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1/ Two days before his semiannual report to the UN Security Council, High Representative Christian Schmidt announced that he would be resigning his post as international High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). However, he also stated he would remain in post until a successor is chosen.

https://www.oslobodjenje.ba/vijesti/bih/christian-schmidt-odlazi-sa-funkcije-visokog-predstavnika-u-bi-h

2/ The move comes after months of speculation that the US wanted Schmidt to leave and applied pressure. It follows the marked American shift in policy in BiH beginning last October, with the blanket lifting of sanctions on convicted former RS President Milorad Dodik, who remains the de facto leader of the entity.

3/ This shift was also manifest in reported US admonitions against using the executive Bonn Powers, which the US had previously assertively supported – including their application during Schmidt’s near five-year tenure.

4/ @DPCGlobal has been highly critical of some of Schmidt’s actions. But it is important that Schmidt remains until a successor is named and can arrive – otherwise, the US will be able to seize control of OHR by default, if American Principal Deputy High Representative Louis Crishock has the helm as acting High Rep.

5/ Schmidt’s announcement also notably follows the passage of legislation in the Federation regarding the Southern Interconnector project, as well as an interstate treaty between BiH and Croatia – moves aggressively pushed by the US.

6/ The EU has made its misgivings on the SIC known in a letter by EU Head of Delegation Luigi Soreca to FBiH officials. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/eu-risks-fallout-with-us-trump-linked-balkans-pipeline-plan-intervention

7/ Dodik has been clear he wants state property fully under his control in the RS. Diplomatic sources relate to DPC that the US and Italy would be fine with a Dodik-friendly arrangement for their own interests.

http://www.democratizationpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/DPC-Policy-Note18_State-Property-in-BiH.pdf

8/ While the US may be playing for simple transactionalism and opportunity for profit, the confluence of these deals in the present environment are a recipe for even more state-weakening and ethno-territorial division of BiH, reinforced by foreign malign influence.

9/ So now the pressure is on Europe+ to come up with a Bosnia – and wider Balkan – strategy to protect its values and interests from all geopolitical challengers, starting with the US.

10/ The first step needs to be to resist the selection of a Schmidt successor who will accommodate the Trump administration’s transactionalist interests in BiH.

11/ Europe+’s members in the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) – the UK, Canada, Japan, and EU members France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain need to propose a strategy to the Union as a whole, and soon, to avoid a vacuum the US could exploit in the short-term, but with long-term consequence.

12/ Europe+ needs to ensure that it chooses Schmidt’s successor that will be ready to wield a strategy to continue to employ the Bonn Powers in the service of the Annex 10 mandate, to insure BiH’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,…

13/…protect institutions built since Dayton, and to help citizens of BiH make confident moves to a post-Dayton social contract that would enable meaningful progression towards EU accession.

14/ This will need to entail a commitment to cover the entire OHR budget – as it may well be that the US makes its displeasure felt at not getting its way by not paying its contribution. While many Europeans may balk, this is relative pocket change when compared to the influence that can have in BiH & the region.

15/ Furthermore, and just as crucially, Europe+ needs to reflect a “coalition of the willing” in maintaining a capable EUFOR by reinforcing it to brigade strength prior to October 2026 elections to demonstrate resolve to outside actors seeking to permanently destabilize the country and region.

16/ BiH is the central conflict generator and reservoir in the Western Balkans, having dragged both Croatian and Serbian democratic development backwards by being allowed by the EU-led “West” – now a term devoid of geopolitical meaning – for 20 years.

17/ Calls for Schmidt not to be replaced and OHR closed are deeply irresponsible – and either highly cynical or deluded in light of the facts on the ground and current trendlines.

18/ BiH’s Dayton political economy and operating system makes the political class gatekeepers for external actors seeking to benefit from public goods.

19/ Despite the clamor for state property to be resolved to promote “investment,” it is clear that until the country’s constitutional system is replaced with a new social contract, no resolution in the public interest is feasible.

20/ Appointing a US-approved High Rep to “resolve” state property would only enrich a handful of political spoilers and further undermine the country’s sovereignty, integrity, and declared aim of EU membership.

21/ Despite hopes in Brussels and member state capitals that they could simply do more of the same in the Western Balkans, Europe+ will have to upshift in BiH if it wants to prove itself a potent actor in its own “courtyard,”…

22a/ …and not allow a US in its own state of democratic decline to destabilize the country and region for its own short-term gain.

