“The fact that the West has not confronted Serbian President (Aleksandar) Vucic over this open interference in neighbors – especially BiH, Montenegro, and Kosovo – radiated weakness. There seems a deluded hope of not “losing Serbia” – but just feeds Vucic’s geopolitical arbitrage model. I have to say that (Albanian) Prime Minister Edi Rama has effectively assisted Vucic by arguing that Serbia should not be cornered; his echoing of Vucic’s messaging about relations among peoples, as opposed to states, is also distinctly unhelpful.  So long as Srpski Svet lives, Rama’s joint pursuit with Vucic of “Open Balkans” is stuck.”

This comment was made by Dr. Kurt Bassuener who is a co-founder and senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council, a Berlin-based think-tank established in 2005, in an exclusive interview with Albanian Daily News.

Dr. Bassuener received his PhD in 2021 from the University of St. Andrews’ Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, after successfully defending his dissertation, “Peace Cartels: Internationally Brokered Power-Sharing and Perpetual Oligarchy in Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia.”

He is co-author of the collected volume Sell Out, Tune Out, Get Out, or Freak Out? Understanding Corruption, State Capture, Radicalization, Pacification, Resilience, and Emigration in Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, a collaborative project of DPC and Eurothink, supported by USAID. He is also co-author and research director for the Diplomat’s Handbook for Democracy Development Support, a project of the Community of Democracies. Prior to studying at St. Andrews, he lived for eleven years in Sarajevo, starting in 2005 as a strategist for then-High Representative Paddy Ashdown.

Asked by ADN if Russian President Vladimir Putin will succeed in changing European borders by force, Dr. Bassuener did not believe that Russia will achieve the fait accompli that President Putin aimed for. “In fact, I think that the gain of Crimea in 2014 is now anything but secure, given the disarray evident in Russia’s conventional military performance.”

According to him, the challenges to EU cohesion are largely congruent with the challenge posed by illiberal governments in member states.  It is hardly coincidental that Putin’s closest relationship with an EU member state is with Viktor Orban’s avowedly illiberal Hungary, which crowed about its arrangement with Gazprom to ensure 'energy security'. “Budapest has been an outlier on Ukraine – and it also plays a pernicious role in the Balkans.  So the confrontation that needs to happen within the EU’s ranks is on those governments which deviate from the Union’s founding democratic values.  Putin’s war increases the pressure to finally have this confrontation; the question is who will lead it?” 

Asked about the perspective of the EU enlargement towards the Western Balkans, Dr. Bassuener was of the opinion that the process needs a fundamental rethink – and a recommitment to first principles and democratic values.

In a comment on the Open Balkans initiative, he stressed it’s incredibly short-sighted for the US to be supportive of this Vucic-Rama effort while letting Srpski Svet go – I would argue that Washington should tell Belgrade, publicly, that it has to choose.  

Touching upon the Berlin Process, Dr. Bassuener thought that the initiative needs a rethink as well – and he hoped that the new German government would do so.  

“Chancellor Scholz’s clarity that Serbia will need to recognize Kosovo’s independence in its current borders was refreshing.  That ought to be the baseline for any regional cooperation,” he pointed out.     

“In the Western Balkans, the policy posture of the US and EU is effectively the same as it was on February 23rd.  That needs to change,” said Dr. Kurt Bassuener, co-founder and senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council in the following interview:

Albanian Daily News: First of all, let me extend ADN’s gratitude to you for sharing with its readers opinions on certain issues that trouble Europe, the Western Balkans and the world in general after the Russian aggression against Ukraine. As it is the first interview with you, please, Dr. Bassuener, would you be so kind as to say a few words on your professional career and main interests? 

Dr. Kurt Bassuener:  Thank you very much for the invitation! I have been a policy analyst and advocate, mainly focused on the Western Balkans, but also engaged on issues of democracy and support for human dignity and justice, for 25 years now. 

The wars in former Yugoslavia – and particularly Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) – were animating for me.  I saw the lack of unified Western response as a huge moral failure at the time.  I still do – but now see that the regression into for-profit tribalism here was a forerunner of the disease we can see in the West, not an anomaly, as many of us self-consolingly saw it at the time.... I have recently returned to live in Sarajevo (where I lived 2005-2016) after being five years in Scotland to pursue and complete my PhD on BiH and North Macedonia's “peace cartels” – agglomerations of political and economic power established in conflict and locked into power in internationally brokered power-sharing deals.  Licensed oligarchies, essentially, with a veneer of democracy.  

