Volume 8 Number 3

Summer 1999

Feature: Scenarios for the future

Eastern Europe After Kosovo
     2010: The Balkans after Kosovo
     Ivan Krastev, Stefan Popov, and Julia Gurkovska

The Balkans: before the end of the twentieth century, a region known for fragmentation, ethnic conflict, and instability. The region disappeared after the 1999 war in Kosovo.-Bolshaya Sovyetskaya Encyclopedia, 2010 ed.The Balkans: a political region of Europe that emerged after the 1999 war in Kosovo.-Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2010 ed.The new situation in its historical context

Two parallel political processes are underway in late-twentieth-century Europe, and they are not simply different: they are mutually exclusive. On the one hand, a vigorous process of international integration is taking place at the core of Europe, a process that transcends the traditional physical markers of the nation-state, such as territory, borders, and the movement of citizens. This integration process is spreading to legislation and the institutions of representation, as well, and has reached its latest climax with the introduction of a single European currency-the euro. On the other hand, an opposite and no less intense process is unfolding on the periphery of Europe. Forces typical of earlier periods of nation-state formation have predominated in southeastern Europe-in the former Yugoslavia-over the past ten years. Efforts to build and consolidate newly broken-off nation-states have included large-scale military operations aimed at territorial acquisition, mass deportations, and ethnic cleansing verging on genocide. This process crested with the Serb campaign to eliminate the Albanian ethnic community in the province of Kosovo.

Europe is therefore faced with a fundamental dilemma. Two mutually exclusive processes of political self-identification are unfolding on the continent. Yet the only way that Europe can sustain the integration going on at its core is by somehow drawing its southeastern periphery into the unification process. No easy matter. Over the centuries, the Balkans have repeatedly figured as a region unto itself, even on different political maps. Indeed, the Balkans have long been regarded as separate and distinct because of the unique intermingling of religions and cultures (making the place a showcase of dramatic and endemic cataclysms). On the other hand, even though the area is distinct, it has no political coherence. It does not function as a sociopolitical entity. On the contrary, the highly diverse countries of the region-not only Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia, Turkey, and Yugoslavia, but also Hungary and Moldova-have been identified as members of different cultural-political families, many of them external to the area. Thus, while the region may be viewed as a whole-given its common history of centripetal implosions-at the same time it may be seen as centrifugal, as always flying apart-given the absence of any fundamental sociocultural bond. To be ripped apart by conflicting, external loyalties or to be pulled self-destructively inward, as one element violently tries to impose its vision of the place on another, has become, in a sense, the peculiar identity of the Balkans. Sadly, in the course of the many crises and wars afflicting southeastern Europe at the end of the nineteenth century, no plausible alternative to this self-destructive identity, much less a rehabilitation strategy, was ever proposed for the region as a whole. Except for the early-twentieth-century socialist idea of a Balkan federation, Balkan societies have never, on their own, fashioned a regional project much less imagined a regional utopia for themselves.

The traditional view of the region has typically induced the following approach to its current crises: if internal conflicts are thought to mirror external ones, then it follows that they should be dealt with by negotiations in which those external powers exert pressure on the region. Regional conflicts can be resolved, under such conditions, by drawing internal territorial lines, building walls or fences, between the warring parties. This is a specific variant of a containment policy, isolating conflicts for the purpose of preventing spillovers. The crises in the region are tackled on a case-by-case basis, as discrete powder kegs of tension. That is why efforts to identify solutions always focus on hot spots. The regional crisis in Kosovo came to a boil with the launch of NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia. But unlike former conflicts, this crisis seems to rule out solutions based on the traditional model: that is, by yet another peace deal between great powers (direct negotiations between NATO and Russia cannot succeed without the commitment and involvement of regional actors); by partitioning (a change of borders is universally admitted to be futile, changing nothing but the venue of the conflict); or by confining the conflict to its place of origin (the refugee flows this spring and summer demonstrate that containment is impossible in principle).