22b/ Sidestepping confrontation with Trump’s US by ceding influence would constitute appeasement, yielding permanent instability not only in BiH, but regionally.

23/ And nowhere on earth is Europe+ more potent collectively than the WB6, BiH in particular. If it doesn’t draw the line here, it is advertising it will not do so anywhere.

24/ Schmidt’s announcement oughtn’t have caught Europe+ completely flatfooted; succession had to be discussed, at least within foreign ministries.

25/ But this moment demands rapid strategic evolution for Europe+ members in a situation where they are relatively more empowered than elsewhere. They need to demonstrate that they can rise to the occasion.

The post Following High Rep Schmidt’s announced departure, it’s not a time for Europe+ to be timid in BiH appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

While the global arena has witnessed a solid nine months of relentless, flamboyant norm-busting by the second Trump administration, this dynamic seemed to largely leave previously established American topline policies intact. Of course, the wanton destruction of USAID early in the administration delivered a deep blow in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the rest of the Western Balkans, and – with devastating effect – globally. The wider Trump family engaged in deals, such as deeply controversial developments in Serbia and Albania. And US embassies became far less vocal and interactive with their erstwhile closest partners, including the EU – which has set the pace for the West through its enlargement policy for two decades. But the fundamentals of Washington’s policies pertaining to BiH and the region remained largely consistent, including the sanctions regime against the Republika Srpska (RS) separatist leader – and now convicted criminal and former RS President – Milorad Dodik and a wide circle of his family, associates, party, and connected businesses……

Read the full blog at BiEPAG here.

The post Where to for EU Enlargement in the Age of Reaction? The View from Sarajevo appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

As the new US National Security Strategy highlights Washington’s pivot away from a rules-based democratic global order, the EU should focus hard on the one region where it can exert the most leverage – the Western Balkans.

Read more at Balkan Insight here.

The post US Foreign Policy Reorientation Means EU Must Step Up Balkan Role appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

Ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Dayton peace agreement that ended the 1992-95 war, citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina are the most dissatisfied in the Western Balkans with the way they are being governed, an opinion survey highlighted.

Read more at Balkan Insight here.

The post Bosnians ‘Most Dissatisfied in the Balkans’ with their Politics – Is Brussels Listening? appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

One could practically hear a collective sigh of relief across the European Union when Péter Magyar’s opposition party won a resounding victory and incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceded defeat in Sunday’s crucial elections in Hungary. The election was critically important to the people of that country,  but it had also become a battleground for Russian disinformation, anti-Ukrainian messaging, amateur false flag claims of terrorist threats from Serbia, and the injection of American MAGA-right wing nationalism, which itself has been very much inspired by the illiberalism of Orbán’s 16 years in power. 

The congratulations are rolling in from leaders from across the European Union. Experience and the mindset of the Brussels technocratic machinery suggest that the EU will view this as a reset signaling that everything has turned for the better in Hungary and that everyone can return to business as usual. However, this moment should be seized as an opportunity for renewal and reflection. It should inform current and future policymaking by the EU, EU member states, and the broader democratic community.

Orbán’s loss and Magyar’s win is yet another important bellwether for understanding the rise of Hungary’s illiberal state model, while also now pointing to techniques for resistance to and reversal of such antidemocratic trends. 

A first step

For the people of Hungary, this is an important step – but only the first – in rolling back the political, social, and economic damage of the past 16 years. The experience of Poland under the Law and Justice Party (PiS) suggests that it’s far easier to break institutional systems and trust than to (re)build them.

It is heartening that Magyar has noted his commitment in restoring relations with the EU and NATO; this in itself will be a great asset in removing what had often become a weight on these institutions. But it bears repeating that Magyar himself comes from Fidesz and is part of the center-right mainstream. There is no reason to think that culture war issues will simply go away. In fact, it’s very important to remember that there is now a global network of wealthy and connected people who have demonstrated they are willing to spend money and political capital supporting the Orbán vision. Magyar will face numerous challenges as he seeks to rebuild institutions and employ judges and other civil servants who are committed to the country rather than just a party or an individual. Constitutional reform needs to be part of this rebuilding. Throughout the process, Magyar’s government will need to learn how to explain what they are doing and why to the people of Hungary, who have grown accustomed to rhetoric from a state machinery retrofitted to suit Fidesz – what has been termed a “competitive authoritarian regime.” The media machine that has been created over the years by Orbán’s cronies, who together with the state control an estimated 85% of the media, will in particular be difficult to dismantle and rebuild.

