BALKAN REGIONAL PROFILE:
THE SECURITY SITUATION AND THE REGION-BUILDING EVOLUTION OF
SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE
(A Background and December 2000 Issue in Brief)
Research Study 12, 2000
Hard copy: ISSN 1311 - 3240
AN
I S N-SPONSORED MONTHLY
ELECTRONIC PERIODICAL
I.
INTRODUCTION
II.
PROFILE BACKGROUND OF THE BALKANS:GEOPOLITICAL SHIFTS
III. CONFLICT AND
POST-CONFLICT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE BALKANS
IV. THE
NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE BALKAN COUNTRIES: SPECIFIC ISSUES
1. FRY
2. FRYM
4. Romania
V. BILATERAL AND
MULTILATERAL RELATIONS IN THE BALKANS. THE STATE OF THE REGIONAL INITIATIVES
1. Bilateral Relations
2. Multilateral Relations
3. Regional Initiatives
VI.
THE ECONOMIC SITUATION IN THE BALKAN
COUNTRIES AND IN THE REGION
1.
Bulgaria
2. FRY
3. Turkey
4. Bulgaria-FRY
5.
Bulgaria-Turkey
6. Bulgaria-Rumania
7. USA-Greece
8. Greece-FRYM
VII. THE INFLUENCE OF
EXTERNAL FACTORS ON THE REGION: NATIONAL GREAT POWERS AND INTERNATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS
1.
The United States
2. NATO
3. EU
4. Russia
VIII. THE SECURITY SITUATION
AND THE REGION-BUILDING EVOLUTION: CONCLUSIONS
In
December the tensions in the Kosovo-Southern Serbia area continued and the
maintenance of the relative stability required a substantial effort from the
Kosovo Force (KFOR). However, the
negative Serbian reactions to the violence, which is generally directed against
ordinary Serbs in this broader area, have increased to the point of diminished
tolerance.
The
peaceful and democratic change of power in Serbia to the opposition democratic
parties after the general elections marked another significant step in the
evolution of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) to democracy, after the
success of President Vojislav Kostunica against Slobodan Milosevic in the
federal presidential elections. The
almost landslide victory of the democratic alliance has politically weakened the
Socialist party of Milosevic for the time being.
The new leadership of both Serbia and the FRY, however, face immediate
tasks such as overcoming the escalating conflict in the Kosovo-Southern Serbia
region, another Balkan winter with energy shortages, and the issue of indicted
war criminals. The pending issue of
the constitutional status of Kosovo and Montenegro is of the highest complexity.
The
European Union (EU) summit in Nice had major geopolitical consequences for the
Southeast European region. Setting
a clear agenda of enlargement to the east, the Union has defined its
geopolitical goals in the Balkans too. Short
of formulating a concise and encompassing Southeast European strategy, the EU
has embarked firmly on a differentiated course of accession in the Balkans. The interior and justice ministers of the Schengen visa
regime countries decided early in December to place Bulgaria and Romania in the
"white list" of countries, giving also a visa-free access to Bulgarian
citizens in the Schengen states. In
practice this moved the EU border to the borders and checkpoints of Bulgaria.
The Declaration on the Enlargement of the EU and the Annex II to it,
which are both parts of the Treaty of Nice, further define the geopolitical
shift of Southeastern Europe to the EU territory.
Five states of this region that are currently members or are negotiating
for membership of the EU are as follows (numbers in the parentheses show population, weighted votes in
the EU Council, and seats in the
European parliament, respectively):
Slovenia (1'792'603, 4, 7); Hungary
(10'086'040, 12, 20); Romania (22'355'121, 14, 33); Bulgaria
(8'270'215, 10, 17); and Greece (10'779'739, 12, 22).
Greece is an EU member and part of the Schengen visa regime area.
All the other countries on this list (Romania is still waiting) are
merging forces with the other Schengen visa regime states.