A variety of factors suggest that traditional tactics for achieving a peaceful resolution to the current crisis have been exhausted and are no longer effective. The West has reacted to the Kosovo crisis as a fundamental challenge to the values and security of the democratic world. The crisis dramatically and directly affected all the states in the region, albeit in different ways: through the influx of refugees, NATO membership, support for the allied operation, and economic losses. Resolute military intervention by the alliance rather than by a single state suggests, finally, that the traditional methods of conflict resolution are, for now at least, obsolete. Never before has the international community come so close to a consensus on the need for a comprehensive strategy based on a vision for the region as a whole.

These aspects of the crisis are unprecedented. Today, for the first time, the Balkans may be justly identified as an organic regional entity. It is fair to say at this point that the Balkans now form an integral region because all its states are directly affected by the current crisis and because regional instability will not be overcome by yet another partition, particularly one based on ethnicity. (A distinction should be drawn between definitive territorial partitioning, in this sense, and the kind of quarantining or establishing of UN protectorates that prove necessary as temporary measures.) The evolution of internal crises in the region-and of their capacity for generating even further conflicts-has reached the point where the Balkans should be regarded, for strategic purposes, as a single entity. The current crisis can be settled, in the last analysis, only by a comprehensive regional plan, one that includes all its states.

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Political trends: the immediate background

Over the past decade, political processes in the Balkans have been shaped by two parallel events: the simultaneous disintegrations of the communist system and Titoist Yugoslavia. Although these two factors are interdependent, they have divided the region into two relatively distinct and independent models of political development. In the former Yugoslav republics, the agenda of national self-determination has overridden the appeal of democratization, leading to the establishment of an authoritarian nationalist regime in Serbia, a nonliberal regime in Croatia, civil war in Bosnia, and the long-lasting rule of postcommunist elites in Macedonia. Slovenia is the only former Yugoslav republic to have successfully skirted the pitfalls of the post-Yugoslav transition. Since 1992, it has followed a Central European model of transition. In effect, Ljubljana is not part of post-Yugoslav space.

At the constitutional level, all of the post-Yugoslav republics have adopted the institution of free elections. In many cases, however, those elections have been marred by widespread fraud and manipulation. These countries have all become presidential or semipresidential republics, with a sluggish turnover of political elites, abridged media freedom, and, in the majority of cases (Macedonia is an exception in this respect), insensitivity to minority rights. Strikingly, the incumbent presidents of the post-Yugoslav republics are all the very same men who held office in 1991. To be sure, ethnic and religious violence, with a death toll of more than 200,000, has been an another important detail of the post-Yugoslav transition.

The region's other postcommunist countries-Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania-have followed a path of political development that differs from the post-Yugoslav models. Both Bulgaria and Romania are pursuing a form of transition similar to what we see in Central Europe, although their changes have been slower and more painful. In this case, the main lines of political conflict run between communism and anticommunism. Unlike their post-Yugoslav counterparts, the Bulgarian and Romanian regimes have opted for political systems in which parliaments play crucial roles. By and large, political parties are organized around platforms rather than leaders. Political elites have rotated in and out of office, the media enjoy far greater freedom, and the fairness of the election process is not significantly questioned.

From the standpoint of the European Union, the Balkans constitute a miscellaneous patchwork of countries. Greece is the only EU member state. Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania are associate states, and Turkey has a customs union with the community. This variety in status among different Balkan countries and the EU's decision to develop relations with associates on a bilateral basis have prevented Brussels from coming up with an effective regional strategy.

Isolated for decades, Albania, which collapsed in 1996-97, has created its own model of transition, resulting in chronic paralysis as it inches toward statehood. Post-Dayton Bosnia is a de facto protectorate of the international community, the EU having been assigned the task of major donor.

Differences notwithstanding, the sociopolitical scene in all the Balkan states (Slovenia excepted) is characterized by a slump in the gross domestic product, high unemployment, the abandonment of welfare-state responsibilities, corruption, and growing insecurity for an overwhelming majority of citizens. The sense of crisis is all-pervasive in the Balkans, even though causes and explanations vary from one country to the next.