Clean-up job

A lot now depends on how Magyar works to clean up Hungary’s systems, as he and his team dig-out a decade and a half of corruption and self-dealing. It’s important to remember that it was the shared frustration with endemic corruption that enabled a unified opposition and brought 77% of the people out to vote. This shameless and widespread corruption (described as a “post-Communist mafia state” as early as 2016)  naturally accompanied the building of a state based on power, self-dealing and patronage, and which enabled the erosion of governance and services that ensues when bureaucrats and independent experts are bullied and replaced with loyalists and sycophants.  It took people getting fed up with this corruption to lead to this opposition victory. It will be interesting to see what connections, European and beyond, will be exposed in the coming weeks and months. The recent revelations of Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s reporting to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, from EU meetings on sanctions like a control officer, foreshadow more such linkages.

Soul-searching in Brussels – and beyond?

At the level of the European Union and its machinery in Brussels, this development should prompt some soul-searching on how certain aspects of the EU itself enabled Orbán’s long hold on power. Let’s not forget how long it took to get Fidesz out of the center-right pan-European EPP; Fidesz finally left on its own in 2021 – Orbán’s 11^th year in power – following suspension in 2019, but remaining in the EPP European Parliamentary group for another two years.  This network has a lot to answer for in nurturing Fidesz (and other reactionary “national conservatives”). It will be interesting to see if they maintain public and friendly links with politicians and other reactionary figures coming over from the other side of the Atlantic. Closer to home, it’s important to remember that the EPP is still “investigating” Serbia’s ruling SNS following the numerous abuses of power by the party and President Aleksandar Vučić. 

In fact, the frustrations that finally hit a boiling point among people in Hungary will sound extremely familiar to citizens throughout the Western Balkans, who similarly feel that they have lost a generation to the same corrosive political and economic trends, following wider hope a generation ago in most of these countries. They have all experienced a different flavor of kleptocratic self-dealing and poor governance for much of the past three decades,  layered on top of the trauma and dislocation of the violence that accompanied the destruction of Yugoslavia. 

These trends also are becoming increasingly familiar to citizens of the US who have seen an even more rapid-fire dismantling of checks and balances and expertise over the past 16 months. 

Defending democracy

The EU (and the broader set of democratic countries that have been described by Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney as “middle powers” and by DPC as “Europe+”) would do well to learn from this and other cases to better formulate and message their own policies and remind their citizens of why democratic values and human rights are not just some lofty ideal but are inextricably related to governance success, broad-based and shared prosperity, and comprehensive security. 

Hungarians have demonstrated that democracy can and must be defended from below – and that it helps to have convincing, inspirational leadership which recognizes that need for a broad popular coalition in favor of a governance system based on rules, not connections or loyalty.

The EU should also consider the lesson that should be learned in terms of its enlargement agenda. Corruption and political and social control are not bugs in the system of countries struggling to move towards healthier democratic systems and ultimately EU membership. Rather, they are the feature of authoritarian and kleptocratic regimes that have as their bottom line consolidating and staying in power.

No business as usual

Tisza’s overwhelming victory cannot be an excuse for the EU simply breathing a sigh of relief, then coasting or returning to business as usual. The Union and its member states failed the diagnostic test that 16 years of Orbán’s increasingly disruptive rule – and his now demonstrated service to Moscow (and Trump’s MAGA movement) – posed to the EU as a community of rules and values. This needs to be remediated, including through developing EU-wide popular democratic defense and resilience. The influence of malign actors in Europe’s neighborhood and in the EU itself will only become more sophisticated and targeted. Finding ways to inoculate themselves from these infections will be critical and will include efforts to identify and counter disinformation, but also to find ways to maintain digital sovereignty over their information space. This will be needed to counter not only Russia but a United States under Trump and with its own emboldened and increasingly unaccountable Silicon Valley class. This class has weaponized US state power against the EU’s ability to defend the privacy and interests of its own citizens. 