Although Turkey is an applicant country with a "candidate"
status, it has not been included. The
five listed countries comprise a powerful arc of stability around an area that
has a long history of wars and conflicts; these countries provide a real
geopolitical guarantee for the progress of the other parts of the Balkans.
The
perception in Southeastern Europe is that the Nice EU summit decisions are
putting an end to the Yalta geopolitical mentality and divisions.
The prospects of Southeastern Europe joining the EU are also a clear
answer to those political actors in and out of the region that conceive the
Balkans as a terrain of trilateral division among great power centers: the US,
the EU, and Russia. Geopolitically,
geoeconomically, and (soon, logically) geostrategically, the region of
Southeastern Europe will be part of the enlarged EU.
The US will influence the region security and civic space via the EU and
NATO (North Atlantic Treaty
Organization), while Russia’s influence will depend mostly on it
joining the same space, covering the Euro-Atlantic area, and on the
effectiveness of its integration into the global economy.
The
fighters of the Liberation Army of Presevo, Medvedja, and Bujanovac, – whose
base is in the Ground Safety Zone which is a five-kilometer-wide demilitarized
zone between Kosovo and Serbia, and where both NATO troops and the Yugoslav army
are forbidden to enter – targeted Serbian forces, UNMIK (UN
mission in Kosovo) police forces, and KFOR units this month.
After firing on a joint Russian-US KFOR patrol, 13 Albanian rebels were
detained by a reinforced KFOR unit on 20 December.
The unit also found a cache of weapons including some rocket-propelled
grenades, grenades, ammunition, and AK-47s.
The Serbian reaction was varied: political, diplomatic, and military.
President Kostunica called on Serbs to differentiate between extremist
and ordinary Albanians, reminding Serbs that the latter were suffering from the
militant Albanian activists. The
leader of the Democratic Opposition
of Serbia (DOS), Zoran Djindjic, said earlier in December that with each passing
day the Albanian extremists strengthen their position and weaken the Serbian
one; therefore Serbia must act swiftly and with determination.
On 7 December Yugoslav Prime Minister Zoran Zizic urged ethnic Albanians
in the FRY to participate in the country’s political life as citizens with
equal rights. President Kostunica
said on 11 December that he favors future autonomy of Kosovo within the borders
of Yugoslavia. The foreign minister
of the FRY, Goran Svilanovic, spoke on 18 December to the UN Security Council on
the crisis in Southern Serbia and asked the members of the Council to postpone
the planned elections in Kosovo next spring, because in his opinion no Serb will
be left there a year from now. On
19 December President Kostunica insisted on a change to the Kosovo peace
agreement that would cut the size of the buffer zone between Serbia and Kosovo
to one or two kilometers, which would allow the Yugoslav army to operate closer
to the ethnic Albanian militants. The
change, according to Kostunica, was needed because the NATO-led peacekeepers
were not capable of controlling the militants in the buffer zone.
The KFOR commander, General Carlo Cabigiosu, met Serbian Deputy Prime
Minister Nebojsa Covic in Bujanovac on 20 December.
According to KFOR sources, the military technical agreement concerning
Kosovo was not up for discussion and there will be no change to it.
However, the dialogue will continue to look for a peaceful solution to
the situation.
The
chief of UNMIK, Bernard Kouchner, has passed his resignation to the UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan. Kouchner has headed the UN mission since July 1999.
He will be succeeded in January 2001 by the Danish defense minister, Hans
Haekkerup. Haekkerup has also
worked in the Education, Social Affairs and Labor Ministries.
In
an article on Kosovo issues in the 20 November edition of the Financial Times,
the deputy director of the Paris-based Institut Francais des Relations
Internationales, Dominique Moisi, considers some eventual status options for
Kosovo: “conditional independence”, “partition”, “protectorate”, and
“full independence”. In
addition, he suggests consideration of the Austro-Hungarian empire (without an
emperor) model and the creation of a Balkan Federation.