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The Kosovo crisis

Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, NATO bombing, and NATO's future presence on the ground have put considerable stress on the political structures that have crystallized in the Balkans over the past ten years. These events have tested both the efficacy of democratic mechanisms in Bulgaria and Romania and the sustainability of state institutions in Albania, Macedonia, and Yugoslavia. Three main challenges characterized the period between March 24 and June 9: the refugee flow, which altered the political agenda in Albania and Macedonia; the risks run by governments in the region supporting the NATO air strikes despite the emergence of anti-Western majorities in most Balkan countries; and the significant economic and infrastructure losses suffered by the frontline states. These structural transformations and dislocations have inevitably endangered the fragile political systems of the region.

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Albania

During the past two years, Albania has been struggling to recuperate from the coma it suffered in 1996-97. State institutions cannot yet guarantee law and order, and the state has abandoned its welfare responsibilities. Political life is polarized, and confrontation between the government and Sali Berisha's opposition rules out consensual decision making. Crime and corruption are pervasive. In the meantime, international aid and the European presence have remained key factors in preventing a total collapse of the state.

Under these circumstances, the war in Kosovo and the influx of refugees-estimated to have been around 350,000 to 400,000 people at its peak in May-have led to several substantial changes. The government could neither control the movement of people nor care for them. Kosovo and its relationship to Albania became crucial political issues-issues that were not foremost on Tirana's political agenda from 1992 to 1998. As if these were not difficulties enough, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) became an independent risk factor in domestic politics. Albania today is something between a de facto international protectorate and de facto chaos. No one doubts that its statehood is endangered.

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Macedonia

Macedonia is the other critical Balkan country where the political system was directly destabilized by the war in Kosovo. The 1998 general elections brought the first radical change of power in Skopje since the country's declaration of independence. The Ljubco Georgievski government-a coalition of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, Tupurkovski's Democratic Alternative, and Arben Xhaferi's Democratic Party of Albanians-is the only multiethnic, proreformist, and pro-Western government on the territory of the former Yugoslavia. Yet the new regime in Macedonia is particularly vulnerable precisely because of the formula it uses for ethnic representation.

The wave of refugees (more than 200,000 people) that flooded Macedonia this spring posed a serious challenge to the existing political model, changing considerably the delicate ethnic balance in the republic. Any radicalization of the Albanian community threatened to weaken the influence of the DPA's moderate leader, Arben Xhaferi. It does not help that the KLA has now gained a long-term military and political foothold in the country. Even if it is disarmed by NATO in Kosovo, the question remains: Will it lay down its arms in Macedonia? Given these new realities, and the fact that the government simply cannot by itself cope with the remaining Kosovar deportees, Macedonia's internal stability will be directly dependent on a swift and effective resolution of the refugee problem.

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Serbia

Between October 1998 and the initiation of Operation Allied Force, Serbia developed into a classic police state. The laws governing the media and universities are the most obvious indicators that an authoritarian regime has been established. NATO air strikes, at least temporarily, strengthened Milosevic's hand by creating a strong anti-Western and nationalist consensus, and this allowed Milosevic to purge the security services and the army's senior command. By the time the bombing stopped, the opposition, which was feeble and divided before, looked extremely weak and incapacitated.

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Montenegro

The war presented a tremendous challenge-an overall existential challenge, if you will-to the reformist Montenegrin government. President Milo Djukanovic went out of his way, apparently, to ensure that he preserved a balanced position in the midst of the acute crisis. He remains a prominent Milosevic opponent and has a pro-Western political agenda, while enduring enormous pressure from the Belgrade military and political establishment. Three developments seem possible at the moment: first, Milosevic may stage a coup attempt; second, Djukanovic may preserve the delicate balance and wait for better times to come, after the operation comes to an end; and three, if the situation worsens, Djukanovic may attempt a radical move toward independence. The first and last scenarios are less probable. In both cases, NATO and the West will be deterrents. The second seems more likely yet dependent on a number of factors beyond Djukanovic's control.