However, for now, before sitting down to understand what happened to bring about this result and what could happen next at a time of global uncertainty and risk, one can be forgiven for wanting to exhale – and celebrate. But it should be taken not as a signal that everyone can relax, but as a moment that should be seized to regain the progress, momentum, and values-based self-confidence that the democratic world has allowed to shrivel during a period in which antidemocratic forces have shown increased swagger.

The post The people of Hungary deserve support, not complacency appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party will return to power for a fourth straight term. This despite having been down double digits in polls just months ago against the opposition Conservatives, led by challenger Pierre Poilievre. Trump’s levying tariffs and open advocacy of annexing Canada as “the 51st state” were decisive for Canadian voters, who deemed Carney, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England Governor, the safer pair of hands, given the nature of the threat to the country’s economy and independence.

This electoral result has wider implications, being the starkest popular reaction thus far in the democratic world to Trump’s performative cruelty and assault on democratic norms at home, together with his direct confrontation with steadfast allies, partners, and the international system which the US previously championed. The tectonic ruction of Trump’s disruption-by-design has generated adjustment throughout the democratic world, but Canada’s has been deepest, most resolute, and profound. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly demonstrated this three weeks ago at a NATO meeting.

Voters have now reinforced her conclusion. Nowhere in the democratic world has the breach – driven by Trump – elicited so clear a response. This includes a redoubled commitment to Canada’s ties to Europe, but also Pacific democracies, those in the Western hemisphere, and Africa as well. Canada has demonstrated it’s possible to resist and adapt to changing circumstances while maintaining the values that have consistently made it a global magnet. This can provide a boost to Europe+ and hopefully provide momentum for resistance against the illiberal spasm that is doing so much harm to so many. Europe+ needs now to demonstrate a similar recognition of this changed world.

The will to straddle and hedge remains strong, as NATO SG Mark Rutte demonstrates. This is unequal to the moment. Europe+ should take this opportunity to maintain and strengthen the values that have enabled economic and social development for decades, in the face of a tide of self-dealing authoritarianism worldwide.

Countries that recognize the importance of democratic values for not only prosperity and rights, but individual dignity, would do well to recognize the need for far greater coordinated action to withstand the multifaceted threats to liberal movements and the kleptocracy that comes with them. The call for solidarity from Canadians is one that Europe+ – the remaining democratic world – must heed. This will demand creativity, popular solidarity within and among democracies, and crucially leadership.

The opportunity for Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin and others to rally to the challenge is clear. At the moment those with the most to lose from authoritarianism – Canadians and Greenlanders, along with Ukrainians – have demonstrated the strongest clarity of vision.

As Foreign Minister Joly underscored, the people with the power to stop Trump are Americans. After his first 100 days, it seems increasingly clear that they are recognizing the danger as well, not only to their neighbors, but themselves and their rights. Unless and until Americans brake and reverse his agenda, Europe+ has to make its own arrangements, wrenching though that may be. Canada leads the way.

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From Munich to Yalta

The annual Munich Security Conference (MSC) was even more eventful this year than it has been in the past, due mainly to the disposition of the administration of US President Trump, who in less than a full month in office has demonstrated a willingness to “run fast and break things.” The messaging from the Riyadh summit between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s veteran Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov amplified fears of a carve up – and not only of Ukraine. Trump’s subsequent verbal assault on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him a “dictator” and saying that he needed to “act fast” (e.g., accede to Russian demands) or “you won’t have a country” (a line he used on the campaign trail) amplified the cognitive dissonance and panic in Europe. 

The implications are existential – and not just for Ukraine, the EU, and its democratic neighbors and allies. The EU’s foundational values and security are being directly and actively threatened. They can only be defended together.

Et tu, America?

American democracy is in peril. The systematic attack on the US Government bureaucracy by Elon Musk’s DOGE, beginning with the attack on USAID and domestic good governance guardrails, its aggressive posture towards friendly neighbors Canada and Mexico, and Trump’s real estate fantasy for Gaza by means of US-sanctioned ethnic cleansing, were unthinkable enough.

But Trump’s call with Russian President Putin and their plan to meet for negotiations to bring Moscow’s imperial war to an end (perhaps by the end of February) – without consulting Ukrainian President Zelensky or planning to include him (or European allies) – ominously tops off a mere month of the Trump regime. The aggressive speeches by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance in Brussels and Paris earlier in the week further shocked Europe in both tone and message, and in the clear disdain they reflected. Hegseth effectively demanded European commitment to enforce a peace deal which remains ethereal, but would involve Ukrainian territorial concessions.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas correctly framed the American push for a “negotiated settlement,” together with ruling out Ukraine’s membership in NATO, as “appeasement.” European leaders asserted that no peace could be agreed without Ukraine – and Europe.