The second idea has been promoted recently with pro-Yugoslav objectives
by the wife of Slobodan Milosevic, Mira Markovic. However, this idea has been in service for over one hundred
years in different Balkan countries, starting from the Bulgarian
Social-Democrats. The ideas of an
Austro-Hungarian empire model and the creation of a Balkan Federation reflect
misperceptions of Balkan realities and history as well as an underestimation of
the potential for countries from the region to integrate in the EU and serve as
engines of the same process for other countries in the region.
This idea of Dr Moisi is an echo of Kostunica’s call to the EU to
integrate the whole of the Balkan region and not just the individual states.
Most probably, the solution to Kosovo's status will be found between
“conditional independence” (also supported by the Swedish prime minister)
and the “protectorate” status (considered by many over the past two years).
1.
FRY
(1)
A major issue facing Serbs this winter is electrical energy supplies to
individual households. The electric
company imposed rationing that was increased at the end of December from four to
eight hours blackout for non-industrial users.
(2) The new president of the
FRY continued his foreign political efforts of re-integrating his country into
the international community and adapting the foreign policy service to the
internal changes in his country. Kostunica
made a private visit to The Vatican on 12 December and was received by Pope
John-Paul II. The FRY recalled 17
ambassadors this month following the criteria of reaching the age for
retirement, getting close to that age, and being appointed for political reasons
and not as a career diplomat. The
Yugoslav ambassador to Moscow and brother of Slobodan Milosevic has been
recalled permanently. Belgrade also
recalled its ambassador to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and
former boss of the Yugoslav secret services, Zoran Janackovic. (3) The UN chief
prosecutor in The Hague at the International
Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Carla del Ponte, said
on 20 December that the only choice for the new Belgrade leadership is to arrest
Slobodan Milosevic so that he can answer war crimes charges at the tribunal.
(4) The military authorities of the federation made changes on 26
December to the Montenegrin command of the armed forces.
(5)
The DOS won a landslide victory on 23 December, receiving 65 per cent of
the votes against 13 per cent for the rival Serbian Socialist party of
Milosevic. The radicals of the
ultra-nationalist Vojislav Sesel and representatives of the party of the late
paramilitary leader Arkan also become members of the Serbian parliament. The turnout was 60 per cent of eligible voters, and the
Albanians in Kosovo and Southern Serbia boycotted the elections.
Zoran Djindjic is expected to become the new prime minister of Serbia.
(6) The president of
Montenegro, Milo Djukanovic, told the media on 27 December that a referendum in
2001 will define the sovereignty of his country, which may eventually preserve a
loose form of confederation with Serbia.
2.
FYROM
The
prime minister of the FYROM, Liubcho Georgievsky, has formed the new government
with a parliamentary majority of 66 out of 120 MPs.
Liberals, independent deputies, and dissidents of the former coalition
partner, the Democratic Alternative, provided the survival of the center-right
ruling VMRO. The new minister of
foreign affairs is Srdjan Kerim. This
was the fifth reorganization of the government in Skopje in the last two years.
It has managed to survive antagonistic social-democratic (former
communist), pro-Milosevic, and pro-Serbian opposition attacks, coping with the
crisis in the spring of 1999, and concluding the Stabilization and Association
Agreement with the EU in November of this year.
3.
Romania
Presidential
candidate Ion Iliescu won over his rival, Corneliu Vadim Tudor, in the second
round of the elections on 10 December with 66.8 per cent of the votes against
33.2 per cent. The Romanian Constitutional Court declined an appeal by Tudor
on 14 December, in which his party requested the cancellation of the results of
the country’s presidential elections. Iliescu
served as Romania’s first elected president from 1990-1996 after the
dictatorship of Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989.
1.
Bilateral Relations
a. Greece-Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian president, Petar Stoyanov, visited Greece and met with the
Greek president, Constantinos Stefanopoulos, Prime Minister Costas Simitis, and
members of the Greek parliament and opposition leaders on 4-5 December.
A group of Bulgarian businessmen accompanied the president and convened
meetings in the Greek Chamber of Commerce.
b. FYROM-Greece.
