by taking a tougher stance. The Office of High Representative (OHR) in Bosnia, [established by the UN after the war in Bosnia ended at the end of 1995] has the authority to block or push the processes in the country, but it has done nothing besides criticizing and proclaiming uneasiness at Dodik’s actions. It remains to be seen what Sept. 25 will bring to Bosnia, a country cracking along its ethnic fault lines for too long. It is not hard to see that Dodik is taking advantage of a vacuum created by the lack of engagement on the part of the Western powers. This view is shared by many others as the major crisis in the region still remains unresolved. Poorly calculated statements from Brussels – like the one from the head of the European Commission (EC), Jean-Claude Juncker, who simply proclaimed that enlargement is frozen for the next five years – are destroying the last strands of hope left in the region. In view of the close ties between Banja Luka and Moscow, Europe cannot afford a new Ukraine-type crisis in its closest neighborhood. Especially not at this critical point, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel pointed out on Friday at the EU Summit in Bratislava, and not when the EU is trying to heal the wounds of Brexit and dealing with an existential crisis caused by the rise of nationalisms in all of the member states, which is setting fire to the very idea of a “united Europe”.

Macedonia is yet another example where a passive, soft approach to the problem has led to an armed conflict. Last year, armed groups, mainly ethnic Albanians from the town of Kumanovo, confronted Macedonian security forces. The main reason was the mistreatment of and inequality towards ethnic Albanians by majority Macedonians. Like post-Dayton Bosnia, Macedonia is day by day dissolving along ethnic lines, and the status quo is simply not functioning anymore. The crisis over the name with Greece is another issue which has remained unresolved for decades, hampering the country’s EU prospects. Brussels can and should apply more pressure on Athens for it to stop blocking Macedonia’s EU integration. Otherwise, the country’s future does not look good, and the 2015 uprising was the first sign of an outlook getting ever more bleak. Macedonia, together with Greece and Serbia, played a crucial role in last year’s refugee crisis as the main route for migrants trying to reach Central Europe. The migration crisis has one more time shown the importance of the region for the whole continent. Now all eyes are looking at the deal between the EU and Turkey which aims to stem the flow of illegal migrants to Europe. Recent frictions between Ankara and Brussels threaten the deal, and this could have catastrophic consequences for the region as a new migration wave would strengthen the xenophobic feelings in a region that is already suffering from high unemployment coupled with a strong nationalist sentiment.

As years go by, a feeling of having been left behind is growing. A European perspective was promised to the Balkans when the wars ended, but the progress is far too slow. Many countries like Bosnia and Herzegovina or Macedonia have not yet resolved their existential problems. Developments in the world are taking place very fast, and Brussels, preoccupied with its own problems, is simply not able to catch up with them. The constellation of power and the types of ongoing cold wars around the globe is creating the perfect environment for tensions to escalate in the Balkans. Ethnic hatred, high unemployment, a politicized public space, emigration, chronic corruption, and many other issues are further inflaming tensions in the region, and Brussels’ negligence as well as empty promises have opened a space for tensions to grow once again, threatening to ignite not only the region, but the whole of Europe. The clock is ticking for a region that has been waiting for too long.

* Opinions expressed in this piece are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu Agency's editorial policy.