In his speech to the MSC, Vance sidestepped the central issue of Ukraine and European security to assert in a show of Orwellian doublespeak that the main security challenge to Europe was internal, claiming it was Europe’s democracy that was at risk.

His language was specifically aimed at support for the far right in Germany and beyond, whilst claiming “shared values” – leaving one to wonder what might be the values he claims to want to share.  Expressing such hubris in Germany, which is facing elections in a week, was particularly pointed. As if to add emphasis and clarify the values he is espousing, he met with far-right Alternative for Germany leader Alice Weidel – directly engaging in the final stages of an election on the side of the AfD. What he claimed are “shared values” are in fact a new manifestation of the nationalism, imperialism, exclusion and hate that underpinned two world wars in the 20th century.

Curiously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio – the cabinet member most known to MSC denizens over the past decade, and among Trump’s cabinet and advisors the most “normal” – was the least visible and audible member on the administration’s European tour.

European Cognitive Dissonance

The European reaction was properly swift, demonstrating a broad sense of betrayal and anger. French President Macron called a meeting with a select group of European leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, on Monday, Feb. 17 to discuss European defense. Ukraine’s President Zelensky in a speech and interview advocated an “armed forces of Europe,” along with common defense production and foreign policy, to ensure that Europe could defend itself. 

The need for Europe to prepare to go it alone (with as much support as it can muster from democracies further afield – Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand) seems vital, wrenching though this may be. If Europe manages to rise to the occasion – far from a given – its greatest vulnerability will be in the buildup period. To begin to get there, it must successfully confront and prevail over its real “enemy from within:” its illiberal, Russia-friendly member governments, led by Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who was pointedly excluded from the February 17 meeting, and is a darling among many in Trump’s orbit.

A broader concern is that Trump and much of his team see not Europe, but Russia’s Putin and company as values allies; their talking points share numerous similarities. Both prefer to act unilaterally, with contempt for weaker neighbors – and a preference for short-term transactionalism that enables the enrichment of cronies without regard to the broader social and economic stability that has enabled growth for decades. In addition, there is a school of thought which seeks to separate Russia from China – a relationship which tightened immediately before the full-scale invasion was launched three years ago. Yet the effect of the new US policy seems to place the world, including an alliance spanning four generations, on the drafting table of a new three-way Yalta – or 2.5, given Russia’s increased dependence on China.

The emergence of the US as a malign actor and aggressive disruptor already has had global consequences (potentially condemning millions to starvation and death from disease); these will metastasize. In addition to these unconscionable foreseeable impacts – which Europe and other democracies will need to address – there are more immediate security and defense implications for the EU’s neighborhood, particularly its enlargement area. These countries, in terms of their reliability as allies, risks they pose (and harbor), and assets for collective defense, need to be taken into account as Europe scrambles to recalibrate its common defense.

Europe’s Soft Underbelly

When it comes to the Western Balkans – the region in which the EU and the collective West has the greatest leverage – the EU’s policies remain locked on an autopilot. The events of the past week demonstrate that the EU must shift into fifth gear, for its own survival as a community of independent democracies. This requires a fundamental recalibration of its posture in the region.

In no country is this self-defeating dynamic clearer than in Serbia. Aleksandar Vučić faces the most persistent and determined challenge to his nearly 13-year rule from a statewide student-led protest movement demanding accountability and rule of law after the Novi Sad railway station roof collapse in November 2024. 

In a February 6 open letter, European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos encouraged Serbians to have faith in the accession process to resolve institutional deficits, ignoring the role of the Serbian regime in creating the conditions for the kleptocracy and kakistocracy (governance by society’s worst – see also pathocracy) that enabled the Novi Sad collapse. 

It was received – correctly – as tone-deaf and out of touch. Informed observers have shared that the letter’s text was toned down by Commission President von der Leyen, who feared endangering equities with Vučić – an assertion we cannot confirm, but which would be far from surprising given her engagement to date.

In addition to being offensive to the young people who are showing their commitment to the EU’s professed values and simply seek dignity after decades of dysfunction and rising autocracy, this approach shows the willful ignorance of some in the EU; the accession process will not solve the demands of the protesters; the protesters’ demands need to be met so that the accession process may credibly begin.