The defense ministers of the two countries, Liuben Paunovsky and Akis
Tsohatzopoulos, signed a bilateral security agreement in Skopje on 10 December.
They also discussed the situation in Southern Serbia.
The Greek defense minister met with President Borys Traikovsky, Prime
Minister Liubcho Georgievsky, and Foreign Minister Srdjan Kerim.
c. FRY-Slovenia, FRY-Bosnia
and Herzegovina. Diplomatic
relations between the FRY and Slovenia were re-established in Ljubliana on 9
December during an official visit of the foreign minister of the FRY, Goran
Svilanovic. Diplomatic relations
were also re-established between the FRY and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Belgrade
a few days later during an official visit of the foreign minister of Bosnia and
Herzegovina. These acts ended the
process of stabilizing the relations of post-Milosevic FRY with its neighbors.
However, the FRY does not yet have an ambassador in Sofia after the
Bulgarian government did not agree to the person nominated by Milosevic in 1998.
d. FRY-Bulgaria.
(1) The Bulgarian deputy
foreign minister, Marin Raikov, visited Belgrade on 7 December and presented a
donation to the “Dragisa Misovic” hospital.
He met with his counterpart, Zoran Novakovic, and discussed a broad range
of bilateral issues. They signed a
protocol of cooperation between the two Foreign Ministries, providing for
regular consultations. Bulgaria
insists on improving the treatment of the Bulgarian national minority in Serbia
and guaranteeing to it the rights that are provided to the other national
minorities in that country. The two
high-level diplomats also started the discussion of the re-admission agreement
that would ease the restrictions that Bulgaria imposes in connection with her
participation in the Schengen visa regime.
(2) Presidents Kostunica and
Stoyanov met in Nis, a Serbian city half way between Sofia and Belgrade, on 20
December, and discussed ways of improving bilateral relations.
Joint projects were discussed by the two leaders, such as the
construction of the transport corridor that will modernize communications
between Sofia and Belgrade through Nis, the export of electricity to Serbia from
Bulgaria, and the facilitation of the visa regime for citizens of the FRY after
Bulgaria joins the Schengen visa-free area.
(3) The would-be prime
minister of Serbia and leader of the DOS, Zoran Djindjic, said in an interview
on Bulgarian national television on 26 December that the economic relationship
with Bulgaria is viewed as a significant instrument for the improvement of the
overall economic situation in his country.
e. Bulgaria-FYROM.
The new foreign minister of the FYROM, Srdjan Kerim, made his first
foreign visit to Sofia and met with his counterpart, Nadezhda Mihailova.
Kerim was given a draft of a re-admission agreement that would facilitate
the visa regime for his countrymen when Bulgaria imposes the Schengen-required
restrictions. The two foreign ministers discussed a broad range of
bilateral issues, including joint economic projects and high-level visits.
2.
Multilateral Relations.
a. Post-Yugoslav Relations.
Representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the FRY, the FYROM,
and Slovenia met in Brussels on 19 December and discussed the division of the
assets of the former federation. The
refusal of the Milosevic regime to participate left the issue pending for some
ten years. The next round of talks
concerning how to divide, for example, embassies abroad, factories, shipyards,
pipelines, and railways will take place in February 2001.
The efficient participation of the FRY is one of the prerequisites for
Belgrade to rejoin the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
b. Southeastern Europe
Equity Fund. The president and
chief executive officer of the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation
(OPIC), George Munoz, opened a new regional office for OPIC’s US$ 150 million
Southeastern Europe Equity Fund in Sofia on 19 December.
One-third of the funds have been provided by US billionaire and manager
of the fund, George Soros. Soros
Private Funds Management, LLC, will serve Albania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Croatia, the FYROM, Romania, Slovenia, Montenegro, and Turkey.
Its primary objective is to provide capital for the development,
expansion, and restructuring of new businesses, and privatization.
3.
