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Long-term stability on the Balkan peninsula is still attainable, however some difficult decisions, and changes in entrenched views, are what is required. Part one of this series gave insight into the grievances and ambitions of the nationalities living in the region. With the recent end of negotiations over Kosovo’s future status, the region looks set to enter a period of heightened tensions, if not another all out conflict. This concluding article will investigate where the international community’s response to the Balkans went wrong, and what a peaceful long-term solution might look like.

What Happened

When the republics of the former Yugoslavia began declaring independence, the incongruity between their borders and the country’s ethnic distribution led to widespread conflict. Serbs, being the most widely disseminated ethnic group, came into conflict with Croats and Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks), as they attempted to secede from the newly declared Republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Similarly, Croats in Bosnia waged war against the Bosniaks to reunite their kin with Croatia. Racially inspired conflict struck Serbia itself in the late 1990s when the Kosovo Albanians intensified their desire to break away from Serbia, and incited brutal reprisals from the Serbian Army. Macedonia teetered on the brink of war in 2001, again due to Albanian ambitions to secede and join Kosovo or Albania itself. Peace in the Balkans is paper thin, and Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia are inching closer to new conflict, particularly as Kosovo progresses along its almost inevitable path to independence.

It is clear from the events of the 1990s that the primary driving force behind much of the conflict was a strong aversion by any of the involved nationalities to become an ethnic minority in any state dominated by another. Despite living side by side for centuries, mistrust exists between the many ethnic groups. Serbs, for example, remember keenly the persecution they experienced in Croatian concentration camps during the Second World War. When Croatia seceded from Yugoslavia, they vowed never again to be minorities in an independent Croatia. To complicate matters, many of the nationalities (particularly the Serbs) are heterogeneously distributed throughout the Balkans and a clean separation, as happened between Slovakia and the Czech Republic, was never going to be possible. All will agree that the way in which Yugoslavia broke up was nothing short of a catastrophe, but given the complexities, was there any other option?

What Should Have Happened

In 1990, Yugoslavia celebrated its seventy-second birthday. It was a respected member of the international community, a founding member of the United Nations, and a leader in the Non-Aligned Movement. The years following the Second World War were the most peaceful and prosperous the Balkans had ever seen. Yugoslavia was on par with European Union states such as Greece and Portugal in terms of living standards, and its citizens enjoyed freedoms far beyond the remainder of Eastern Europe. Transition to a multi-party system had begun, and the first elections had been held that year. Yet when the country began to break apart, an incoordinate response by the great powers allowed Germany to hastily recognise Croatian and Slovenian independence. Once this occurred, there was no turning back. By 1992, Yugoslavia was dead and war was raging.

The Yugoslav federation was a model that solved many of the ethnic difficulties of the Balkans. No one ethnic group felt isolated from its kin elsewhere in the federation, and there was no single dominant group to persecute the others. Serbs in Krajina felt equally at home as Croats in Vojvodina. Albanians enjoyed living standards well above those of Albania, irrespective of whether they resided in Kosovo, Macedonia or Montenegro. Therefore, the obvious solution to the problem of the Balkans, was devised in 1918, with the creation of Yugoslavia in the first place. If the European Union (whose motto of ‘Unity through Diversity’ parallels Yugoslavia’s ‘Brotherhood and Unity’) indeed wished to fabricate a solution that reflected its multiethnic nature, it would have been far preferable to keep a multiethnic Yugoslavia together. By pressuring the republics and federal government to co-operate, a new federation may have been created to resolve any injustices that the nationalities felt.

At the other end of the spectrum, if the international community had decided to throw the ideals of a multiethnic Balkans aside, the creation of mono-ethnic mini-states in the regions should have been taken to its logical conclusion – carving up Yugoslavia along ethnic lines. Because the republic borders did not adequately represent the ethnic distribution of the country (see Part 1), this would mean re-drawing those borders to allow the cleanest possible divorce of Yugoslavia’s constituent ethnic nations. There were, in fact, constitutional provisions for such a move. The 1974 constitution of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia gave its constituent “peoples” (Serbs, Croats, etc) the right to secede, not specifically the republics themselves. By making new internal borders and co-ordinating the division with all parties through mutual compromise, the subsequent conflicts may have been prevented and the Balkans would now probably be entirely within the European Union (making these new borders essentially obsolete).