Instead, the demonstrations continue undeterred by attempts by the Vučić regime to paint them as a foreign plot. The relative sizes of a substantial protest gathering in the central city of Kragujevac (to which thousands marched from across the country), and a spare and minimally energetic regime-organized Serbian unity rally in Sremska Mitrovica supported by Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik and busloads of people from Republika Srpska, was illustrative. The leaders’ tightening relationship seems compelled by their domestic circumstances. Vučić’s efforts to paint the student-led popular movement as financed by USAID and use of the term “color revolution” sounded increasingly desperate and ridiculous. Both hope that Trump & Co’s moves will buoy their sinking fortunes. 

Actors from across the region seek to profit from the transatlantic turmoil for their standing agendas. On the final day of the MSC, a panel provided a chance for Prime Ministers Rama of Albania and Mickoski of North Macedonia, as well as EU Enlargement Commissioner Kos, to look forward for the region from what was felt by attendees as a tectonic shift in the global order. 

Rama demonstrated that he is the premier transactional opportunist in the Western Balkans. He attempted to instrumentalize US officials’ statements, calling them “a gift from God” for the EU, advocating that the Union launch a phased accession process and that the “merit-based approach” should only apply to voting in the Union, not membership.

Mickoski made valid points about North Macedonia’s accession having been stunted repeatedly by bilateral disputes led by EU member state pursuing their own narrow agendas. Both leaders engaged in long, self-serving explanatory answers, Rama being far more aggressive, going so far as to chide the moderator for “inviting Balkan men” if she didn’t want long replies.

Kos’ explanation that the enlargement process is confined by the technical structures of the acquis and member state prerogatives was tone-deaf and seemingly untouched by the past decade of lived experience. 

Moderator Majda Ruge’s question on security threats in the region given the shifting American position, for example against secession efforts by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, received no direct answer. And this highlights the failure to date of the EU, as well as its potential to redefine its European security posture. If a geopolitical actor, as it must become to defend itself, it must be capable of implementing area denial – the capability to deny access in a given territory to malign actors. It already has this legal responsibility in Bosnia. 

The EU’s failure to date to convince Bosnian political actors of its commitment was highlighted days after the MSC closed. Following closing arguments in his case before the Court of BiH on February 19 for noncompliance with international High Representative orders, as per the Dayton Accords, Dodik stated that “I’m not threatening anyone, but I’m ready to go all the way” – a clear implication of his long-mooted secession threat. Vučić chimed-in as well, framing Dodik’s violations of the Dayton Accords as a free speech issue, as well as implying that “uncertainty” would follow a guilty verdict. Vučić’s own campaign slogan – “peace and stability” – implied the threat that failure to maintain him in power would precipitate conflict and instability, in true mafia style.

Regional Security – and Democratic Progress – Demands European Leadership

DPC has long advocated closing the deterrence gap in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where 20 years ago the EU took on the peace enforcement mandate articulated in the Dayton peace accords. 

No other single act would have greater impact on the political and social dynamic of Bosnia and the region, robbing Dodik of his sole and central prop of his 19-year role – the threat of secession – than if the EU finally took its peace enforcement mandate seriously and engaged in area denial. 

It would also put paid to Serbia’s irredentist regional ambitions, manifest in the Srpski Svet (Serbian World) concept. These ambitions are useful to and aided by Moscow. As Vučić and his centralized rule face a citizens’ movement growing in popularity in Serbia and the region, he relies increasingly on the link with Dodik, his regional agenda, and hostility toward a host of neighbors, especially Kosovo. He has nothing to offer; which is why Serbia’s young people are on the streets.

Given that threats of US withdrawal from NATO’s KFOR were made by envoy for special missions Richard Grenell both in the first Trump term and during the Biden administration, the EU needs to prepare to fill that gap at short notice. Disinformation that the US had activated plans to withdraw its contingent from KFOR circulated widely on February 20, mainly propagated by media connected to Russian, Chinese, or Serbian governments. The possibility of such a withdrawal has indeed been made in the past by Richard Grenell, former US Ambassador to Germany then Balkan envoy in the first Trump administration, now Trump’s envoy for special missions, as well as Donald Trump Jr. But they have not been made since he undertook his new role. 

