NYT: Balkans, testing ground in New Cold War

Experts estimate Russia is expanding its influence and is increasing ethnic tensions in countries hoping to enter the European Union for what reason Brussels has revived plans for enlargement.

Researchers at the Institute for International Relations in Prague, Mark Galeot, have estimated that following the Western joint response to the poisoning of double spy Sergei Scripal in England, “Balkan is becoming more and more important”.

“Russia looks for ways to return the reactions that would be asymmetric and would ensure the circumstances in Moscow”, Galeotti said.

He in an article for European Council on Foreign Revelations has estimated that “Russia looks at the Balkans as its battlefield in an effort to draw attention to the countries for negotiations with the European Union”, broadcasts Koha.net.

Charles Kupchan, director for Europe at the White House Council for National Security during the time of Barack Obama, has said that the <x0->rus exploits the circumstances in the latter part of Western Europe, which is still politically dysfunctional”.

The situation in the Balkans to some extent resembles Ukraine, where Russia admitted Kiev to approach the EU but not NATO, but then changed its stance which led to the collapse of the prorus regime and then annexing the Crimea.

In the Balkans, the race with Russia has the potential to cause new instability in the region, which is continuing to recover from the wars of the 1990s in which the former Yugoslavia was destroyed, notes NYT, broadcast Koha.net.

BiH, which was somehow joined in 1995 at the end of the war, is still a fragile construction, fraught with corruption, weak leadership, ethnic and national tensions, which is also the metaphor of the Balkans, the paper points out.

This is one of the main points Russia tries to exploit, Kupchan has said, adding that the others are Macedonia, Kosovo and Serbia.

The European Union has offered the new prospect for membership to Western Balkan countries, but no one believes these countries are ready for EU accession.

The paper stresses that after the EU's release of Great Britain and Russia's efforts to exploit cracks in the region, the EU has published the detailed plan for the Balkans, under which Serbia and Montenegro can enter the European Union by 2025.

Americans have also been interested in the Balkans.

Washington's new interest stems from concerns about expanding Russian influence, Ross Johnson from the Wilson Centre has said, adding that the US Congress wants the Pentagon to make the assessment of the Western Balkans' security co-operation with Russia.

Galletti estimates that Russia tries to find its country even in the governments and companies in the Western Balkans so that when they enter the EU, they can take Russian influence there.

He estimates the EU is not attentive when it comes to Serbia, where Russia has major investments in infrastructure and especially energy.

The EU's “Policy has been to support whatever the Western Balkans keep at peace. This is very dangerous and it creates a perfect environment for Moscow to play its own”, Galletti said.

He, like other analysts, says Brussels should offer even more when it comes to the carrot, and even when it comes to offering the stick exactly institutional reform initiatives and just penalties for their non-fulfillment.

The former American official, who has wanted to remain anonymous, has said that the Balkans is the new ground of the Cold War and has added that Brussels has been overly regid by the ways it wanted to keep the region on track.

He has said that reforms have only been implemented when Brussels and Washington have forced leaders to give up old habits with corruption, capture of the state, politicised trial and Russian companies trying to take the main impact on infrastructure and media.

Kupchan to some extent is optimistic. He says everyone knows how the story will end with the integration of all former Yugoslav republics into the EU, but the question of when.