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Kosovo

Kosovo has been destroyed. The parallel government, established by Ibrahim Rugova over the past ten years, is gone, a casualty of the war. The process of radicalizing much of the Albanian population has been completed; the only effective Albanian sociopolitical structure operating on the territory of Kosovo is the KLA.

The war has left Yugoslavia as a whole facing immediate and formidable challenges: the destruction of a good deal of its economy by allied bombing threatens the country with a humanitarian catastrophe and an exodus of refugees from Serbia itself. With Yugoslavia in shambles, the peace may well usher in a Serbian version of Albania in the winter of 1997.

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Bulgaria and Romania

The crisis did not drastically upset the political status quo in Bulgaria and Romania. The two governments have confirmed their pro-Western orientations. Brussels gave Sofia and Bucharest national-security guarantees in exchange for their support of Operation Allied Force. The antiwar and anti-Western majorities that have emerged since the air strikes are not permanent in character. Nevertheless, the war has redrawn the political profile of the different parties and affected the decision making of the governments. Security services and the army have come to play an increasingly central role in both countries. In Bulgaria, the left-wing opposition has taken an overt anti-Western stand, abandoning the pro-European consensus previously shared by all political parties.

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THE SCENARIOS

Our starting point and assumption for the subsequent analyses is that the way the Kosovo crisis is solved will shape developments in the region for a decade. Our speculative scenarios are based on the different possible outcomes of the Kosovo drama. How these various scenarios evolve is contingent on the answers to two important questions. Will Milosevic be removed from power? And will the existing borders be redrawn?

Depending on how these questions are answered, there are three main scenarios. These scenarios are not mere abstractions. They are historically rooted and take account of the same factors now being considered by decision makers. Each scenario poses different threats and offers different opportunities to each country in the region. We have also tried to assess the different threats and opportunities implicit in each scenario from the perspective of the common regional interests.

Dayton 2

The international conference on the return of Kosovo refugees continues in London. Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic addresses the floor today.-International Herald Tribune, May 12, 2010

The Dayton 2 scenario assumes that the refugee dilemma and the problem represented by Milosevic have not been resolved by the end of the war. Other assumptions are that Yugoslavia keeps its present international borders; that Kosovo becomes a UN protectorate, guaranteed by the presence of an international armed force made up mainly of NATO and Russian troops; and that a plan on the repatriation of refugees has been accepted.

This scenario seems increasingly likely. It actually follows the same logic as the Dayton Accords and allows each warring party to claim victory. Milosevic retains power, and the demographic pressure of the Albanian ethnic community is relieved. The opposition in Serbia is betrayed once again. NATO completes its operation without committing ground troops. A portion of the refugees, mainly those from the camps, return home. Moscow and Brussels ultimately reach a consensus.

An agreement or consensus of this kind could hardly be implemented in full, if only because a number of technicalities make it difficult for all of the refugees to return home (see Bosnia). In the medium term (five to ten years), such a scenario would intensify many of the negative factors at the heart of the region's chronic instability.

Radicalization of the Albanian factor

Even today, it is obvious that the majority of KLA leaders would be reluctant to accept this solution and would want to continue fighting for independence. Since the international presence in the region would be an obstacle to Kosovo's independence, a radical anti-Western and pro-Islamic wing might emerge within the KLA. This is the political logic underlying the emergence of, say, Hamas, and a development that would be difficult to stop.

Intensification of the criminal factor

The thousands of refugees in Albania and Macedonia, as well as the weak state institutions in those countries, would cause crime to escalate in the region as a whole. There are regional drug- and arms-trafficking networks in place even at the present. Many of those networks are ethnically based.Destabilization of Macedonia and Albania

To not settle the problems represented by the refugees and Milosevic poses a mortal threat to democracy in Albania and Macedonia. The main threat to Albania is that it might become a KLA stronghold, which, in turn, would increase political violence in the country and strain Tirana's relations with the international community and its neighbors. This would necessitate a greater international presence in Albania-economic aid and policing that would turn the country into a semiprotectorate.

