Abstract
This chapter considers the EC’s response to conflict in Yugoslavia in 1990–1991. Initially, EC members did not recognize the crisis’ potential for violence. However, previous economic and political achievements and a desire to put in place a Common Foreign and Security Policy and enhance its global reputation encouraged the EC to engage this security challenge. In the end, the EC could only agree to devote diplomatic attention to the problem, mediate, impose an arms embargo, and curtail financial support; no member was willing to commit peacekeeping forces without Serbian acquiescence and an effective ceasefire in place. The EC called upon the UN to assume responsibility for the conflict, in what is regarded as a policy failure and a turning point in the REO’s development.
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Notes
- 1.
Six republics (Bosnia and Hercegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia) and two autonomous provinces (Kosovo and Vojvodina) comprised the Social Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
- 2.
Yugoslavia was the only former Communist country to conclude a cooperative agreement with the EC before the fall of the Berlin Wall. The first protocol, signed in 1980, was justified on the grounds that Yugoslavia was a nonaligned country, geographically within Europe, and a compulsory road transit route to Greece, which had a large immigrant work force in the EC. EC funding was allocated specifically to upgrade Yugoslavia’s roads (Directorate-General of Research for the European Parliament 1994, 127).
- 3.
Greece opposed European military intervention in Yugoslavia because of its proximity, special relationship with Belgrade, and disapproval of the creation of an independent Macedonia.
- 4.
After nearly ten months and numerous UN resolutions, the WEU agreed on 10 July 1992 to provide ships and helicopters to monitor the UN embargo against Serbia and Montenegro.
- 5.
Article 21.2 of the Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union.
- 6.
Gompert was senior director for Europe and Eurasia on the George H. W. Bush Administration’s National Security Council.
- 7.
Brent Scowcroft had served as assistant air attaché in the American Embassy in Belgrade. Eagleburger served as a foreign service officer in Belgrade between 1961 and 1965, and US ambassador to Yugoslavia between 1977 and 1980. In 1995, then US National Security Advisor Scowcroft was quoted as saying: “Had we gotten together with the Europeans and drawn up these nice conditions, gone to the Yugoslavs and said, ‘Look, we don’t think you ought to break up. It doesn’t make sense. You ought to try to rationalize your differences. But if you insist on breaking up, OK, but here are the conditions we insist on,’ [it] might have worked…. Should have been tried, and it wasn’t.” (quoted in Matthews 1995)
- 8.
It is ironic that although the West Europeans and the United States did not initially avail themselves of the institutional and bargaining assets represented by NATO’s capabilities, in the early days of the conflict the Yugoslav National Army was concerned that NATO’s new “rapid reaction corps” might become a factor in the conflict. After the Rome summit in late 1991, the Yugoslav Defense Minister, General Veljko Kadijevic, told David Gompert that he was concerned that NATO was readying an intervention force (Gompert 1994, fn 1).
- 9.
The WEU was originally established by seven states to implement the 1957 Modified Treaty of Brussels and was allied with the United States and NATO during the Cold War. After the Cold War, WEU tasks and institutions were gradually transferred to the Common Security and Defense Policy of the European Union. This process was completed in 2009 with the Treaty of Lisbon, and on 30 June 2011 the WEU was officially declared defunct. The period of this inquiry (1990–1991) was too early in the post-Cold War era to feature EC and French “soft balancing” against the United States as the sole remaining military superpower.
- 10.
This, of course, is an “Atlanticist” stance in contrast to France’s “Gaullist” or “continentalist” one.
- 11.
In 1990, there is little question that the EC demonstrated greater willingness to engage in conflict amelioration than did the UN. Both the EC and the UN were very status-quo-oriented, eager that Yugoslavia remain united to avoid instability, possible bloodshed, and the negative demonstration effects that its disintegration might provide for the Soviet Union. In addition, UN involvement in the escalating crisis was deterred by the fact that any form of intervention required the invitation or acquiescence of Yugoslavia, a sovereign member of the body. At that time, the UN’s mandate did not provide for intervention in civil wars.
- 12.
Via the “second pillar” of the Maastricht Treaty, the Union sought to assert its identity on the international stage through a common foreign and security policy. The “third pillar” added justice and home affairs to the organization’s mission.
- 13.
Member States’ framing of the Balkans in terms of domestic political considerations would only increase as the violence escalated and humanitarian workers and their protectors were placed in harm’s way. However, these events are beyond the chronological scope of this chapter. With reference to the EC-Balkans case in general, Gompert (1994) reproaches: “That each of the most powerful members of the EC had its own agenda not only helped ensure EC failure but reminds us why Europeans, left to themselves, tend to mismanage Europe’s security.”
- 14.
And, France may well have regarded the dissolution of Yugoslavia as having implications for its relationship with Corsica (Gow 1997, 159). Nationalistic calls for greater autonomy and protection for Corsican culture and language have been a feature of modern Corsican politics since 1975. Raids and killings have occurred periodically, including the assassination of Prefect Claude Érignac in 1998.
- 15.
Of course, some critics argue that the West’s later inaction in the face of atrocities in Bosnia-Herzegovina was affected by the fact that many Bosnians are Muslim. For example, journalist Charles Lane (1996, 143–146) argues that “Just below the surface lies British and French fear of Muslim influence on the continent.”
- 16.
The Petersberg Tasks are military and security priorities incorporated within the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy including humanitarian and rescue missions, crisis management, conflict prevention, disarmament, peacekeeping and peacemaking, military advice and assistance, and post-conflict stabilization tasks. These tasks were initially articulated by WEU leaders in a 1992 summit convened in Germany, and were incorporated into Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union.
- 17.
For critiques of the notion that the EU is a normative power, see Diez (2005) and Merlingen (2007). By 2006, Manners (2006, 182–199) conceded that the European Security Strategy signaled a “sharp turn away from the normative path of sustainable peace toward the full spectrum of instruments for robust interventions.”
- 18.
Historically, Britain maintained special relationships with Kuwait and the United States, as did France with Iraq. France was also a strong advocate of problem solving within the UN because of its membership on the Security Council and its desire to maintain independence from United States’ policies.
- 19.
Cognitive research confirms that individuals and organizations are more apt to learn from negative experiences than positive ones; see Brown et al. (2006).
- 20.
The 1948 Brussels Treaty which established the Western Union Defense Organization, predecessor of the WEU, terminated in June 2011.
- 21.
See A Secure Europe in a Better World—European Security Strategy, Brussels, December 12, 2003, available at http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf
- 22.
For an organizational chart of the External Action Service, see https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/eeas/files/organisation_chart_june_2017.pdf, accessed 8/26/17.
- 23.
- 24.
The concept of “soft power” derives from the work of Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (2004).
- 25.
See https://eeas.europa.eu/headquarters/headquarters-homepage_en/430/Military%20and%20civilian%20missions%20and%20operations for details of these operations.
- 26.
It might also be noted that EU Member States may also be encouraged to strengthen their conventional security capabilities in light of the US President Donald Trump’s ostensible “America First” orientation. At an early February 2017 summit in Malta, then French President Francois Hollande said: “Many countries have to realize that their future is first in the European Union, rather than who knows what bilateral relation with the United States….” He continued, “Who knows what the president of the United States really wants” particularly regarding NATO (“EU Leaders…” 2/3/17).
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Brown, M.L. (2018). The 1990–1991 European Communities-Balkans Crisis. In: Regional Economic Organizations and Conventional Security Challenges. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70533-0_5
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