Foreign Policy In Focus

As Washington does with Beijing and Taipei, Serbia practices strategic ambiguity with Kosovo.

Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and observing its transformations since 1989.

Serbia this week adopted new guidelines for its talks with Kosovo. As usual, the Serbian parliament declared that it would never recognize the independence of the breakaway region. This was not a surprise. But the parliament also called for more autonomy for ethnic Serbians living in Kosovo.

On the face of it, this latter statement seems of a piece with the refusal to recognize Kosovo’s independence. But it is actually quite the opposite, for it implies two things. First, Serbia no longer harbors any hopes of asserting direct control over Kosovo. Second, the guidelines indirectly recognize Pristina’s sovereignty over the entire region of Kosovo. This acknowledgment runs counter to the hitherto popular “partition option” that would turn Kosovo into a kind of Korean peninsula, with a DMZ between the ethnic Albanian majority and the Serbian enclaves in the north.

This is a very delicate balance. The nationalist government currently in place in Belgrade does not want to go down in history for “selling out” Kosovo Serbs. On the other hand, they also don’t want to go down in history for blowing Serbia’s chance to join the European Union. Caught between unhappy bureaucrats in Brussels and unhappy compatriots in northern Kosovo, the Belgrade politicians are relying on a good deal of finesse: negotiating that which must be negotiated while kicking the rest down the road. Call it the Serbian version of “strategic ambiguity,” the same kind of opacity that has allowed Washington to maintain relations with both Beijing and Taipei.

The European Union, too, is involved in a difficult game. Brussels knows that having half the Balkans inside the EU and half outside is not a tenable situation. On the other hand, the EU is struggling with an economic crisis, and there isn’t a great deal of enthusiasm for further expansion after Croatia enters this summer. In fact, according to the head of Serbia’s EU Integration Office, there won’t be any new entrants in the next six to eight years, with the possible exception of Iceland. So, Serbia has to be both realistic about its chances and flexible in its conduct.

But for many in Serbia, the real question about EU integration is not the relationship with Pristina but what kind of state Serbia wants to be. Back in October, I talked with Srdjan Majstorovic, the deputy director of the EU Integration Office, about this issue.

“The European integration process for Serbia is, in a sense, a state-building process,” he explained, “not in the sense of building a Serbian state, which has existed for centuries, but in the sense of creating modern democratic institutions based on the rule of law that can sustain serious political pressure and threat within a democratic institutional setting. For that, we need to continue the EU integration process, because it is the most important transformative power tool in this region, and not only in Serbia. Our primary goal is to strengthen democratic institutions and make them capable of sustaining heavy and difficult political pressures. Only then can we hope for the sustainable resolution of still pending issues and the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina.”

What’s quite surprising about all this is the level of support in Serbian society for the EU path – despite the length of the accession process, the entrance requirements that the EU has demanded, and the less appealing prospects for EU members given the current financial crisis. Not only has the level of support in Serbian society for EU accession remained at around 50 percent, but the pro-EU faction in the Serbian parliament has now reached 90 percent. And, Majstorovic points out, most Serbians want to pursue internal reforms regardless of EU accession.

The question remains: how much “strategic ambiguity” will Brussels and Kosovo tolerate, and for how long?

The Interview

When you look at the next couple years, how do you evaluate the prospects for Serbia? 

I would put myself in the position of a cautious optimist: 6. That’s cautious enough, since the prospect is not rosy, I’m afraid. I’m not referring to political stability, but rather that Serbia and the rest of the region are facing serious economic and social challenges to which the governments should pay particular attention. Since we are already integrated into broader European, even global, economic processes, everything that happens in the EU has a direct impact on the economies in the region. In such an environment, it’s very difficult for the governments to be persistent in reforming societies, which on the other hand is a necessity. These challenges can spill over into the political sphere and into the perception of the stability of the region as well and produce a downward spiral when it comes to the eagerness of foreign investors to invest in this part of Europe. In such a complex situation, we are facing the risks of increasing political populism.

And that’s something that we must avoid if we want to stay firmly on the European integration path and reform our society. Because the reforms are necessary. The EU itself provides a model that is accepted in the majority of European countries and at the same time provides technical and financial support along with the introduction of those reforms. And that’s why the transformative power of the EU integration process itself, regardless of current crises within the EU, is so important for the stability of Serbia and the region.

Do you remember where you were and what you were thinking when you heard about the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I was a teenager. I sensed that this was something huge, a game-changer, if you will. At that time, former Yugoslavia was starting to feel that something is changing on the European continent. This period when big changes were happening left a considerable trace on my political views: stepping out of the one-party political system and into a pluralist political system based on democratic institutions and the respect for human rights and rule of law. That’s something that made a mark on one’s political ideas for life. It was a cornerstone event for my generation.

For my father’s generation, it was a bit different. He belongs to the post-World War II generation, and he felt that the event was a serious blow to the identity of the generation brought up in the era of a one-party system when the state played a large role in the everyday life of the individual. What followed after the fall of the Berlin Wall was something that his generation was not prepared for.

Unfortunately, the political elite in former Yugoslavia was not prepared for the paradigm change marked by the fall of the Wall. Instead of choosing democratization path and economic transition in the process of wider European integration, we took a dive into nationalist frenzy and an overall disintegration of society marked by wars and ethnic hatred.

There’s a perception that the current Serbian government has adopted a go-slow attitude toward European integration compared to the previous government. Would you agree with that?

I think it’s still early to say whether this is true or not. It’s still not the full 100 days of this government to assess properly what the dynamism of the EU reforms in Serbia will be. What is obvious is that the prime minister himself, as well as the first deputy prime minister and the deputy minister for EU integration, are all firm that the EU integration process is a primary goal of this government. I would stick to that and suggest holding them accountable to produce tangible results. But perhaps it is too early to assess what the dynamism of the process will be.

Mind you, this dynamism is not solely based on internal social, political and economic conditions. There is an external factor as well. Unfortunately, what’s happening inside the EU and its economy is influencing not only European-wide political debate, it’s also spilling over into the internal political debate here in Serbia. There are those saying, “Do you see what is happening inside the EU? Are we going to rush in or are we going to prepare ourselves better?”

Although political and economic issues are playing the most influential part our relations with the EU at this moment, we shouldn’t neglect reforms that are necessary to undertake in the process of EU accession. They need to be implemented no matter the tempo of our EU integration process. The important thing is that the government does not lose its goal, which is the EU integration process. Then, in open dialogue with the EU and the European Commission, we can agree on the tempo of the EU accession process, respecting the objective circumstances on both sides. But this tempo of the EU accession process should not affect in any way the internal reforms, which need to be undertaken if Serbia wants to be recognized as a successful, democratic, and modern European state.

In the media, it was presented as an expectation on the part of this government, or this government and previous government, that the discussion of EU integration and Kosovo would proceed in parallel. But in some sense, the two have collided. EU accession, it seems, has been made contingent on an acknowledgement or recognition of the independence of Kosovo. Is this the case? If so, how to resolve this?

First of all, it’s very difficult to ask Serbia to recognize something that five other EU states don’t recognize, namely Kosovo’s independence. The European integration process for Serbia is, in a sense, a state-building process: not in the sense of building a Serbian state, which has existed for centuries, but in the sense of creating modern democratic institutions based on the rule of law that can sustain serious political pressure and threat within a democratic institutional setting. For that, we need to continue the EU integration process, because it is the most important transformative power tool in this region, and not only in Serbia. Our primary goal is to strengthen democratic institutions and make them capable of sustaining heavy and difficult political pressures. Only then can we hope for the sustainable resolution of still pending issues and the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina.

The reality in Kosovo is rather complex. Institutions in Kosovo are ruling this administrative area. Serbia still relies on UNSC Resolution 1244 and deems the same area as being UN administrated. The reality is that Serbia does not have the instruments to rule the territory that is, in accordance with its constitution, part of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Serbia. Nor do Kosovo institutions, which declared independence in 2008, have the instruments to rule the northern part of Kosovo populated by Serbs. So, this is a potential jumping off point for negotiations between the two sides, and there is room here for some future compromise. Both sides can agree to disagree and explore possibilities to find some way out of the deadlock, which has grave consequences on the everyday life of people living in this area.

We need a compromise, because otherwise this situation can breed very bad sentiments on both sides and become a destabilizing factor. In this volatile social and economic situation, it can produce very negative effects. There is 45 percent unemployment in Kosovo, 90 percent of which are young people. This is a social time bomb. The situation in Serbia is just a bit better, with 25 percent unemployment and 80 percent being young people. If not offered a peaceful and constructive alternative, these young people could become susceptible to populism and nationalism and other volatile ideas and ideologies.

We are now eagerly waiting to see what the platform will be for the negotiations between the two sides. The president has been saying that he would like to see this platform adopted by the parliament as well and have full democratic legitimacy to negotiate with Pristina. Then obviously the next stage would be some kind of agreement between the two sides, which will be a crucial historic moment for the start of the process of reconciliation.

We’re speaking today at the same time we are commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of the Balkan wars, when the Balkan nations fought against Turkey. There is a lot of history in this region, as Churchill put it, perhaps too much to absorb. Such an amount of history, combined with economic and social difficulties and a lack of European perspective, can be easily misused as a legitimizing factor for some dangerous political ideas.