The EU faces at present Western Balkan leaders who are either committed illiberals or transactionalists. None currently holding the reins of power are genuine exponents of EU foundational values.

It is untenable to rely on such leaders when Europe is simultaneously under existential threat from both East and now West, but also from among illiberally led member states and growing reactionary threats in established democracies. Far from ensuring stability, they profiteer from curated instability as a reliable extractive tool. Europe must disable their capacity to do so. 

Popular Democratic Impulses on the EU Frontiers

The potential for a different Western Balkans has been underscored by Serbia’s student-led nonviolent mobilization – and the broad and heartfelt moral and material solidarity being provided by the broader Serbian and regional populations. This represents a reassertion of collective self-respect after two generations of misrule, with all its aspects of societal degradation.

When Croatians demonstrated in numerous cities – including Vukovar(!) – in support, taxi drivers from Sarajevo, Podgorica, Skopje and elsewhere offered to travel to Kragujevac to transport Serbian students should their Serbian counterparts be overwhelmed by demand, a phenomenon worthy of support. The EU should show similar resolve.

The EU, institutionally established to deal with institutional interlocutors (and whose enlargement process is predicated on the sincerity of their professions of shared values), has been caught flat-footed by this growing civic self-confidence.  But they should not squander this opportunity to support a mass movement in support of its own declared and besieged values.

The performance of US officials in Munich could one day be viewed as the second bookend of the demise of liberal democracy and the trans-Atlantic relationship – with the first being Putin’s performance there in 2007.

However, it does not have to be this way. The sole good outcome of Munich is that Europe’s leaders see that they cannot count on the US as they have for so long. A geopolitically enabled EU can no longer afford to stray from its values. It must defend them materially, both at home and in the enlargement area, while supporting those beyond who share them.  

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To decide about a state’s language, identity and history is part and parcel of sovereignty, as practiced in Europe during the last three centuries and a half. Other polities have no right to intrude, lest conflicts arise. On the other hand, it must be noted that through time a single language may diverge into more, as in the case of Latin that spawned French or Italian. An opposite situation is possible too, when speakers of two languages decide that it is a single one, as in the case of the 1980 Language Union between Belgium’s Flemish and the Netherlands’ Dutch that resulted in the Netherlandish language. Yet, in their vast majority speakers of Macedonian do not see their language as (part of) Bulgarian, and likewise do not claim Bulgarian to be a form of Macedonian. Why can’t then Bulgaria respect its neighbor’s sovereignty?

Many international observers rightly brand the tendencies on display by governments in present-day Hungary or Poland as autocratic.  But almost no one takes note of the fact that in the EU, rule of law is least observed in Bulgaria, and that the Bulgarian Prime Minister of the last decade is part of this problem. On top of that Bulgaria is the poorest EU member state.  And now Bulgaria uses the EU to throw its weight around abroad, this time by intruding on North Macedonia’s sovereignty. It is a case of the tail wagging the dog.

Sofia’s veto is a blatant breach of Article 1 of the Helsinki Final Act (1975). Bulgaria follows Russia, which in 2014 violated multiple provisions of this document by annexing Ukraine’s Crimea. Turning a blind eye to what Sofia’s doing is no option, because it may soon face the EU with yet another cycle of conflict in the Balkans.

In 2017, in return for Sofia’s support for Albania’s efforts to open accession talks with the EU, Tirana agreed to relabel the country’s Slavic-speaking minority of Macedonians as ‘Bulgarians.’ Apart from North Macedonia, Bulgaria is also spoiling for conflict in southern Moldova, where Sofia supports separatist tendencies among the area’s Bulgarian minority. At the same time, back home, the Bulgarian authorities do their best to suppress and alienate Bulgaria’s Turkish minority and Roma. None of this bodes well. In addition, it appears that the Bulgarian government emulates the Kremlin’s neoimperial policy of ‘Russian world’ (Русский мир). While Moscow wants to regain control over all the post-Soviet countries, Bulgaria in its quest for a ‘Bulgarian world’ (Български свят). So far this term pops up only in Bulgarian school textbooks; meanwhile Sofia appears to be seeking to build a continuous Balkan sphere of influence from Albania to Moldova.

Tomasz Kamusella is Reader in Modern History at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK. His latest monograph is titled Ethnic Cleansing During the Cold War: The Forgotten 1989 Expulsion of Turks from Communist Bulgaria (2018).

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