In Macedonia, the "ethnic model" of representation in government would prove a problem for democratic consolidation. The wave of refugees compromised, temporarily, the ethnic balance in the country. Skopje must figure out how to replace the ethnic loyalty of the different communities with a civic loyalty to the Macedonian state. The refugees have begun to return to Kosovo, but the ethnic Albanians of Montenegro represent a genuine threat to long-term stability. Amendments to the Macedonian Constitution might prove imperative.

Reconstruction of the region

If Milosevic remains in power, international aid for the Balkans will help enforce a policy of isolation and deterrence. The EU and, in particular, the US have declared that they will not invest in Yugoslavia so long as Milosevic is still firmly in the saddle. This rules out investments in regional infrastructure and tips the scales in favor of projects meant to stabilize individual countries rather than the region as a whole.Impact on neighboring countries

Bulgaria and Romania are also losers in this scenario, with Bulgaria standing to lose more. Access for Bulgarian exports to Europe depends on the integration of Yugoslavia, thus Dayton 2 does not offer Bulgaria any feasible alternatives. Macedonia's destabilization and a possible exodus of economic refugees from Serbia are the two further risk factors for Bulgaria. Ending the war was consonant with the short-term interests of the Bulgarian and Romanian governments, but this scenario does not offer long-term prospects for economic growth and democratic consolidation to either state.

Milosevic's continued presence in Belgrade is a potential threat to Bosnia and Herzegovina, too. As long as the incumbent regime remains in power in Serbia, Bosnia is in danger of destabilization. The situation is similar in Montenegro, which will never make its transition to democracy. Moreover, Turkey, which is engaged in the conflict by virtue of its compassion for the suffering of the Kosovar Albanians and which has its own outstanding issues with the EU, does not stand to gain from this scenario either. Dayton 2 would intensify nationalist and anti-Western sentiment in Turkish politics.

Russia and Greece, given their sympathies and interests, are the two regional powers that have reasons to accept Dayton 2. Russia would keep its regional role and could apply pressure on the international community via Milosevic. Greece would retain its role as mediator.

Strategic assessment

Dayton 2 is a quasi solution, since it does not offer an opportunity for breaking out of the vicious circle of Balkan instability. Thus Dayton 2 is a formula for an armistice, not a formula for peace. There are several possible strategic outcomes: a permanent military presence of the international community in the region; radicalization of the Albanian factor; rising crime in the region; unstable and weak governments; the impossibility of a regional development strategy; and a widening gap between the Balkans and the EU. This scenario dashes the hopes of all the Balkan countries (except Slovenia) for EU membership by 2010.

Congress of Berlin 2

Balkan foreign ministers meeting in Pristina, the new capital of Albania, have decided to exchange populations until minorities drop below 5 percent of each country's population.-Financial Times, May 12, 2010

The Congress of Berlin 2 scenario assumes that the international community accepts the establishment of ethnic states as the only possible solution for the Kosovo crisis. The project of creating ethnic states involves a change in existing borders and an exchange of populations. On the new political map of Europe, Kosovo and western Macedonia are part of Albania. Republika Srpska and part of Kosovo are in Serbia. Croatia receives part of Bosnia, while Bosnia is pared down to the Muslim Republic of Sarajevo. Macedonia consists of the eastern part of its present territory and is known as the Republic of Skopje. Other partitions are also possible.

This scenario renders moot the Milosevic problem, to some degree, since ethnic logic is adopted as a principle by the international community, which then becomes the enforcer of a mild form of symmetrical ethnic cleansing. This may seem improbable at present, yet it stands a chance if attempts at sustaining multiethnic states in Bosnia and Macedonia fail, and the Kosovo problem remains unresolved. It is based on the visions of Serbian and Albanian nationalism, on the one hand, and the possible reluctance for a long-term commitment to the area by the EU and the US, on the other. The logic is that stability in the region may be achieved only after radical nationalism has attained all its goals. Instability is seen as a product of ethnic and religious incompatibilities only. The impact of the political and economic factors on stability is largely ignored.