Regional Initiatives
A
meeting of Interior Ministry representatives from Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the FRY, the FYROM, and Romania was convened in
Sarajevo on 15 December in the context of the Stability Pact.
They discussed ways of coordinating the fight against organized crime in
the Balkans. A representative of
Interpol underlined the supra-regional repercussions of the criminal activity in
Southeastern Europe. The conclusion was that more political will is needed to
improve the coordinated efforts.
1. Bulgaria.
In a lecture to the School of Diplomacy in Madrid on 14 December Prime
Minister Ivan Kostov characterized the two major social and economic problems of
his country: unemployment and poverty. However,
according to him, the difficult part of the transition has passed as now already
70 per cent of the GDP is produced by the private sector.
For the first time in many years the balance of payments of Bulgaria is
now positive and the currency reserve has reached US$ 3.1 billion.
2. FRY.
The government of the FRY is preparing a bill that would liberalize
foreign trade operations. The bill
is expected to remove applications for export-import transactions, and discard
registration of foreign trade companies, obligatory deposits, and various taxes.
3. Turkey.
An economic collapse endangered Turkey during the last few weeks of the
year. The interest rate for credits
from the Central Bank to trade banks reached 20'000 per cent per year.
The Istanbul Stock Exchange index dropped by 8 per cent at the beginning
of December, and in October the inflation rate reached 44 per cent.
The expected bank failures has paralyzed economic activity and damaged
financial stability. Turkish
authorities and the IMF agreed on 6 December to a strengthened reform program,
whose implementation is intended to restore confidence and financial stability.
4. Bulgaria-FRY.
The Bulgarian government gave US$ 50'000 in humanitarian aid to the
neighboring FRY. A sum of US$
200'000 will also be provided for the cleaning of debris from the Danube river
in Serbia. This sum is a national
obligation to the Danubian Commission.
5. Bulgaria-Turkey.
Bulgaria started the construction of the Bulgarian part of the highway to
Istanbul on 8 December. The cost of
the 114-km-long highway on Bulgarian territory will be borne by the Bulgarian
government. This road will be an
important connection between trans-European corridors 4, 8, and 9.
6. Bulgaria-Romania.
A successful transaction between the Bulgarian government and the
European Investment Bank on 8 December provided US$ 66
million, which is 50 per cent of the price of the construction of the
bridge over the Danube between Vidin (in Bulgaria) and Kalafat (in Romania).
7. USA-Greece.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced on 20 December
that Greece does not comply with international safety standards set by the
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and has rated Greece a
Category 2 carrier. Meeting ICAO
and not FAA safety standards is the basis of the assessment and the announcement
does not imply that the operations are either safe or unsafe.
The Greek government reacted quickly and indicated a desire to correct
the issues identified by the assessment and for the FAA to periodically review
the progress in correcting the deficiencies.
8. Greece-FYROM.
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and Hellenic
Petroleum of Greece signed a contract in Skopje on 22 December that provides US$
50 million for the construction of an oil pipeline from Thessaloniki to Skopje.
The cost of the whole project is US$ 105 million for the 220-km-long
pipeline, of which 145 km will be on FYROM territory.
The pipeline should be ready in the second half of 2001, and 2.5 million
tons of oil are expected to be transported by it per annum.
Hellenic Petroleum is the owner of the oil refinery near Skopje and the
construction of the pipeline is part of the obligations taken by the company
when buying the oil-refining facility.
1.
The United States
USA
– Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. General
Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff visited Kosovo, Sarajevo,
and Tuzla on 4-5 December. He met
with commanders and troops in the field, and made operational updates.
USA,
EU – Southeastern Europe.
The US and the EU reaffirmed their commitment to working together to
further democracy in Southeastern Europe by issuing a joint statement on 18
December, following the US-EU summit in Washington, DC:
“At a time when democracy is taking root throughout the region and when
it should be consolidated for the benefit of all, the very successful
cooperation to date between the USA and the EU in South-East Europe must
continue to be close and sustained. ...