 - Dr. Bassuener it is the 9th month of the Ukraine war. What has Putin’s aggression against a European country shown and, according to you, will Russia succeed in changing the European borders by force and how risky might such a disaster be for Europe in whose heart two world wars started? 

-  I have to say that I am much more confident that “this aggression will not stand,” given the Ukrainian forces demonstrated ability to retake and hold ground in the past month and the increasing material and moral support given them by the West. Nothing is certain, of course, but I believe that that resolve will be maintained through the winter. So I do not believe that Russia will achieve the fait accompli that President Putin aimed for.  In fact, I think that the gain of Crimea in 2014 is now anything but secure, given the disarray evident in Russia’s conventional military performance.

- Both the US and the EU are supporting the brave resistance of the Ukrainian people by all means, including sanctions on Russia and militarily. Two questions: with winter coming do you think that the energy crisis will become a harder burden for the EU member countries and secondly, is the reluctance of a few member countries regarding the sanctions on Russia a sign putting in question the cohesion of the Union?

- Here, too, I think Russia has overplayed its hand and made it more difficult for EU member states to openly break ranks, even with the difficulties faced this winter. The explosions in the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines, in addition to putting them out of commission likely forever (https://carnegieendowment.org/politika/88062), have put paid to any residual faith in Russia as an energy exporter.  The EU built up its gas reserves more quickly than scheduled. There will be pain this winter – but Putin’s invasion and likely ordering of sabotage to the pipelines ought to serve as an accelerant to not only energy supply transitions, but energy source and conservation transitions.  This has long been a goal of Germany’s Green Party, now in government.

The challenges to EU cohesion are largely congruent with the challenge posed by illiberal governments in member states. It is hardly coincidental that Putin’s closest relationship with an EU member state is with Viktor Orban’s avowedly illiberal Hungary, which crowed about its arrangement with Gazprom to ensure “energy security.” Budapest has been an outlier on Ukraine – and it also plays a pernicious role in the Balkans. So the confrontation that needs to happen within the EU’s ranks is on those governments which deviate from the Union’s founding democratic values. Putin’s war increases the pressure to finally have this confrontation; the question is who will lead it? 

- As the EU countries are the main military supporters of Ukraine, what do you think about suppositions that the Union is in fact at war with Russia?

- I would argue that the main supporter of Ukraine is the US – and the UK, to a disproportionate extent. But the EU has given significant and increasing support to Kyïv. The Baltic states, Poland, Slovakia and Czechia have distinguished themselves in this regard. But even countries which had been slower to respond, like Germany, are now ponying up significantly.

The EU is certainly in a hostile relationship with Russia, which is a direct threat to the Union and recognized as an aggressor state. The EU is not in direct hostilities with Russia, but it is as engaged in the Ukrainian war effort as the US was in 1940 in Lend-Lease with Britain, when it alone was fighting Nazi Germany. There is always the danger that Moscow may choose to strike supply lines in EU (and NATO) members. But this escalation would be a desperate act which would have to elicit a withering and commensurate response.

- Dr. Bassuener, I do not want to be pessimistic but given the unstable situation in the Western Balkans with ongoing conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo-Serbia, problematic state of affairs in Montenegro and North Macedonia, how much is the region, also known as the ‘powder keg’ of Europe, threatened to become another hotspot in the continent? Everybody sees with rising concern the special relationship between Russia and Serbia, which does not give up its platform of creating the ‘Serbian World’. 