It sounds like the compromise would simply be maintaining more-or-less parallel discussions on integration and reconciliation.

It’s time to behave in a European way. It is necessary to engage everyone in the region in the European integration process. And on the parallel track, it is necessary to find some sustainable resolution of the Kosovo issue. But if you put this issue as a condition too early in the process, you’re just risking a prolongation of the EU integration process and the process of reforming these countries. It might provoke certain nationalistic ideas, which rise much faster in a volatile economic and social environment.

Obviously, as we draw closer to the end of EU accession negotiations, this condition will become more present and visible. But at that stage, democratic institutions and processes and actors will become capable of sustaining political pressure. 

In the last week [October 2012], as if this issue weren’t enough to deal with, there was the cancellation of the Pride march here in Belgrade and at least one EU representative saying that this was unacceptable from the standpoint of EU principles. What was your reaction to that?

I was disappointed as a citizen of Serbia. I strongly believe in human rights and liberties. And if a certain right is protected by the constitution of this country, then the state should make it possible for each and every minority to express themselves freely. If we believe in the rule of law, if we believe in freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, the march should have been allowed.

But the government decided that there was a serious security risk for participants and cancelled it. It sent the wrong message, especially to those hooligans, extremists basically, who were threatening the participants of that parade. That’s not the way to fight intolerance and discrimination. Obviously there’s a lot to be done in order to raise awareness among citizens concerning the rights of especially sexual minorities and to improve the overall climate in society regarding the tolerance of those who are different. To be fair, this year’s Pride week was marked by a couple of exhibitions and public events that took place, and these should be considered a small, a very small, but still important contribution to similar events in the future.

Many Bulgarians said to me that the EU brought Bulgaria on board too quickly and missed an opportunity to use accession as leverage to push more reforms through Bulgaria. How do you feel about using EU accession as a tool?

It’s a very useful tool if you implement it properly. I’m glad that you got a realistic picture in Bulgaria. Because Romania and Bulgaria are good examples of how things should not be done. I’m not saying that Serbia would become an EU member state tomorrow. In that sense, we are aware of the lengthiness of the process ahead. But what is important is to start accession talks as soon as possible. Because each and every one of the 35 chapters that we are negotiating basically screens our capability to adopt or not the EU acquis. It provides an objective picture of your own capacities to advance. If done properly, then yes, accession is a perfect tool to improve a country’s position. But still, the accession process is just an opportunity. Success depends on the candidate’s readiness to accept the values and implement the standards of the EU.

Sometimes there’s a lack of understanding that accession is a two-sided process: political and normative. These have to go hand in hand as well and, the process is successful only when both parts are taken seriously and complement one another. There have been a couple of examples of countries acceding to the EU on the merit of a political decision rather than the fulfillment of technical criteria, which proved to have grave, long-term consequences. If a candidate does it properly, yes, EU accession is a very useful tool. But obviously you need to have first of all, political willingness within the country to engage in sometimes very difficult and serious reforms.

Second, there needs to be fully fledged dedication and administrative capacity to negotiate and properly implement all the required technical standards and rules. And then, there should be clear political will, or vision if you wish, on the EU side as well that this process needs to start as early as possible and that this process will lead to the actual accession of candidate countries to the EU. The problem is that the EU today lacks the vision and self-confidence that its appeal still has sufficient transformative power to make aspiring candidates engage in the necessary reforms.

What will be the most difficult chapters for Serbia to undertake?

This is not secret. It will be like the cases of Romania and Bulgaria. There’s judiciary and fundamental rights on the one hand, and issues related to internal affairs on the other: justice, freedom, and security. Those are going to be crucial. The quality of reforms performed in those two areas influences the quality of the overall transformation and success in the EU integration process.

Based on that, the European Commission has begun to use a new methodology in the accession talks, prioritizing these two chapters (23 and 24). This is to avoid the same mistakes that the EU made in previous waves of enlargement. The new methodology implies that, after the screening process, a new series of benchmarks will need to be fulfilled before negotiations on a particular chapter are opened. Depending on the success achieved in these two chapters, the country will move deeper into accession negotiations. If a candidate gets stuck in these fundamental chapters, it will not be able to proceed to the other chapters. This is a new system of checks and balances to assess the readiness of candidate countries regarding the importance and acceptance of the rule of law as a major EU accession condition.

Apart from those two areas, the chapters on agriculture and environment are traditionally very challenging, because these are very large and expensive chapters to negotiate and implement. And the majority of the European acquis is based in these two areas.

Another question that will determine the complexity of our accession process is what the EU will look like in the future. Even more important, what will the EU look like when Serbia is ready to join the EU? Based on the complexity of the current economic and financial situation in the EU, we can say that issues of financial prudence will be very important for the future accession candidates.

Decentralization has been a challenge for Turkey, and some people oppose decentralization there arguing that the country will fall apart if too much autonomy is given to the regions. A debate is also taking place here in Serbia over decentralization, around the issue of Vojvodina. At the same time, centralization is intensifying in Serbia, with so many people moving to Belgrade and some villages in the countryside disappearing. How do you think this debate will play into EU accession?

There is no special request coming from the EU with regard to decentralization. As you know, in the EU this particular topic is left to the competence of the member states with respect to their own tradition when it comes to the territorial division of governance. Thus, there are federal countries, regionalized countries, countries in the process of devolution and traditionally centralized countries. When I was a student, I argued that the Spanish model of autonomous provinces, for example, would have been a good model for addressing secessionist movements in former Yugoslavia, especially in the case of Kosovo back in the 1990s.

According to the constitution of the Republic of Serbia, Vojvodina and Kosovo are two autonomous provinces and as such they do have additional administrative competences. The EU doesn’t have standards on this particular issue. The EU is interested and is following developments in this particular area strictly in terms of respecting the rule of law and respecting the existing competences of the autonomous province. The recent decision of the Constitutional Court on the income of Vojvodina is going to be acknowledged in the forthcoming progress report due to be published shortly, and the two governments (the central and the autonomous province’s) will have to acknowledge that this issue should be addressed and resolved.

The second important issue with regard to decentralization and regionalization in the EU accession process has to do with development aid and policy within the EU. With regard to that, Serbia adopted a law on the statistical regions of Serbia. These are just development regions that basically gave us the opportunity to accumulate statistical data in those regions in order to draw development data and assessments. It is necessary to produce this regional statistical data in order to draw all potential development assistance in different parts of Serbia. The EU structural funds are based on the logic of supporting depopulated areas or areas facing structural problems such as industries moving out or the need for rural development. Obviously the EU integration process will have more impact, of necessity, on improving the capacities of local self-governments (municipalities) and statistical devolution rather than governance devolution.

However, there is a political party in Serbia campaigning on the issue of regionalization. So, these statistical regions could become something more than just statistical gathering areas in the future. But that’s still not a part of the political debate. And if all relevant stakeholders accept this idea the process of decentralization will have to be transparent and based on the widest possible social consensus that respects the numerous regional specificities of Serbia’s multiethnic society.

Every time I ask people here about their impression of the EU, people who are not working on this issue, they turn it around and ask me when I think Serbia will become part of the EU. And I say, “I don’t really know.” I guess there are two scenarios. In the first, accession goes relatively smoothly, with an emphasis on “relative”: the accession talks continue and Serbia enters in ten years or so. The second is the Turkey option. Turkey has been in accession discussions for something like three decades. This is obviously not just a technical question. There’s considerable political opposition in some capitals in Europe. I’m curious what you think in terms of Serbia’s timeline.

I believe Serbia can finish EU accession negotiations in five years, once they start. Perhaps an additional two years will be needed to ratify the Accession Treaty in the EU Member States. But that doesn’t mean that those five/seven years will start from now. It obviously depends on how the Kosovo dialogue ends up. It will depend on the readiness not only of the incumbent government but future governments as well to engage in sometimes very crucial, difficult, and unpleasant reforms: reform of the labor market and the pension system, to name just a few. So, if we draw the parallel between Serbia and Croatia’s EU accession process we can say that Serbia should be able to at least finish the accession negotiations if not join the EU by the end of the next financial perspective period, 2014-2020.

It will also depend on the future of the EU itself. But I don’t have a crystal ball and can’t predict how long it will take for the EU to resolve its internal issues. What is necessary is that there should be a proper political vision with regard to the broader picture of what the EU should look like in the next ten or twenty years. The accession process for the Western Balkans, not only Serbia, should be speeded up, and it should go hand in hand with a deepening of the integration of the EU Member States. That should be a sign of the clear vision, the strength, and the still existing appeal of the EU enlargement policy. Otherwise, it’s going to be even more difficult to cope with transition fatigue in candidate countries and more challenging to motivate political elites to remain dedicated to necessary reforms. 

How robust is Serbian support for EU accession. We often see fluctuations in public opinion around this issue, related to economic issues or Kosovo. How large a core group of people will support EU accession no matter what?