There is, however, another factor often overlooked as well: the impact of the intervention itself, the escalation of the war, and the corresponding objective radicalization of the ethnic situation. One effect of NATO's operation is that the alliance acts "as if" it is taking the side of one ethnic community, the Albanian Kosovars. Hence, once the war is over, the very attempt at restoring the prewar situation will somehow produce the effect of engineering a "Kosovar" statehood, homogeneously clean.

The champions of this solution claim that it has been the one historically effective scenario in the region. It would bring the establishment of nation-states to fruition, build effective state institutions, divide the hostile parties, and create conditions for democratization in the next ten to fifteen years. The essential assumption is that the multiethnic character of the Balkan states is an obstacle to their democratization, and that Bosnia and Macedonia, which look like Titoist Yugoslavia on a small scale, ought to share Titoist Yugoslavia's fate. Yet this scenario aggravates some of the most negative tendencies in the region and in the international community as a whole.

Rejection of the idea of multiethnic democracies

Congress of Berlin 2 adopts the ethnic principle as the only principle of state formation, excluding the region from the general liberalizing tendencies of the modern world. Thus it sets a precedent that might have fatal consequences for the international community.

The illusory homogeneity of the ethnic state

The idea of the ethnic state as a political Shangri-La, as a panacea for all tensions and conflicts, is illusory. The division between Albanians and Kosovars in a future Greater Albania promises to be just as incendiary as the confrontation between Albanians and Macedonians in multiethnic Macedonia.

Impossibility of Balkan integration

The formation of ethnic states practically rules out Balkan integration. The newly established states would need 20 to 25 years to satisfy the political and economic requirements of EU integration. Further-more, the struggles over ownership claims, which are bound to erupt as borders are redrawn, would create all the conditions necessary for military conflict among the different countries. Even without war these cross-border claims would inhibit the development of regional economic relations.

Impact on neighboring countries

The political process in Bulgaria and Romania would be reformulated on an ethnoreligious basis. A partition of Macedonia would fire internal tensions in Bulgaria, fanning anti-Islamic and anti-Albanian sentiments. This would virtually throttle the Bulgarian model of settling ethnic issues, which is based on civic rather than ethnic representation. Turkish-Greek controversies would also escalate.

Strategic assessment

Congress of Berlin 2 does not offer a solution to the region's spiraling instability and is hardly feasible, in any case. It would deal a blow to all the fundamental principles and values of the Western world. Even if they were reestablished on an ethnic basis, the Balkan countries would not create modern states. In this scenario, Balkan integration is impossible, and the revival of Axis policies is inevitable. Such a scenario would turn the Balkans into Europe's ghetto.

Marshall Plan 2

Balkan Ministers in Belgrade Tackle Region's New Energy Infrastructure-Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2010

Marshall Plan 2 assumes that the peace agreement on Kosovo has resolved all three fundamental problems at the core of our scenarios. Milosevic has been ousted, the majority of Kosovar refugees have returned home, and Kosovo has won broad autonomy within Yugoslavia. The EU and the US have launched a large-scale program to restore the region.

Three factors increase the odds against this scenario. First, the internal opposition in Yugoslavia hardly has the resources to dislodge Milosevic. Even though the EU and US have set the removal of Milosevic as a sine qua non for aiding Serbia's reconstruction, the political climate in Belgrade is not conducive to the rapid democratization of Yugoslavia, and the NATO military campaign failed to topple Milosevic. The second factor weighing against this scenario is that the EU would have to reconsider Agenda 2000 and make a priority of the rebuilding of southeastern Europe in the next decade. The third factor, which loads the dice against this scenario, is the absence of any real agents of integration and Europeanization in the Balkans. With few exceptions, the governments of the Balkan states lack a regional and European vision, and the recovery program might well deteriorate into a race for the lion's share of international aid. Given rampant corruption in the region as a whole, aid will not achieve its purpose unless there is a transformation in the institutional environment. Unhappily, it is precisely the difference between the institutional environment in the Balkans and in Western Europe that makes a second Marshall Plan a risky undertaking.