Recent historic changes pave the way for regional reconciliation and
cooperation... We give our full
support to this process of reconciliation and regional cooperation, which offer
new prospects for the countries in the region”.
The statement also called upon the nations of the region to continue and
intensify efforts to resolve bilateral differences and internal ethnic minority
issues exclusively through peaceful, democratic dialogue, and to show full
respect for international obligations including cooperation with the ICTY.
US-FRY.
The US is pledging US$ 158 million in new “rapid disbursing
assistance” for the FRY for the period encompassing the winter of 2000-2001,
of which US$ 87.6 million will go to Serbia and US$ 70.4 million to Montenegro.
The funds will be used for emergency food and energy assistance,
humanitarian aid, technical assistance to the banking sector and economic
reform, private sector development, and strengthening civil society.
USA-Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian foreign minister, Nadezhda Mihailova, and the US ambassador
to Sofia, Richard Miles, met in Sofia on 22 December, and confirmed a new, more
liberal visa regime between the two countries.
The visas for Bulgarian tourists not only become cheaper, but also are
valid for multiple visits over a ten-year period.
2.
NATO
NATO-Bulgaria.
Bruce Jackson, president of the American Committee for the Enlargement of
NATO, an influential US non-governmental organization, told the Bulgarian press
in Sofia on 11 December that his organization expects NATO to invite Bulgaria to
join NATO at the next summit in 21 months, which will most probably be held in
Prague. Jackson was a member of the George W. Bush presidential campaign team.
NATO-Russia
– Southeastern Europe. Cooperation
between Russia and NATO in Southeastern Europe was one of the main topics of
discussion during the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council meeting in Brussels on
15 December. US Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright underlined several aspects of this cooperation: the need to
press Bosnian leaders to strengthen joint institutions and integrate their armed
forces; the need to unite in opposing extremist violence in Kosovo and in
helping society to develop autonomous self-governing institutions; and the need
to back the new authorities in Belgrade as they strive to strengthen their
democracy and address urgent economic problems.
Albright noted also that it is not helpful for Russia to raise issues,
such as the UN arms embargo and Kosovo’s final status, that are not immediate
priorities for Belgrade and which distract from the ability to work together
toward long-term goals. She concluded that NATO-Russian cooperation in Southeastern
Europe is a dramatic illustration of the partnership’s potential.
3.
EU
EU-Bulgaria.
(1) The decision of the EU
interior and justice ministers to allow a visa-free regime in the Schengen area
for Bulgarian citizens, made on 1 December, was due to the progress that
Bulgaria has made in changing identity documents and passports, and
strengthening border controls against illegal migration.
However, the European Commission was clear in declaring to the Council of
the EU that delaying the solution of this issue with the Bulgarians may lead to
political destabilization in a strongly pro-European country. A Bulgarian public opinion poll taken a week after the
Brussels decision on this issue indicated that 22 per cent do not wish to use
the new opportunity for travelling in the Schengen states, that 31 per cent
would use the new opportunity, and that 47 per cent would like to but are
financially unable to do so.
(2)
The Bulgarian finance and agrarian ministers signed in Brussels on 19
December an agreement with the EU Commissioner Franz Fischler that provides US$
49 million per year as a pre-accession fund in support of restructuring
Bulgarian agriculture. The EU will
provide US$ 237 million to Bulgaria every year as a pre-accession support.
EU-Turkey.
Turkey blocked a consensus between the NATO foreign ministers in Brussels
on 14 December on the relationship between NATO and the EU, and the latter’s
planned rapid reaction force. Turkey
was the only NATO country that was against allowing the EU permanent access to
NATO operational planning and other military assets.
In return Turkey suggested that the EU should approach NATO blueprints on
a case-by-case basis. Turkey is
seeking EU membership and wants to be sure that it will not be sidelined if and
when the EU would intervene close to its borders.
Turkey emphasizes that these concerns are not ideological, but related to
security and so need to be taken into consideration.
4.
Russia
Russia-FRY.