We’ve been conducting public polls ever since 2002. You can check them out on our website. We are conducting them in line with Eurobarometer methodology, and they say that 49 percent of Serbian citizens would vote yes if a referendum on EU accession were to be held tomorrow. But this data fluctuates. In 2003, after the assassination of late Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, support was at its highest peak: 76 percent. If there is conditionality regarding Kosovo, support goes down in that particular period. If candidate status is about to be awarded, support goes up. So one can say that public opinion depends on the major paradigm that best describes the major issue in the current relationship with the EU.

What is important for us, and what shows rather the rational side of the public when it comes to the EU accession process, is that when we ask citizens about reforms that we are introducing and implementing during the course of EU accession, there is huge support (68% of citizens support reforms regardless of the prospect of EU accession). Even with doubts surrounding the prospects for EU membership, citizens tend to be very rational on this issue. They are also rational on the Kosovo issue, because the public believes it should be resolved regardless of EU membership (61%). So this is an additional element of legitimacy for the political stakeholders to continue to engage both in reforms and dialogue with Pristina.

And then there is an additional way of measuring support when you look at the number of political parties that are currently part of the mainstream in the parliament. Some 90 percent of those political parties sitting in the parliament belong to the faction of EU accession supporters.

That’s a change!

That’s a dramatic change. The best way to explore the transformative power of EU accession is to go back to 2008 when we signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement with EU and there was a debate in parliament about whether to ratify the agreement or not. That was the tipping point when the former Radical Party split. That was the game changer when it came to a political consensus on EU integration for Serbia.

So, the political consensus exists. But the social consensus needs to be strengthened. And that can be done only with the proper communication with the citizens, to explain what exactly the EU means today, what accession will bring to the citizens of this country, and how these reforms are necessary if we want to be a well-regulated and modern European society.

Belgrade, October 8, 2012

Daniel Bucan is not your usual run-of-the-mill Euroskeptic. He's a former diplomat whose last posting was in Strasbourg, at the Council of Europe.

Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and observing its transformations since 1989.

In order to get into the European Union, Croatia needs the support of each one of the current 27 members. So far, 20 countries have ratified Croatia’s EU accession treaty. As long as the other seven countries do the same, Croatia will become a member on July 1, 2013. In December, as a final sweetener, the EU added a final pre-accession allotment of nearly 50 million Euro – part of a package of nearly 1 billion Euro since 2007 – to help Croatia reach EU standards in various categories. Once Croatia enters the club, then it will have access to another pot of money, known as the Structural and Cohesion funds.

But this long-sought-after goal is by no means a done deal. In mid-December, Croatia’s sovereign debt dropped to junk bond level. The financial powers-that-be are not happy with the current Croatian government’s somewhat permissive approach to austerity. With unemployment at nearly 20 percent and the domestic economy contracting, the Social Democrats allowed the deficit to rise from 3 to 3.5 percent of GDP. This economic performance has contributed to assessments like that of the speaker of the German parliament, Norbert Lammert, who said in October that Croatia “isn’t ready for EU membership.” Germany has yet to ratify the accession treaty.

Still, a queasy economy won’t keep Croatia out of the EU; it will just put the country on par with other troubled members, like Romania and Greece.

Croatia’s long-simmering conflict with Slovenia, on the other hand, might prove to be more than a speed bump. The two countries have been haggling for years over Croatian savings in a defunct Slovenian bank. Slovenia wants Croatia to stop the lawsuits for the recovery of the money in the Croatian accounts in Ljubljanska Banka or else it might block entrance to the EU. It’s not a small sum: 172 million Euro. Croatia wants to settle the issue separately from accession.

Croatian support for accession remains high. A year ago, 66 percent of voters said yes to EU membership in a national referendum. But not everyone is enthusiastic.

“I don’t believe anymore in the European Union,” Daniel Bucan told me. “As soon as the EU tries to become a political union, it will end in a bad way. You cannot make a state out of Europe. Look at Yugoslavia, look at the Soviet Union, look at Czechoslovakia. Such multilingual, multicultural, multi-religious, multinational constructs are always kept together by force. When I say by force, I don’t necessarily mean by tyranny, but by any kind of power. The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia were kept together by the force of the Communist Party and communist dictatorship. The EU is kept together by the power of Germany and France. No one believes that the Czech Republic or Denmark for example has the same weight as Germany or France.”

Daniel Bucan is not your usual run-of-the-mill Euroskeptic. He’s a former diplomat whose last posting was in Strasbourg, at the Council of Europe. In other words, this is someone who is no stranger to European affairs.

I met Daniel Bucan 22 years ago when he was in the ministry of information in the newly formed government of Franjo Tudjman’s Croatian Democratic Union. Much of his skepticism about Yugoslavia has translated into skepticism of Europe. We also talked about the Croatian Spring, his conversations with Tudjman, and what it means to be a Croatian nationalist.

The Interview

Do you remember where you were when you heard about the fall of the Berlin Wall and what you were thinking?

I cannot remember exactly. The only thing I remember is seeing it on TV. But let me try to remember…I was for sure in Zagreb, probably at home. Anyhow, it was a historic moment as they say, and I felt like I was witnessing a historic moment. Actually, it didn’t come as a surprise to me, but probably everybody by then knew things were going to change. I mean, there was a process building up to this point. But still, although we might have been expecting those changes, the symbolic dimension of the event was like something you read in a good novel or book of poetry. And that’s how I felt for a moment seeing this.

Did you think at all about what impact it would have here?

Of course. Especially because things had practically already started here, with Milosevic and his party coup in Serbia, what was called in Serbian dogadjanje naroda, which means “the nation is happening.” And he was changing the political elite in Kosovo and Vojvodina. He was instigating these public meetings and political demonstrations all over former Yugoslavia, especially in Croatia. They were already pledging support in Serbia for Knin and other parts of Croatia. So, things here had already been started, and I could not think that the fall of the Wall couldn’t have an impact on what was going to happen here in Yugoslavia.

As a matter of fact, I felt that the problem might be the abrupt way it was happening. There was practically no transition. That was something I felt we should be afraid of. Unfortunately, knowing Milosevic’s political agenda — to consolidate all the republics and to make a unitary state out of Yugoslavia based on the principle of “one person, one vote” — I knew that things were not going to develop in a good way. At that time, the republics had so-called national defense units staffed not by the Yugoslav army but the citizens of the republics. That meant that there was a certain amount of weapons in each of the republics. At a certain point in Croatia, these weapons were withdrawn from the republic. It was a sign to expect the worst, which later on actually happened.

Where were you working in 1989?

I was with the radio, the so-called Third Program, that specialized in culture, art, science. I entered politics because, along with all my friends, we had been dissidents. One of them was a member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) and a friend of Franjo Tudjman. Milovan Šibl is his name: he was also a journalist at the radio. And then immediately after the elections, when he was nominated minister of information, he asked me whether I would become his vice minister. I was reluctant, I said: “I’m not a politician, I’m not a party member, I’m not…” And then he said, “But, you know, for decades we’ve been waiting every day for this to happen, and you shouldn’t give up now.” Finally he talked me into accepting it, and that’s how I entered politics.

But I never became a politician in terms of being a member of any party. For a short period of time, I was vice minister of information, and then I joined the president’s office. Tudjman chose a number of counselors and advisors, and I was one of them. Mario Nobilo and I took care of press conferences and so on. For a short period of time everyone was doing everything, and then Tudjman asked me one day: “What would you like to do? Would you like to remain in journalism?” And I said, “You know all my life I’ve been a man of culture. I know that it’s not such a moment to…” And he said, “No, it’s okay, it’s okay! I like to have you with me, and you can, if you want, be my advisor for cultural affairs.” So I spent two years with him there.

Then when the issue of appointing the first ambassador to Cairo was raised, he remembered that I was an Arabist and that I had some experience with the Arab world. And that’s how I entered diplomacy and remained until 2008, when I retired.

So you were in Egypt…

Egypt, and after that I was in Greece. And my third post was the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. I spent probably the best five years of my life in Egypt. It was tough at the beginning because I arrived there in 1993 when the war between Croats and Muslims in Bosnia had started, and I found all the doors closed to me. I couldn’t do anything. Not having any previous diplomatic experience, I was thinking that this was my fault. It took me some time to understand that the position of ambassador depends on the position of the country, rather than vice versa. I believed at first very naively that the position of the country depends on  how much the ambassador is capable. But things changed after the Washington agreement on ending the conflict between Croats and Muslims was signed , and there was a turnabout. All the doors opened to me.

I was personally very much interested in Egypt because I had been an Arabist, and I had a lot of opportunities to find books and things. Ancient Egypt was something I’d been interested in since I was a little boy. I was always imagining myself as an archeologist going down there… After that, four years in Greece was very important. While I was in Greece, Prime Minister Costas Simitis proposed to Croatian Prime Minister Ivica Racan that Croatia apply for candidacy for EU membership. So I participated in that process.

