Good winds blowing from the Balkans

If we were to read it from a “Balkanic” angle, Croatian citizens’ “yes vote” to EU accession cast past Sunday, might appear contradictory. It fact, the outcome of the vote simultaneously confirmed Zagreb’s yearning to drift apart and Brussels’ desire to draw close to the Balkans, which Western Chancelleries consider strategic for the future of the Old Continent. However, it is a seemingly true contradiction. In fact, it bears evidence of a reality whereby complexity has always been the most prominent feature. “Recovering” the countries that were born of the breaking-up of ex Yugoslavia twenty years ago within European borders has been a priority of the EU since the onset, which the most optimistic commentators hoped would be achieved by 2014; a symbolical date marking the anniversary of the outbreak of World War One, when the fire ‘sparked off’ from Sarajevo was doomed to affect the destinies of entire populations.The “yes vote” cast in the national referendum, affixing the last, necessary seal to Croatia’s EU adhesion on July 1st 2013, has taken on a special significance, as it comes at a time when the EU is seeking a new identity, coupled by the commitment to overcome divisions and personalisms, which the multifaceted approache to the ongoing crisis violently brought to the fore. Adding on to this, an encouragement to Europe to go “beyond” arrived from the Balkans, prompting the rediscovery of that very spirit underlying its creation in the 1950s, thanks to an intuitive referendum, and to the prophetic vision of those statesmen who had understood that peace and economic stability would be ensured only with a united Europe.The Croatian vote could therefore represent a springboard for other Countries in the area, whose negotiations with Brussels proceed at different speeds. Serbia, despite the skepticism and the opposition of German Chancellor Merkel, stepped up its pace along the path of EU adhesion, notably by sending war criminals to The Hague tribunal. But slowdowns in the negotiations are caused by the Kosovo question. In recent months, the timid openings of Belgrade towards the government in Pristine were met by the violent demonstrations of Serbian minorities in bordering areas. Bosnia – Herzegovina, planned beforehand with the Dayton Agreements, lacking its very own identity, is still seeking a balance between its various ethnical components: the coexistence of Serbs, Croatians and Muslims is based on the presence of international bodies; although nobody can say what the future of the Country will be like.The small state of Montenegro has good “European” chances, while in the case of Macedonia, Athens’ “no” remains an insurmountable obstacle: Greece doesn’t accept the State’s name, and claims exclusiveness for an area of its own territory. As relates to Albania, the possibility of EU accession is still a far-fetched idea, as in the above-mentioned case of Kosovo. From July 1st of the coming year, the EU will expand across the heart of the Balkans, extending its Southeast borders with Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia. And then, only one hundred kilometers will separate Croatia’s border from Belgrade.