Russia proposed a draft resolution to the UN Security Council for ending
the weapons sales embargo on Belgrade, even though the authorities of the FRY
have not requested it. The embargo
was introduced in 1998 because of the crisis in Kosovo. This month Russia takes over the rotating presidency of the
UN Security Council.
Russia-Croatia.
The foreign ministers of the two countries, Igor Ivanov and Tonino
Picula, met in Moscow on 5 December and discussed bilateral relations and the
situation in the Balkans. The
Russian foreign minister said that Russia considers Croatia a significant
partner of his country in Southeastern Europe.
Ivanov said also that backing the reforms in the FRY was the best way of
stabilizing the situation in the Balkans.
Russia-Bulgaria.
After five postponements the chairmen of the joint economic commission of
the two countries, Minister Aleksey Kudrin of Russia and the Bulgarian deputy
prime minister, Petar Zhotev, finally met informally in Moscow on 5 December.
Russia unilaterally cancelled a planned meeting of the commission in
Sofia on 14-15 November. Moscow has
delayed for more than five years the payment of its debt of US$ 100 million to
Bulgaria, using various explanations and conditions.
Russia reacted negatively to the news that Bulgarians may travel
visa-free in the Schengen states and the need – stemming from that – to
establish new relations with all Bulgarian partners who can enter Bulgarian
territory freely, including Russians. Moscow
declines to talk yet about signing a re-admission agreement, and a major
argument is that this is too expensive to guarantee.
However, it is also expensive for Bulgaria, and cooperation within Europe
necessitates this kind of arrangement. Otherwise,
strict visa regimes are imposed and Russia’s unwillingness to arrange this
issue may deprive many Bulgarians and Russians who wish to visit the two
countries. The reaction that
Russian tourists will prefer to go to the “better” resorts in Turkey,
Greece, Cyprus, or maybe on the Adriatic do not reflect the popular positivism
of the Russians to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, and to the food that is
available there. Russia is
interested in cooperating in the development of Bulgarian tourism and in
becoming more pragmatic in its economic ties with Bulgaria.
A large proportion of the population of Southern Russia identifies itself
as "Bulgarian", which forms an excellent basis for finding new and
positive ways of developing bilateral links in the future.
1.
The victory of the democratic parties in Serbia dramatically improved the
political and security situations in Southeastern Europe.
However, the Albanian-Serbian tensions in Kosovo and Southern Serbia
continue, and no solution was found apart from strengthening the KFOR in the
buffer zone between Kosovo and Serbia. There
is no rush to settle the constitutional issue of Kosovo, but as long as this
remains unclear the political input will remain ineffective.
The willingness of Montenegro to become a fully independent state is an
even more urgent issue in the region.
2.
A long-prepared geopolitical shift occurred in December after the
decisions of the EU Council of Interior and justice ministers to include
Bulgaria and Romania in the "white list" of countries for visa
arrangements and the adoption of the Treaty of Nice.
Five countries from the region – Greece, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Hungary,
and Romania, of which Greece is
already an EU member – have received clear promises of their voting power in
the EU Council and what number of seats they will have in the European
parliament once they conclude their accession negotiations to the EU.
This decision of the Nice EU summit was a clear implementation of an
unnamed strategy of "differentiated accession" by the EU to the
countries from Southeastern Europe.
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EDITORIAL STAFF: |
CONTACT AND REFERENCE |
|
Dr. Plamen Pantev, Editor–in–Chief |
ISSN 1311 – 3240 |
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Dr. Tatiana Houbenova-Delissivkova |
Address: ISIS, 1618 Sofia, |
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Mr. Valeri Rachev, M. A. |
P. O. Box 231, Bulgaria |
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Dr. Sc. Venelin Tsachevsky |
Phone/Fax: ++(359 - 2-) 551 828 |
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Mr. Ivan Tsvetkov, M. A. |
E-Mail Address: isis@cserv.mgu.bg |
|
Dr. Dinko Dinkov |
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|
Dr. Todor Tagarev |
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