After that it was Strasbourg, which was a little bit disappointing. As I said, it took me some time to understand the position and role of ambassador in bilateral negotiations, but when I understood it, it was relatively easy. You have your country’s interests; the host country has its interests. If you can combine the two, then fine. If not, then, you know… I like this realistic aspect of bilateral relations. The Council of Europe is an organization based on values, on ideas. It’s a watchdog that sees how those ideas are being implemented in different countries in Europe. It was a disappointment because very soon I understood that this is only on paper. The principles are principles, but the practice is something else. There was a double standard regarding different countries. What Russia can afford to do, for instance, Hungary can’t afford to do, and so on

Actually, it wasn’t disappointing because by then I understood what politics is, and what international relations are. But it was difficult to be there every day sitting at the meetings and pretending that you don’t see these discrepancies. As a matter of fact, I very often pointed out such discrepancies, loudly… So anyhow, I didn’t like Strasbourg as a job, because it’s very difficult for me to say something I don’t believe in. I’m not good at it. Suddenly, I feel like I don’t have enough words to say or enough imagination to formulate the phrases.

So, I was actually looking forward to my retirement. As a matter of fact I had to ask for it. In Strasbourg you are busy from 8 in the morning until 6 in the evening, every day. There’s an ocean of meetings, and papers, and it’s not easy. And the Council of Europe is not important anymore. Even for us. It’s not a post that everybody grabs for, so they were keeping me there. If I didn’t write letters to the president, to the prime minister, maybe I’d still be there! I’m joking, of course, but that’s how I felt.

I would like to retire to freedom and live the life I would like to live in these few years that remain. For last 30 years I’ve been busy with medieval Arab philosophy. I’ve translated the books of the five or six most important Arab philosophers, including the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, who wrote his main philosophical work using the  Hebrew script, but in the Arab language. And I wrote – three books on medieval philosophy. So I wanted to get rid of all of my other obligations.

I want to go back to 1989. You were a journalist working at a radio station, and at that time, if I remember correctly, there was a big scandal around Mladina, the Slovenian newspaper, and press freedom was very important at that moment. I’m curious how that influenced your work as a journalist.

I was lucky having this job on the Third Program, which was in a way an oasis of relative freedom because we tackled exclusively scientific, cultural, and art matters. There was a little bit more freedom within the media not geared to the masses. But every now and then we felt some ridiculous pressures:  for example, whether we should use this or that word, whether it was a Croatian word or a Serbian word. It’s very difficult to understand for people who never experienced that part of life.

The choice of words was a very important issue during the Croatian Spring.

Yes, because language is one of the elements that constitutes the identity of a nation. Anyhow, the Mladina controversy was very much influencing not maybe the media but what was being talked about in cafes, in intellectual circles, and so on. Freedom is something that, once you get a little bit of it, you are not ready to go back. You only want to go forward and get even more freedom. There was no way to stop it. Yugoslavia wanted to be perceived as a socialist country, even a communist country, but one with freedoms: the freedom to say certain things and absolutely not say certain other things. As soon as you touched on those that couldn’t or shouldn’t be said, you had problems.

Was there a moment in your own personal life when you felt in your own mind that you were a dissident?

Of course. As a young guy, when I was 18, I became a member of the Communist Party. It was very attractive to young people, this belief that you are making history, that we are going to lead the world, and so on. I became a member of the party just before going to university. Then I came to Zagreb in 1965 after finishing my studies in Belgrade, and I found a job on radio. And there, I confronted what life really is. I understood that our society is completely different from what I thought before.

I always was very sensitive to language. That’s my talent, that’s why I’m a philologist. So, the first thing I discovered was that I was under enormous pressure not to use certain words and then, of course, not to write about certain subjects. Then I noticed that a majority of the leading people on radio and television were Serbs, local Serbs that is. Then I found out that the police is made up of 60% Serbs, although they were only 11 percent of population in Croatia, and so on… That’s how I became a dissident, and that’s how I became what they call a Croatian nationalist.

I remember one of the people who came and talked to me when I was vice minister for information, I don’t remember whether it was you or not, we had been talking like this, and then at a certain point he said, “But Mr. Bucan, I understand from what you are saying that you are a real intellectual. How can you be a nationalist?” And I said, “For me it is not an issue of nationalism. It is an issue of justice.” I mean, I am reacting to injustice. Unfortunately, the injustice has been based on nationality. If it were based on something else, then I would be something else.

So that’s how I became interested in politics.

So you were here in Zagreb during the Croatian Spring.

Actually, I was the secretary of the party at the radio at the time in Croatia. It was a period of euphoria. I was still very young. I said something at the time that almost cost me my job later on. But I didn’t lose my job.

At a party meeting at Radio Zagreb, I proposed that we change the name of Radio Zagreb to Croatian Radio. This was taken as a major sin, because we were discussing short-wave programs listened to around the world. The general director of the radio-television at that time, he was a member of the central committee, he asked me after the meeting, “Are you crazy, what are you doing?” So, with this anecdote, I just want to say that I was young, and it was a period of euphoria.

I was also writing for the Croatian Weekly and it sold 150,000 copies every issue. We felt that people were reading us, believing us, and so that felt great. One felt important. I was mingling with all these people that became friends of mine, like Vlado Gotovac, who was on TV (and before that he was on radio). I remember after Karadjordjevo, which was the end of the Croatian Spring, I wrote a text — I never published it, I gave it to some friends to read — about this defeat. I wrote that it might be a defeat for us, but it might bring victory for the next generation. We were pointing out things that were perceived wrongly in the international community. Abroad, Yugoslavia was perceived as a country of freedom, as almost an “ideal” country. For me, Croatia was something like what I said about freedom: you get a little bit of it and you cannot go back. But the defeat was terrible because a lot of people, including many of my friends, went to prison, and even more lost their jobs.

For a long time I was afraid that I would also go to prison. Years later, I heard that a friend of my father’s who had good relations with Jure Bilic, one of the Communist leaders who took over after the end of the Croatian Spring, had said, “He’s a young guy, his mother was hanged by the Ustasa, his father was a Partisan, so you shouldn’t bother him. Let him be.” It seems that that’s how I didn’t go to prison.

In any case, the Croatian Spring was like a seed planted into the ground.

Even though the Croatian Spring was defeated and many people went to jail, the 1974 constitution was a recognition of these movements — not just in Croatia, but of course elsewhere in Yugoslavia. Some people argue that the 1974 constitution was the end of Yugoslavia, because it decentralized authority in a way that was irrevocable.

That was typical of Tito. I never liked him; I don’t like him now. But he always liked to play both sides, and that’s what he did there too. But in a way, the constitution of 1974 was a return to the origins of Yugoslavia. When Yugoslavia was reconstructed in 1944 and 1945 by Tito and the Communist Party, it was a voluntary coming together of different peoples, nations, republics, and so on. That’s what we were always taught in school. But you couldn’t say it this way in a political context or you would be immediately sent to prison. The 1974 constitution allowed this political formulation, and in a way it became later on the constitutional basis for dismantling Yugoslavia.

Many people have told me how strange it was to live in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, because the country was more liberal than Czechoslovakia or Bulgaria, and so many people from the region came here on vacation, to sell /buy things. And of course many people could travel to Western Europe and work as guest workers and bring money back, and build houses. So it obviously was more liberal than some places, and yet still as you point out, there was censorship, there were people going to jail, there were limits to what you could say. I mean, how did you feel in those years when Yugoslavia was in the middle of the spectrum between the much more repressive governments of the east and the much more liberal countries of the west?

As a young guy, without the experiences and knowledge that came later, I probably wasn’t aware of all this. As I told you, I became aware of things when I started to live: when I married, when I got a job, and when I began to have problems at my workplace… It was pleasant to hear that we were perceived as “better” than some others. But when I started to live a real life, with my eyes open in the 1970s and 1980s, sometimes I thought that the situation here was worse than it was for Hungarians or Czechs or Slovaks or Bulgarians. Not worse in a real sense. But those people knew how they suffered. And we didn’t want to recognize it: we lived in a lie. We thought we were enjoying ourselves. So, it was this double-edged feeling.

When I was talking to Zarko Puhovski, he said he talked with Franjo Tudjman in 1989, because he knew Tudjman’s son, and Tudjman at the time said: “In one year I will be president.” And Puhovski thought, “This man is crazy. He’s already in his 60s. He’s a lunatic.” Then he realized one year later when Tudjman became President, that he, Puhovski, was the lunatic. Things happened so quickly in those days. Did you have any expectation that things would change so quickly with HDZ or Tudjman’s political trajectory?      

I’m not sure, but I’ll say this. A few months before the elections in 1990, we were discussing political parties every day in the café: who is going to win, who we are going to vote for, and so on. And 99% of my friends had been for the Coalition of People’s Accord, organized by Mika Tripalo and Savka Dabčević-Kučar and others who were engaged in the Croatian Spring (minus Tudjman). And I and a friend of mine said, “No, we are going to vote for Tudjman, for HDZ.” “But he’s a communist general!” they said. And I said, “Guys, you are very naive. Don’t you see that everybody is against Tudjman? The communist government is against Tujdman. It’s not against Savka-Tripalo, the Coalition. That means that Tudjman is the guy.” And that’s how I voted for Tudjman.

And many other people did the same.