- I am an enraged optimist about the Western Balkans, if that is possible. The trajectory is indeed negative, as you relate. The perversity of this is that the democratic West – if it is united – is more empowered to prevent negative developments, as well as to facilitate and support positive ones, in the Western Balkans than anywhere on Earth. This is particularly true in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where indeed there are executive instruments in the Office of the High Representative and the EU’s (underpowered) deterrent force, EUFOR (which is backed by NATO through Berlin-plus arrangements).  So the fact that we let national irridentisms from Serbia – and Croatia – define our policy is self-defeating and corrosive. As you note, Srpski Svet is a conscious mirror image of Russkiy Mir – the neo-imperial ideology with which Putin justifies his war against Ukraine. The fact that the West has not confronted Serbian President Vucic over this open interference in neighbors – especially BiH, Montenegro, and Kosovo – radiated weakness. There seems a deluded hope of not “losing Serbia” – but just feeds Vucic’s geopolitical arbitrage model. I have to say that Prime Minister Edi Rama has effectively assisted Vucic by arguing that Serbia should not be cornered; his echoing of Vucic’s messaging about relations among peoples, as opposed to states, is also distinctly unhelpful. So long as Srpski Svet lives, Rama’s joint pursuit with Vucic of “Open Balkans” is stuck. The countries on Serbia’s menu are those most reluctant to engage, seeing Open Balkans as the smiley face on a Serbian-Albanian (and, by implication, Croatian) co-prosperity sphere (https://www.justsecurity.org/79176/us-focus-on-open-balkan-economic-project-risks-open-season-instead/).

- Wouldn’t Europe be safer if the integration process of the WB countries in the EU is given more impetus? Is the lack of enthusiasm of some member countries towards enlargement a miscalculation, especially against the background of war hysteria coming from Russia’s Putin who threatens to use nuclear weapons? And do you think he might undertake such an adventure?

- The EU enlargement process needs a fundamental rethink – and a recommitment to first principles and democratic values. The EU missed an opportunity to confront its failing policy in June, when it (rightly) offered candidacy to Ukraine and Moldova (https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/87423). For far too long, the EU presumed simply the open door would impel genuine reform and progress in the Western Balkans – and then shifted not only into a transactional gear (as opposed to centering democratic values and rule of law), but effectively collaborating with local leaders to fake progress. Commission delegations throughout the region have led this, but member states effectively subcontracted to them. The true exponents of human dignity and progress in the societies of the region have effectively been sidelined in favor of collaborating with those who clearly do not share the democratic world’s values. This is particularly jarring now, when the West is (finally) speaking in those terms in support of Ukraine’s defense.

Regarding nuclear weapons…  I am no more clairvoyant than the next observer. I have strong doubts that Putin would employ nuclear weapons in this war. That would entail an escalation that would almost certainly end his regime – and he continues to demonstrate a strong survival instinct. But inevitably, that’s armchair psychology on my part.

- Dr. Bassuener, Albania, Serbia, and North Macedonia are involved in the ‘Open Balkans’ initiative, which has not been joined by the three other regional countries. Kosovo particularly sees it as an initiative launched by Serbia to support its ambitions of ‘Greater Serbia’/ ‘Serbian World’. In the meantime all WB countries are involved in the ‘Berlin Process’. Do you think that this is a situation of ‘Open Balkans’ versus ‘Berlin Process’, and will the latter regain its energy? 

  - I addressed my deep misgivings about the Open Balkans earlier. It’s incredibly short-sighted for the US to be supportive of this Vucic-Rama effort while letting Srpski Svet go – I would argue that Washington should tell Belgrade, publicly, that it has to choose.  There is nothing objectionable about the pursuit of economic and social integration in the Western Balkans – for 5 of the 6 countries in question that would really constitute re-integration. But the terms and presumptions matter. The Berlin Process needs a rethink as well – and I hope that the new German government will do so. Chancellor Scholz’s clarity that Serbia will need to recognize Kosovo’s independence in its current borders was refreshing. That ought to be the baseline for any regional cooperation.

  - To conclude Dr. Bassuener, do you think that the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the formal annexation of its lands, which adds to many other conflicts in different parts of the world, will lead to a change of world order and the creation of new alliances?  

- If Russia succeeds, it will indeed upend the post-Cold War (and indeed postwar) order. That is why it is essential that Russia fail – and be SEEN to fail. Already, Putin’s impetuous move has complicated relations with China – a crucial partner for Russia. Putin’s uncomfortable acknowledgement of Beijing’s concerns (which were inaudible to us) at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization conference last month demonstrated this. 

I am hoping that Russia’s aggression will reinvigorate NATO, the EU, and the wider ties among democracies. It seems to have happened thus far. But this has yet to be represented in any strategic recalibration toward the world in favor of democratic values. In the Western Balkans, the policy posture of the US and EU is effectively the same as it was on February 23rd. That needs to change.