What ended up happening was an illogical combination of the above two scenarios. The former Yugoslavia now comprises six (and soon seven) independent states, some essentially mono-ethnic (Slovenia, Croatia, Kosovo) and some multi-ethnic. A double standard was followed, whereby large multiethnic states were not desirable, but small, dysfunctional multi-ethnic states were protected. Many of the region’s ethnic groups continue to feel dissatisfied with the outcomes, and secession (and even renewed conflict) is never far below the surface.

What Can We Do Now?

From looking at the feelings of the seven major ethnic groups (see Part 1), it is clear that there are clear winners and clear losers. The Serbs and Albanians in particular are the least-satisfied of all of the ex-Yugoslav peoples. Therefore, any solution to the Balkan problem must give something to these two national groups to ensure their ongoing satisfaction.

Solution 1 – Redraw Borders

It may seem too late to renew argument over borders, but this may be the most viable long-term solution if the Balkans are looked at in isolation. There is little sense in digging up old maps of Yugoslavia to make these decisions on, and any change in borders would have to be justified on current population sentiment and political consequences. Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro would unlikely desire or benefit in any change in boundaries. The greatest change would be in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo. In these regions, lines could be drawn to best give both independence and national unity to Bosniaks, Serbs and Albanians. In the case of the Albanians, it may be desirable to include Macedonia in these revisions, and reunify all of this ethnic group inside one Albania. Northern Kosovo (north of the Ibar River), with its majority Serb population, may remain inside Serbia. The Republic of Srpska in Bosnia may, with some territorial adjustment to compensate the Bosniaks, be annexed to Serbia. Such a drastic revision of national borders would perhaps be unprecedented, but if done with the co-operation of all involved parties (with gentle pressure from the UN to prevent stalling), may be a most satisfactory long-term solution. The Serbs and Albanians, like all other ethnic groups, would finally be unified and the Bosniaks would have full sovereignty over their own (albeit truncated) state.

Solution 2 – New “Yugoslavia”

As mentioned earlier, the single best solution for the Balkans was Yugoslavia. It may therefore still be possible to encourage a new form of union between the troubled states. Again, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia would benefit the most from such an arrangement, but this would be at the cost of national independence. As such, this solution is the most unrealistic of the ones offered. It is probably too late for any new Yugoslavias on the Balkan peninsula.

Solution 3 – European Union

Yugoslavia was a model that worked well because each nationality had its own republic to call home, while no one felt too away from home in any other republic either. Freedom of movement, trade and work between the republics ensured that the whole system operated as one, and republican borders became relatively insignificant. This model is precisely what the European Union project is attempting to create on the entire continent. Even the EU’s practice of a presidency rotating between member states was pioneered in the former Yugoslavia. As such, if Yugoslavia was the ideal model for the Balkans, the EU is just as good a model. Promoting and accelerating the accession of Balkan states into the EU is perhaps the best solution to the problem of disseminated ethnic groups. Once all of the former Yugoslavia is within the EU, the borders over which so much blood was shed would once again fade into insignificance.

When looked at in the broader European context, the EU solution, as opposed to that proposed in Solution 1, is arguably the most satisfactory one. Of course, the territory of the former Yugoslavia is not exclusively inhabited by the seven ethnic groups discussed extensively in this series. Other nationalities, most notably Hungarians, Romanians and Roma have as much historical connection to the region as the south Slavs and Albanians. An all-inclusive European Union may resolve more difficulties than just the Serbian and Albanian grievances. As such, the European Union may be the final solution to the Balkan problem. If Europe wishes to prevent further conflict in the former Yugoslavia, it must continue to assist Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania, Montenegro (as well as its candidates Croatia and Macedonia) on their accession paths.

Final Words

The disintegration of Yugoslavia was a tragedy and a great failure on the part of the international community. Had there been consensus on whether the great powers desired a multiethnic or mono-ethnic future for the region early on, much of the bloodshed and ongoing racial tensions would have been prevented. The status quo is a mixed picture, with some successes (such as Slovenia’s rapid recovery) and numerous failures (Bosnia and Kosovo), and is not a satisfactory long-term solution. The eventual EU accession of all Balkan states may well lay to rest regional tensions, but this process needs to be accelerated if a new conflict is to be prevented. Radical surgery in the form of changing borders may need to be given renewed interest, especially in the short-term. Until then, the Balkans will continue to be a simmering cauldron, never far from boiling over.