The basis of Tudjman’s success was that he was saying, “We want an independent Croatia.” That was enough for the people, because everybody was thinking it, but didn’t dare say it. Besides that, frankly speaking, he had the support of parts of the secret services: the State Security Administration (UDBA). I knew that Josip Manolic, who was practically number two in HDZ, had been in UDBA. But it seems that it wasn’t only Manolic. Thanks to that fact, Tudjman had the logistics that were needed for such success. Of course he was elected freely, and he was saying what people wanted to hear. But I’m not sure that he could have been sure a year before the elections that he would be president without such support.

When you think back to your worldview at that time, in 1989-1990, is there anything that you’ve had second thoughts about? Have you changed your mind about anything?

Essentially not. Everything that happened, I was expecting to happen: even the corruption and the negative things. Look, we have the same problems as Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Slovenia — everywhere there is corruption, maybe a little bit more here or a little bit less there. It was something I was expecting, because a revolution creates a certain mentality. This revolution freed people: freedom of speech, freedom of enterprise. Everybody was thinking, “I don’t have money. I’ve been in bad shape economically because of communism. Now communism is gone, I can now live as they live in Germany, in Austria, in England. So, how should I become rich?”

The thing that I didn’t expect, frankly speaking, is the role played by the political elite in this corruption. I naively thought that people who are leading the country, especially a country which has freed itself from communism and later on from an aggression, that those people are going to have the national interest and the well-being of the people foremost in their mind. But like everybody else, they had their own private interests foremost in mind, and this is something that I didn’t expect.

So you expected corruption at a certain level, but you didn’t expect it to rise all the way to the top?

Corruption, unfortunately, is not an individual phenomenon. Rather, it’s a system. Corruption within the elite is not only in terms of wealth and money. Corruption also is when you become a minister and you give posts to your friends.

Anyway, like most people, I’m not satisfied with the way things are economically. We are in bad shape, but then today everybody is. On the other hand, we are also ready, and all the governments have been ready, to accept the pressures from the so-called international community, even in things we couldn’t oppose and did not accept happily. In a way, this is again something that is not new to me. Croatia is like an unwanted baby that wants everybody to like him, and he is ready to do anything to be loved. That’s how we behave, and it’s not a good thing for the country. But as I told you, we are ready to accept everything the “big ones” are asking, even if it goes against our interest.

If you would ask me whether I think that the last 20 years — even including the war — was worth it, I would say: “Yes.” Unfortunately, it was. There is something special about our case, about Yugoslavia. Everywhere I went — Cairo, Athens, Strasbourg — whoever I met in the diplomatic community often asked me, “But weren’t you better off within Yugoslavia, when you were all together?” And I said, “But I never heard you asking this of the Czech ambassador or the Slovak ambassador or the Russian ambassador. Why do you believe that it was better back then? If it had been better, what happened wouldn’t have happened.” Unfortunately, it happened in the most terrible way. If it could have happened like in Czechoslovakia, I would without any reluctance say that it was worth it. But even with what happened, I believe, all in all, that it was worth it.

Do you think that the war could’ve gone on a different path? Do you think that Croatia had any control over the way the war happened?

Not really, except that Tudjman artfully conducted the first months of war, trying to postpone things. He was negotiating with everybody and everyone, and he was gaining time. He was gaining both time and a certain perception within the international community. So to that extent, Croatia had some control. But not in terms of what was going on on the ground. At a certain point, almost a third of our country was occupied. But I would say that Tudjman did a very good job in those years.

One of the dominant interpretations is that Tudjman was, as you say, diplomatically very astute in those early years of the war, and that Croatia as a country had a very high reputation. But that shifted, especially those years when you were in Cairo and the doors were closed to you. That’s when Croatia’s reputation dropped considerably. I guess you felt that to certain extent when you were in Egypt.

Yes, of course. 

Do you think that could’ve been avoided and Croatia could have somehow maintained its high reputation?

Since I wasn’t here at that time, I have no direct insight, unlike the first two years when I was with Tudjman in his office. At that time, I was with him every day at lunch and he liked me because I was one of the people who spoke openly. He always said, “I am going to decide, but I want you to tell me what you think.” He also liked me because I was not a politician: I was not a member of the party, I had no relations with other politicians and ministers. Every lunch, every day, I heard all of his discussions with people, and so I had direct insight.

Later on, the reason for this shift in perception of Croatia within the international community was due to the issue of Bosnia. Tudjman believed that Bosnia could not survive as it is. He said, “Bosnia is a micro-Yugoslavia. And Bosnia could exist as Bosnia only under Yugoslavia, before that under the Ottoman Empire, and for a short period of time under Austro-Hungarian Empire.” And so he believed that Bosnia couldn’t survive, and that Croats should secure their territories in Bosnia: for their own sake and for the strategic sake of Croatia. Not necessarily in terms of the dismantlement of Bosnia-Hercegovina, but in any case in terms of an “internal structural division.”

He conducted such a policy in Bosnia. He recognized Bosnia. Actually he made Bosnian-Croats vote for an independent Bosnia. But he always thought that Bosnia was going to be divided, whether in terms of giving some parts to Croatia and some parts to establish a Muslim country if it was dismantled, or to establish within the borders of Bosnia various republics or cantons or regions that have a certain independence in terms of cultural and local development policy. The international community — the United States and so on — wanted Bosnia to survive as it was. But that’s when things fell apart.

In Cairo, I was in contact with an American diplomat more or less regularly, and he told me, “Tudjman is a great man. There are no more statesmen today. He’s a real statesman. He has a sense of history.” Of course I knew that he was just trying to butter me up. This went on until the Dayton Agreement was signed. As soon as Dayton was signed, meaning they didn’t have any more need for Tudjman, the same guy began to tell me an ocean of ugly things about Tudjman. So, they accepted Tudjman when he was playing into their hands. When he started to play his own game, they rejected him.

As far as Bosnia is concerned, frankly speaking I still believe that Tudjman was right, that Bosnia should be divided in terms of political structure. I remember when I came to Zagreb from Cairo after the Dayton Agreement, I met Tudjman and I said to him, “It seems to me that the Dayton Agreement is not a good one.” “How do you mean?!” he asked. I said, “To me it seems like a division of Bosnia between Serbs and Muslims.” And he said, “You may be right, but it was the only way to stop the war, and we are not going to allow Bosnia to be divided between Serbs and Muslims.” That’s what he said. And as a matter of fact I believe that that’s what is going on, and it will be unfortunate for Bosnian-Croats.

Do you think that there was a meeting at Kardjordjevo? Not the one that you referred to before, but the later one where Tudjman and Milosevic sat down and…?

Yes, they sat down. There was this meeting, but nobody knows what they were talking about.

But probably they talked about…

I don’t know what they were talking about, but I know what Tudjman thought about Milosevic. First of all, he firmly believed that developments in former Yugoslavia depend essentially on Croats and Serbs, that the Croats and Serbs are the main players and that they should come together and find a compromise. In that way, he accepted Milosevic as a counterpart. But he didn’t believe him. I mean, everybody says that Tudjman believed Milosevic. It’s not true. But Tudjman said, “What can I do? The Serbian people elected him. He is a representative of the Serbian people, and I have to speak with him. I have to negotiate with him.” Part of this negotiation was probably only tactical, to gain time, and part was strategic in terms of finding a solution, trying to convince Milosevic that he cannot have all of Yugoslavia, including part of Croatia. But then what to do about Bosnia? I cannot say concretely what they were negotiating and discussing.

In Richard Holbrooke’s memoir of the Dayton Agreement, he talks very candidly about his discussions with Croatian top generals. He said to them, “Take as much territory as possible before the agreement, because we need pressure on Milosevic and because after the agreement it will be very difficult to rearrange the borders.” So from Holbrooke’s point of view the Croatian military was an extremely important force on the ground for diplomacy.

But still they stopped us before Banja Luka.

That’s true. Holbrooke said, “Absolutely not Banja Luka.”  

So this is another indication that Bosnia was the core issue and that they wanted Bosnia to remain as it is. Or they wanted a balance between Serbia and Croatia. If you look at the trials at The Hague, there as well they are trying to establish a balance… Maybe they were afraid that the Russians were going to take over Serbia, which they didn’t want to happen. Serbia is geo-strategically important. Croatia can be bypassed, but Serbia cannot be. Once I told Tudjman, “To me, Milosevic is crazy. He has something that he could sell for great profit. But he doesn’t do it. I don’t know why he’s playing with the Russians.” Because of Serbia’s geo-strategic importance maybe, the international community didn’t want Serbia to be defeated.

Were you surprised at the indictments handed down at The Hague?

Which one? Against Gotovina?

That was the most controversial one.

Frankly speaking I was not surprised. I expected it. I firmly believe that it’s unjust,  but that it’s explained by this framework of making a balance. I mean, how can you compare Vukovar and Knin? I am still sure that the Hague Tribunal is a political thing. Look at the judges that are looking into the verdict to decide at the final level. They say to the prosecution: “You cannot convict them on the grounds of excessive bombardment.” And they ask the prosecution to find something else as a basis for conviction. This is unheard of! I mean, Gotovina and Markac have been before the court for this “excessive bombardment,” the judge says they cannot be convicted on this charge, so they should be free!

There were also accusations concerning conduct in Bosnia during the Bosnian War.