Impact on neighboring countries

The recent debate on the possible parameters of a regional recovery program shows that the international community, all too often, has restricted its definition of the Balkans to the former Yugoslav republics, Albania, and Macedonia-as the countries worst hit by the war in Kosovo. The exclusion of Bulgaria and Romania, however, would send the wrong message to the political classes in the two countries and would deprive international aid of its regional dimension.

Strategic assessment

Marshall Plan 2 has much of value in it, but it is certainly not the best-case scenario for the region. It is a plan directed against the chronic instability of the Balkans; but it is not a plan for integration of the region into Europe. Its success is hostage to the effectiveness of these weak nation-states in pressing ahead with their European priorities. At present, only Slovenia, Bulgaria, and Romania are capable of pursuing effective policies of integration. Such a scenario, therefore, does not guarantee the emergence of a viable and democratic civic culture in the Balkan countries. Yet it was precisely the emergence of such a culture in Western Europe that was the true and sustainable achievement of the Marshall Plan.

THE NEW SOLUTIONS

Our initial analysis of the new situation in the Balkans and the scenarios for feasible solutions prompt the following poignant conclusions. The crisis has spread to the entire region, thus the policy of containment and partial settlement can no longer work. The crisis cannot be solved without a simultaneous solution to the three key problems: refugees, borders, and Milosevic. The NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia redefined the West's commitment to the region. It is no longer possible for Europe to emerge from the Balkan crisis without admitting its political defeat. And, finally, an effective regional approach is impossible given the present status quo.

The future of the Balkans in the coming decade depends on two factors: first, finding, or failing to find, a sustainable solution to the Kosovo crisis; and second, the enlargement, or the lack thereof, of the European Union to the southeast. Under the present circumstances, the countries in this region might find their place on the political map of Europe only after attaining a certain measure of democratic and economic consolidation. It could be a long wait, and if the EU remains simply a club that admits already eligible new members, the "Balkan" problem will, most likely, be resolved through one of the three scenarios described above. In this "club" paradigm, the Balkan states stand little or no chance of joining the EU for the foreseeable future.

The crisis of statehood, which is the defining feature of the post-Yugoslav space and Albania, makes bilateral negotiations between the EU and each state ineffective. Protectorates in Bosnia, Kosovo, or elsewhere in the region cannot resolve the issue of deficiencies in statehood, and financial support alone will not change the local institutional environment.

The thesis presented in this analysis is radically different from the conflict-resolution strategies sketched out in our three scenarios. We believe that there is no correct answer to the question: What can the EU do to stabilize the region? The question we would like to ask, instead, is: How can the Balkans join the EU by 2010? We believe that the Kosovo crisis has become an internal, rather than an external, affair for the EU. Europe's new approach should presuppose the integration of, not stabilization of, the Balkans. And this approach is feasible, if the following steps are taken:

The EU member states reconsider Agenda 2000 and give priority to the integration of the Balkans during the next ten years;
The EU abandons its present strategy of Enlargement;
Policymakers decide that the Balkans should be represented in the European Parliament with its states electing their own MPs;
The future of the protectorates in the region is linked to integration into Europe rather than to the formation of new nation-states;
The Balkans become a single economic zone that will be integrated, eventually, into the single European zone;
The EU sets as a priority the building of a civil society in the region, one that transcends the boundaries of nation-states.
The adoption of such a radically new policy seems improbable, and it is perhaps implausible to expect this. But this policy is virtually the only feasible course to follow in the hope of solving rather than containing the present crisis, now, and those that await the Balkans in the future.

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Ivan Krastev is chairman of the board of directors, and Stefan Popov and Julia Gurkovska are program directors, of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia. This paper was delivered at the conference "Facing the Future: The Balkans in Year 2010," sponsored by the Centre for Liberal Strategies, on May 12, 1999, in Sofia.

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