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Ten years after the Dayton Peace Accords, the Balkans are still mired by a unresolved past. At this critical stage in their evolution, old wounds will have to be revisited so that they may be salved and healed. Deliberations on the final status of Kosovo are underway and the forthcoming referendum on 21 May in Montenegro to determine the future of the Serbia-Montenegro union will be determinative for the future of the region. The death of Slobodan Milosevic, the ongoing pursuit of suspected war criminals and their prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (Icty) have heightened the need to finally bring some kind of closure to the region’s turbulent history. Finding a structurally just formula that recognises, respects and is accepted by the region’s different ethnic communities will be an intricate, laborious and delicate challenge. Yet it is one that cannot be avoided, particularly if all of the Balkan states are to eventually take their place within the Eu. With Bulgaria and Romania set to join the Eu in 2007 and the confirmation of candidate status to Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (Fyrom) in 2005, vast discrepancies in the region’s overall progress can be observed. At a recent meeting of Eu foreign ministers (10/11 March), the commitments made at the 2003 Thessaloniki European Council that the Balkans’ future lies in the Eu were re-affirmed. Yet the language of this commitment is more nuanced than that expressed in 2003. So-called ‘enlargement fatigue’ and the Union’s limited absorption capacity without new institutional structures means that realistically, for the majority of the Balkan states, Eu membership will not take place for at least another decade. The capacity of Eu membership for fertilising democracy and reconciliation across Europe is tried and tested. However given the unique and continually volatile situation in the Balkans it is clear that much more is needed than the incentive of Eu membership to stabilise and consolidate the region. The Eu project itself is presently experiencing the consequences of failing to engender an emotional attachment from a wide swath of its citizens. As the Balkans grapples with this decisive stage in its development not only the minds but the also the hearts of the Balkans’ people must be assuaged. Only then can reconciliation and respect be appreciated as tools to profit every ethnic community as the foundations for building a safer and interdependent future. The Eu is encouraging the creation of a regional free trade area based on Cefta – the Central European Free Trade Area – as part of a wider attempt to foster regional co-operation. This kind of proposal should indeed be welcomed. Yet it should be noted that political and economic will alone is not enough to stave off a resurgence in ethnic and religious tensions on the ground. Here the Churches and religious communities, already of course active, need to sustain their efforts. The local Churches in other regions of Europe also need to intensify their support for the Churches in the region so as to enable the peoples of the Balkans to be the creative masters of their own future.