I have no insight into those things except for what I’ve read in papers. But generally speaking I would say that the Hague judges don’t distinguish between the aggressor and the defender. Of course, there have been crimes on both sides, and they should be prosecuted and punished. But you cannot, for example, give Gotovina a sentence of 24 years because of Knin and Veselin Šljivančanin a sentence of 10 years for Vukovar and then let him out after seven! They wanted to make both parties guilty. Why? I believe it is easier to manipulate someone who is guilty than someone who is not.

As you said, there is enormous international pressure on Croatia to abide by the rulings of the Hague Tribunal. And of course, the most important pressure point was membership in the European Union. Do you think ultimately, even if the Hague Tribunal was a bad process, or an unjust process, or a political process, was it worth it to abide by the rulings of the Tribunal in order to get into the European Union?

I don’t think so. Especially because I don’t believe anymore in the European Union. As soon as the EU tries to become a political union, it will end in a bad way. You cannot make a state out of Europe. Look at Yugoslavia, look at the Soviet Union, look at Czechoslovakia. Such multilingual, multicultural, multi-religious, multinational constructs are always kept together by force. When I say by force, I don’t necessarily mean by tyranny, but by any kind of power. The Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia were kept together by the force of the Communist Party and communist dictatorship. The EU is kept together by the  power of Germany and France. No one believes that the Czech Republic or Denmark for example has the same weight as Germany or France.

Did you believe in the European Union when you got to Strasbourg?

Not anymore.

At what point did you stop believing in the EU?

I stopped believing when I saw that the reforms were going in the direction of creating more and more centralized power. This centralized power means bureaucracy, which is always a terrible thing, and it means that the strongest rule. I also started to look into how the EU functions, who is paying how much into the budget, and it seemed to me that Germany was paying for everything. How long will they be willing to pay for everything and everybody? This is a shaky foundation. I understand that the EU needs a more centralized decision-making process during this crisis. But then, if it were not for this centralizing tendency, if it were not for the Euro, the EU would probably not have this crisis.

Anyhow, I’m not sure that the EU has a bright future, and I’m not sure that we “sold” ourselves successfully. Because what we gain from the EU will depend on our capacity to exploit EU funds, and our capacity to do so is very low. And yes, we will be sitting at the same table, but we won’t have a real voice. That is, we are going to have a vote, but what does this vote mean for a country like Croatia beside the vote of France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and others?

Isn’t it better to have a small vote rather than no vote at all?

Again, it depends on our capacity. If we can be independent outside of the European Union, it would be better not to have a vote at all. But to be independent in such a context you have to have resources, and a capable leadership, and an efficient governing structure — which we don’t have. So I don’t know whether it is better for Croatia to be in the EU or outside. Theoretically speaking, I would opt for being outside, but practically speaking I’m not sure anymore.

Earlier you said that the issue is injustice, and that you were a nationalist because the issue was an imbalance of power at a national level. Croatia is now independent, more or less, and it’s a sovereign country, so do you still consider yourself a nationalist if that injustice has been removed?

I never considered myself a nationalist in terms of the definition of nationalism, either then or now. If you ask me whether I still believe that national issues are still important, I would say yes. Look at human rights. If you want to be politically correct you have to recognize the rights of all different groups, in terms of sexual orientation, national minorities, any minority. But when you start speaking about Croat national rights or Serb national rights, they are going to look at you as a nationalist, even a chauvinist. A man is defined by many things. He is defined by his sexual orientation, by his gender, by the social group he belongs to, and by his nationality in terms of his language, and so on. So why should I recognize his right as a homosexual, his right as a football player, and not his right as a Croat? In those terms, I believe that this national dimension has weight, at least as much as these other dimensions. These issues are not important in the social and political context where there is no discrimination. But if there is discrimination based on language…

Do you think that there is discrimination against Croatians?

There is in Bosnia. I remember very well at the Council of Europe we were discussing the issue of the school system in Bosnia. There had been a lot of criticism of Bosnian Croats because of the so-called “two schools under one roof.” Meaning that the curricula of Bosniaks and Croats differ in mother language and history. And then I said, “Do you remember when the issue of the reintegration of Eastern Slavonia was discussed at the Council of Europe? Both the Council of Europe and the European Union insisted on different curricula for Croats and Serbs. So how can you deny Croats the right to have the Croatian language as a subject matter, and Croatian history as a subject matter, when you insisted on exactly that in Eastern Slavonia?” Nobody said anything. And they of course acted like I’d never said anything.

So those issues are still important, in Bosnia especially. They don’t have, if I’m not wrong, any TV stations for Croats. Of course, Croats in Bosnia are a minority now. And they, at the end, will be constitutionally recognized as a minority, and there will be no problem anymore with such things. But as long as they are one of the so-called three constituent people, they should be treated like one.

What do you think about the current political situation here in Croatia? Many people have told me that they think — if you put aside the issue of corruption, which of course is always a big issue — that the political situation is more or less normal. You have two parties that are strong, and they kind of go back and forth in terms of who’s in power. The extremes are relatively unpopular, and Croatia is now a normal European country.

More or less yes. Because of this corruption issue and, maybe more so because of the economic crisis, not only are parties not popular but politicians in general are not popular. The ordinary people on the street would say to you “they are all the same,” and they would be right. I might have more or less sympathy for this or that party because of ideology, but they are all the same. And I resent that all of them — or both of them because it’s really just HDZ and SDP with their coalition partners — don’t take care of the national interest as they should. Not just in terms of relations with neighbors. They sold out everything. Croatia doesn’t own anything anymore in Croatia.

So the privatization of…

It’s not the same thing to privatize a factory and to privatize practically the whole banking system — 94%, I believe. Or the communications system. But this happened more or less everywhere. And, again, it’s something I did expect, even back in the 1990s. Because Eastern Europe, Yugoslavia included, was for practically half a century under the Communists, and everything has been destroyed in terms of a normal economy. So, when I was discussing such things with my friends, I would say, “Eastern Europe is going to be for the rest of Europe what Latin America is for the United States.” Maybe it won’t be one hundred percent similar, but close enough.

How we are going to reach the same level with Western Europe, in terms of economy, production and everything? It’s impossible if we are going to become a new kind of colony. Unfortunately, it was probably inevitable. But even as a colony you can conduct yourself in better ways and worse ways.

Because you spent so much time in Egypt, I have to ask whether you were completely surprised by the Arab Spring in Egypt, and how would you compare what happened there with this part of the world?

Again, I wasn’t surprised. Actually, if I was surprised, I was surprised that it happened only now and not before. But then it didn’t happen only in Egypt. It is happening all over the Arab World. And the notion of the so-called “Arab Spring” is completely misleading. It’s an Islamist spring, a fundamentalist spring. Why? In the mind of the average Arab citizen, whether it’s in Egypt or Libya, the alternative to the dictatorship they have been under is not democracy. They have no idea of democracy, unlike Europe. Even here in Yugoslavia we had no experience of democracy, but we had this idea of democracy before our eyes. They don’t have it. Of course, a very thin layer of society, intellectuals and so on, have this idea, but average people don’t have it. So what’s the alternative to the dictatorship of Mubarak, or Qaddafi, or Assad? It’s “real and authentic” Islam.

Even politically it was structured like this. The only real political opposition was the Muslim Brotherhood and such groupings. In an article I wrote a year ago, I predicted what was going to happen in Egypt. In the first stage, the army is going to take power and guarantee the alliance with Washington. If there would be free elections in Egypt, then the Muslim Brotherhood is going to win — which happened. And it’s happening more or less everywhere, and this is, again, normal. But it might have enormous consequences globally, because it will probably change the balance of power in the Middle East, which is one of the most strategically important regions in the world.

These quantitative questions are the last ones. The first one is, on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being least -satisfied and 10 being most satisfied, when you think about all that has changed here in Croatia since 1989 until today, what would be your evaluation?

5. Because all in all, as I said, I think it has been worth it. It’s better that those changes happened, rather than not. On the other hand, I don’t think we achieved — especially in terms of economy — everything we could have, even in terms of our position within the international community or within international politics. There are things I’m dissatisfied with, and things I’m satisfied with.

Okay. Same scale from 1 to 10, same period of time, but your own personal life.

That’s tougher. I never thought about it, that’s why it’s tough. Because you live your life and you don’t think about. Well, taking into account that I spent five years in Egypt, four years in Greece, and it was great, and taking into account that I was witnessing, from the inside, a historical process, I would say 8.

Finally, looking into the near future, when you think about what will happen here in Croatia in the next couple of years here, how would you rate the prospects on a scale from 1 to 10, with 1 being the most pessimistic, and 10 being the most optimistic?

Probably no more than 5.

As chief prosecutor of the Yugoslav and Rwandan tribunals Carla Del Ponte found herself struggling uphill against institutional indifference and opposition.

Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and surveying its transformations since 1989.

Carla del Ponte’s memoir of her time as the chief prosecutor of the two major international tribunals – on Yugoslavia and Rwanda – is basically a tedious book. It can be summed up in a single sentence: she fought tooth and nail against stubborn national leaders, indifferent UN bureaucrats, and elusive war criminals, and although they all put up their “rubber wall” (muro di gomma), she managed in the end to achieve some measure of justice. During her tenure, the Yugoslav tribunal indicted 161 individuals and, through August 2007, took 91 accused into custody.

The book made headlines back in 2009 with its allegations of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) members establishing a network to harvest organs from Serbs and sell them on the global market. An investigation into these allegations is still ongoing, with a KLA witness recently coming forward with some new and horrifying details.

But perhaps the most telling part of the book comes at the very beginning when del Ponte confronts George Tenet, the head of the CIA under George W. Bush, and tries to enlist the U.S. intelligence service in her fight to apprehend the two top suspects, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.

Tenet is not particularly forthcoming with promises of assistance.

“If you won’t do anything, I think you should at least support our efforts,” she pressed.

“Look, Madame,” Tenet replied. “I don’t give a shit what you think.

Tenet was only giving voice to what many people were thinking in those days, and continue to think today, when confronted with appeals for justice from victims, lawyers, or even top international officials like Carla del Ponte. Tenet was also summing up U.S. foreign policy at its unilateral worst: we’re the United States, and we don’t give a shit what you think.

Still, del Ponte’s book is a powerful – though repetitious – reminder of what it takes to achieve justice in today’s world: relentless, single-minded pressure. Del Ponte simply showed up, day in and day out, to make the same demands of the same people in power.

At the same time, reading the book while traveling through ex-Yugoslavia has meant that every time I encounter a group of men of a certain age, I can’t help but think of where they were, and what they were doing, 20 years before. I say “groups of men” rather than individuals because it’s the group behavior that prompts me to reflect on the relationship between hooliganism and war crimes. A single individual can be loud or drunk or obnoxious, but his impact is generally limited. Groups, on the other hand, make my palms sweat.

I was on the train between Belgrade and Zagreb, for instance, when I had my first del Ponte moment. From the Serbian capital to the Croatian border, I had the compartment to myself, and it was glorious. I relaxed and read her memoir, feet up on the chair cushion across from me.

In the city of Slavonski Brod, however, a crowd of people got on the train, and my compartment was suddenly full. One guy sat down and quietly read a magazine. Another guy installed himself across from me and started to talk loudly on his cell phone. But it was the two last arrivals that worried me – two 40-something guys with a bag full of beer. They popped the tops off the first two, interrupted the conversation of the guy on the cell phone (possibly they knew each other), and generally created what I’m sure they considered to be a festive atmosphere in our compartment. I was sitting next to the window, and I shrank into my seat. It was only a couple more hours to Zagreb. I was sure I could endure the party.

Then one of them lit a cigarette.

I’d chosen the compartment precisely because it was non-smoking (later I learned that smoking is forbidden throughout Croatian trains). I pointed to the No Smoking icon on the door and said, more or less, “not allowed.” The magazine-reading passenger translated my garbled phrase into proper Croatian. The guy laughed, but eventually stood up and took his cigarette out to the corridor and the open window there. That didn’t last long. For his second cigarette, he sat back down in the compartment, tapping the ash and exhaling the smoke into the corridor. For the third cigarette, he didn’t even bother to do this.

I glared at him.

He and his friend laughed again. But not in a friendly manner. They’d already finished their first beers. They looked at me in that challenging, alpha-male way. It didn’t look like the magazine reader and the cell phone user were going to link arms with me in solidarity. I’m not one to fight.

So, with a curse, I got up and gathered my belongings. I was convinced at this point that they were not just football hooligans but actual war criminals. I could see them in uniforms with closely cropped haircuts. I cursed them some more, which was really not the smartest thing to do. Eventually, after I’d already made it several steps down the corridor, they managed to dig up some half-remembered English curses to hurl in my direction.

I’m sure they were just jerks, and there are jerks everywhere, particularly among the tourist class. But I was more upset about the failure of the other two passengers to come to my defense and the conductor’s lack of interest in enforcing the non-smoking rules. First they come for the non-smokers, I thought, still under the influence of del Ponte. After I cooled off in another compartment, I reflected on my over-reaction. Surely the conductor and my fellow passengers would have intervened in the case of actual violence.

In countries where the rule of law holds, such altercations remain minor annoyances. But in countries where a culture of impunity reigns, these trifles somehow become unspeakable horrors. In her book Madness Visible, journalist Janine di Giovanni tells the story from the war period of a Bosniak judge who recognizes his ethnic Serbian torturer. In this case familiarity bred much worse than mere contempt. “So now you’ll never give me a parking ticket again!” the torturer thundered at his victim.

Croatia has moved far beyond the impunity of the Tudjman era. It eventually complied fully with del Ponte’s investigations, and now it is poised to join the European Union next year. The conservative party, the Croatian Democratic Union, is out of power, its leadership on trial for corruption, and its politics considerably more centrist than in the past. The Party of Rights, further to the right, has only one representative in parliament (coming up soon: my interview with that representative).

So, when I encountered other vaguely aggressive groups of men in Croatia, it’s the del Ponte in me that keeps me fixated on the past. But Croatia has moved on.

Just like the craft-store owner that I met later in Zagreb. He too was a man of a certain age. We were alone in the store, and we were speaking in English. Unbidden, he told me that he was in the Croatian army in the 1990s. They sent him to the border with Slovenia.

“It was terrible,” he said quietly. “I’m a pacifist. I hope I didn’t kill anyone.”

As with so much that happens in the past, uncertainty is what we are left with, and this uncertainty holds its own terrors.

Gay Pride week in Serbia saw its unfair share of controversies.

Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and surveying its transformations since 1989.

All eyes were on Serbia again this last week with the multiple controversies over the events of Gay Pride week. First came Ecce Homo, the exhibition of Swedish artist Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin, which depicted Jesus integrated into the gay community. Christ cross-dresses at the Last Supper; he ministers to a flock of leather-clad men. The Orthodox Church called for a ban, which the Islamic community signed onto as well. The police turned out in force to separate exhibition-goers from protestors.

I’m sorry I missed the excitement. By the time I made it to the Center for Cultural Decontamination, where the exhibition had a one-day showing, the exhibit was gone. There were plenty of police still hanging around the center’s courtyard with nothing to do, as if to ensure that the place was truly “decontaminated.” Since its founding in 1994, this center has been one of the most courageous pockets of resistance to nationalism, xenophobia, and intolerance in Serbia, and I’ll go back to interview the director, Borka Pavicevic.

The bigger controversy, however, was the decision of the Serbian interior ministry to cancel the Pride march on Saturday. There have been Pride marches and Queer Parades throughout the region, and many have attracted violent responses from neo-Nazis and skinheads. Violent demonstrators confronted marchers and the police at the Pride marches in Belgrade in 2001 and 2010, turning what should have been opportunities for the display of tolerance into ugly riots. The city authorities cancelled the march here in Belgrade last year as well, ostensibly to prevent violence but just as likely in response to pressure from religious and other groups.

The European Union has reacted strongly to the cancellation, basically telling the Serbian authorities to rein in the extremist elements and guarantee LGBT rights or risk further delays in accession. The current government of Tomislav Nikolic, of the rather conservative Serbian Progressive Party (an offshoot of the Serbian Radical party), has already expressed some reservations about fast-track membership in the EU, particularly if it requires recognition of an independent Kosovo. So, the EU’s stern response might not cause any sleepless nights for Nikolic and crew.

I was politically but also personally disappointed by the cancellation of the march because I had structured my itinerary so that I could be back in Belgrade to attend it. The events around Pride week are indeed a major test of how open Serbian society is becoming. I was struck by the superficial comparisons of the Ecce Homo exhibition to the recent controversy of the video, Innocence of Muslims. The latter was designed with the sole purpose of defaming Islam. The former draws on the teachings of Jesus who consistently stood with the marginalized. One preaches hate, the other love.

The message of standing with the marginalized should have particular resonance in Serbia these days, where the margins can often seem rather crowded. The EU focuses on ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. But even though the Orthodox Church is overwhelmingly the dominant faith, only a fraction of the population actually goes to church regularly, leaving the truly faithful feeling beleaguered. And many ethnic Serbians themselves feel as if they are on the margins of Europe, forced by more powerful countries to give up historic Kosovo and pushed nearly to the end of the line for EU membership.

Marginality is, of course, relative. My interpreter in Bulgaria spoke wistfully of how much better things were for Serbia.

“Really?” I asked. “After all that Serbia has gone through over the last 20 years? War, sanctions, refugees – ”

“Yes,” she said. “But they have Novak Djokovic, one of the top tennis players in the world. Don’t underestimate the importance of having a winner like that for the national psyche.”

And then there are all the Serbians who don’t live in Belgrade. According to a recent study of the news media by the National Coalition for Decentralization (NKD), only 17 seconds of the national TV news report is devoted to events outside the capital. Talk about marginalization! Milos, my interpreter in the lovely city of Nis, told me that 1,500 people a day move to Belgrade (other cited figures are lower, 300-500, but still sobering). The countryside is emptying out. The young and the talented, if they aren’t leaving Serbia altogether, gravitate to the capital.

It’s a shame, since Nis should be a thriving center of southern Serbia. The city is dominated by an enormous Ottoman-era fortress built on the foundations of a Roman outpost. Inside this well-preserved structure are cafes, an art gallery in a former mosque, a lapidarium of exquisite Roman fragments. Nis is an historic crossroads, the former Naissus where the Roman emperor Constantine was born in 272 AD. During the second Crusade, Serbian leader Stefan Nemanja had a historic meeting in Nis with Frederick Barbarossa. Stefan ate with a fork, according to a story dear to the heart of all Serbians, while Frederick ate with his hands (this symbol of Serbian civilization is immortalized in the powerful anti-war film Pretty Village, Pretty Flames). The city continues to be a crossroads, a busy bus portal halfway between Belgrade and Skopje and on the way from Sofia to Sarajevo.

The downtown is full of cafes, which are in turn full of people. This gives Nis a festive air, though my interpreter explained that unemployment means that people have lots of time on their hands to sit around and drink coffees. With Belgrade the artistic center of the country, the provinces are starved of culture. For a ten-year period until recently, Nis didn’t even have a movie theater.

My guide to Nis was Mladen Jovanovic, who runs NKD and is passionately devoted to decentralization. Distributing power more equitably around the country is essential to providing Serbians with a voice in their public affairs. The municipalities don’t even own the public facilities – the airport, the public buildings – because these remain in the hands of the national authorities. Investment is highly centralized. Politics is controlled through Belgrade, and the MPs from the regions are more likely to represent their parties than their constituents.

The issue of decentralization is critical to Serbia’s future. The regions of Vojvodina and Sandzak have pushed for greater autonomy. The European Union requires a measure of decentralization as part of the membership process. The conservatives in Belgrade raise the specter of disintegration. But Mladen points out that a refusal to decentralize responsibly will only produce greater resistance and provoke an increase in separatist sentiment.

Our conversation takes place over several hours at a mehana, or tavern, where we eat grilled rib meat and skewers of chicken livers wrapped in bacon, along with roasted lamb and potatoes and three different salads. This mehana, close to the wall of the fortress and next to a tennis club, brews its own brandy, and we sip from little flagons of their quince rakia. The mayor is sitting several tables away, conferring with his associates. The weather is perfect. The thwack of tennis balls hitting racquets fills the air.

Nis seems, at this moment, like such a sensible place to live, far from the bruising politics of Belgrade. All it needs, perhaps, is what Richard Florida has called the “creative class,” young software engineers and artists and, yes, gay people. Someday, in some not-too-distant future, rainbow flags will appear on the streets of Nis, and the margins in Serbia will be the new center.

Belgrade is gritty -- in both senses of the word.

Cross-posted from JohnFeffer.com. John is currently traveling in Eastern Europe and surveying its transformations since 1989.

Sometimes that person you immediate dislike becomes, over time, a close friend. In fact, the very things you disliked about that person can end up becoming his or her chief virtues in your eyes.

That’s been my experience with Serbia. The first encounter was certainly not auspicious. I first visited Belgrade in 1989, on my way south from Poland to the beaches of the Croatian coast. Or, at least, that’s where I thought I was heading. I arrived in Belgrade that July only to discover that all the bus and train tickets to Dubrovnik were sold out. During that summer, even with the Yugoslav economy in difficult straits, Dubrovnik remained a popular destination. Air tickets were available, but I didn’t have that kind of money. So, I ended up staying in Belgrade, disgruntled.

Belgrade seemed to me quite ugly, and I couldn’t wait to leave. I rescheduled my flight but still had to pass three days there. I could never get the hang of the city’s geography. Even with a map I was always getting lost. And everywhere I went I ran into the same two guys. Next to all the pictures of Tito hanging on the walls of restaurants and newsstands was this other fellow, Slobodan Milosevic, who looked like an apparatchik from central casting. I couldn’t wrap my head around all the signs that proclaimed “I [heart] Serbia.” I naively thought the creation of Yugoslavia had meant the death of nationalism. I obviously hadn’t been following recent events in the country.

My next visit to Belgrade was a 1990 flight with Yugoslav Air that passed through the country on the way to Poland. In those days, JAT was the cheapest way to get to Eastern Europe, but many of the flights with connections to points north required an overnight stay in Belgrade. On that particular night, we arrived late at night, near 10 pm, and were driven from the airport into the city to a reasonably nice three-star hotel. Sixty or seventy very hungry people crowded into the hotel lobby, waiting for the distribution of room keys. We waited. And waited. After an hour, it turned out that the hotel didn’t have rooms for us.

“Not to worry,” said our JAL representative. He packed us back into our bus, and we drove in the direction of the airport again. Near midnight, the bus stopped at a no-star hotel. Again we waited for an hour for our room keys to be distributed. The hotel had rooms for us, just not enough. I spent a restless night in a small room in a double bed with another guy, sleeping head to foot. Dinner that night was a huge platter of grilled meat that, because we were all ravenous, we tore into with abandon. There was plenty of alcohol to make us forget our ordeal and then, the next morning, to remember it in painful detail.

They woke us early enough to get to the airport three hours before our flights left. The airport wasn’t even open. I sat on a hard plastic seat and tried to sleep. Finally, it was time to check in.

“Ah,” said the young woman behind the counter, “you have to pay the airport tax.”

“Airport tax? No one had said anything about an airport tax.” I didn’t have any Yugoslav dinars, so I offered dollars.

“Oh no,” she said, “it has to be in dinars.”

“But the exchange booths aren’t open,” I pointed out.

She shrugged.

It turned out that I had a 15-minute window to exchange money, pay the tax, and, running with several other unhappy travelers, get onto the plane before it left. Goodbye and good riddance, I thought as Belgrade retreated into the distance.

An acquaintance later told me that she’d been in a similar situation at the Belgrade airport with one important difference: her early-morning flight left before the exchange booths opened. She waited until the last moment, walked up to the ticket-taking official, and threw a crumpled bill in his direction in lieu of the airport tax receipt. Then she ran through the turn style, down the ramp, and onto her plane just before they closed the doors. She became breathless all over again in the retelling, which made the improbable story believable.

Later that same year, I finally made it to Belgrade as part of my multi-country tour of the region. As soon as I arrived in the city, all of these bad memories flooded back. I had only one contact in the city. I called her up, interviewed her, and left for Zagreb the next day. There were even more pictures of Milosevic around, and the news of confrontations between Serbs and Croats in the Krajina region of Croatia were filtering in. Foreboding was thick in the air. The woman who owned the private flat where I was staying told me in a mix of Serbian and Russian that the Croatians were all fascists and the Albanians produced too many children. Civil society activist Sonja Licht, my one interviewee, provided me with an incisive critique of Milosevic and suggested that civil war had become increasingly likely. I couldn’t wait to leave.

Now, on my return to the region to retrace my steps, I’ve decided to start with Serbia. This might seem strange, since it’s the place where I talked to the fewest people. But I felt that I had been unfair to Belgrade. On a trip to the city a few years ago, I discovered that it wasn’t such a bad place after all. In fact, the pedestrian area in the downtown was charming and festive. I talked with artists and activists who were doing difficult and important work. But this visit in 2008 had also been brief, and I still felt that I hadn’t really seen Belgrade or Serbia.

I’ve already had several interesting encounters on this latest trip. I interviewed Sonja Beserko, once a member of the Yugoslav foreign ministry and long a sharp critic of authoritarian and nationalist politics. I ventured by bus to Pancevo, a suburb of Belgrade that NATO bombed repeatedly in 1999, to meet Sasa Rakevic, who writes comic strips under the name Alexander Zograf and published the wonderful book, Regards from Serbia. Later I’ll write more about these fascinating conversations along with a return visit with Sonja Licht.

But this Sunday I had a chance to wander around Belgrade and appreciate its intriguing tangle of streets. The city has been repeatedly destroyed over the years, by the Ottomans, the Austrians, and most devastatingly during World War II. Some buildings damaged during the 1999 bombing have been left standing as a reminder. Despite all this destruction, you can still find some lovely architecture – an art nouveau building, an old palace, an stately Orthodox church.

I had dinner at a restaurant called Monument, located in an addition to an old haram, or Turkish bath, that once was part of the extensive quarters of Milos Obrenovic. The placards hanging near the restaurant describe Obrenovic’s key role in Serbian history as a participant in the first uprising against Ottoman rule, a leader of the second uprising, and then a ruler who established the country as an autonomous dukedom.

Coincidentally, I was reading over dinner Helen Leah Reed’s 1916 book, Serbia: A Sketch. Just as I started in on my trout, I came upon the passage about Obrenovic. Reed adds something that the placards leave out: that Obrenovic had likely betrayed Serbian resistance leader Karadgordge to the Ottomans. So, it is fitting perhaps that all that remains of Obrenovic’s once vast estate – he was reputed to be one of the richest men of the Balkans – is this modest stone bathhouse, which now serves as a bathroom and storage facility for the restaurant.

Belgrade is not Prague. It’s not a beautiful city set up to accommodate tens of thousands of tourists. You have to work a little harder to appreciate the charms of the city. You have to dig a little to uncover its quirky history. But in the end, this struggle becomes perhaps this gritty city’s chief selling point.