* * * Euro-Atlantic Bulletin * * * 
* * * Evro-atlantski Bilten * * *  
______________________________________________________________________________________ 
Publisher/Izdajatelj: EACS / EASS     Vol. 5 No. 3, 2024 
Editor/Urednik: prof. dr. Iztok Prezelj     May 20, 2024 
ISSN 2712-5270 
http://www.euroatlantic.org/bilten/ 
______________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Anxious Peace: Navigating Post-Conflict Challenges and EU Integration in Southeastern Europe 
Faris Kocan and Rok Zupancic1 
1 Faris Kocan is Assistant Professor at Faculty of Social Sciences (University of Ljubljana). Rok Zupancic is Professor at Faculty of Social Sciences (University of Ljubljana). 
2 Views and opinions of the authors of this paper do not necessarily correspond to views of the Euro-Atlantic Council of Slovenia.  
 
Abstract: 
In this discussion, we focus on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Kosovo, states where the aftermath of the wars left deep marks in (inter)personal and (inter)group relations. We argue that ever-lasting political, economic, societal and security challenges contribute to the rise of anxieties and put people living there under constant pressure and a sense of extraordinariness/extraordinary time. By highlighting both internal (e.g., northern Kosovo, Republika Srpska) and external (e.g., new geopolitical reality, open issues with neighbouring states) challenges, we show how current context in BiH and Kosovo is discouraging people from political life, turning them into passive citizens; such apathy in turn only serves the ruling elites, who often feel they are not accountable to anyone. This discussion is situated within the notion of post-conflict anxiety, which signals lack of predictable societal framework due to delayed institution-building process; leading to ‘normalization’ of anxieties in individuals’ day-to-day life. 2 
Key words: Southeastern Europe, conflict, integration, EU, Kosovo, BIH 
 
Introduction  
Since the fall of Yugoslavia, Southeastern Europe (SEE) has been undergoing complex and multilayered transformation, which is hard to grasp and scrutinize at once; from violent dissolution and Wars to subsequent nation and state-building, democratization and European integration, all framed within the post-conflict paradigm. As Jano (2008) rightly pointed out, there are (at least) three stages of SEE’s complex transformation, encompassing: i) nation and state-building process); ii) institution-building; iii) preparation of SEE countries to become ‘proper’ EU member-states. In other words, disintegration, underpinned by large-scale violence and (ethno-religious antagonisms, led to limited institution-building efforts in SEE once the independence of states formerly being parts of Yugoslavia was achieved. Since mid-1990s, there were multiple efforts of the so-called ‘international community’ to achieve ‘normalization’ in SEE.3  Perhaps the one with the highest ambition was the start of the Stabilisation and Association Process, which, alongside with the Thessaloniki Declaration adopted two decades ago, marked a new ‘momentum’ for the region; it gave SEE the so called ‘European perspective,’ which should, if insisting on a precise vocabulary, be called ‘the EU perspective.’4  
3 Such normalization entails political and economic stability alongside with the acceptance of the EU's aquis. Among the initiatives for ‘normalization’, we could mention (i) Southeast European Cooperation Process; (ii) Southeast European Cooperative Initiative; (iii) Stability Pact for Southeast Europe; (iv) Stabilisation and Association Process (SAP). 
4 The region received an official European perspective in 2003, when the first EU-Western Balkans summit was held in Thessaloniki.   
5 Anxieties in cities of Southeast European post-conflict societies: introducing an integrative approach to peacebuilding (2021–2023; funded by Slovenian Research Agency (Grant N5-0178)). 
While EU member-state building process of SEE entailed similar compliance (institution and policy adaption) and conditionality (pre-acession process) in comparison with the Central and Eastern European states, the performance of the countries in these two regions during the transition period was completely different.  It was so different that one often hears the term ‘delayed’ transition in an attempt to understand the nature of transition in SEE – not only the political aspects of transition (free and fair elections), but economic ones as well (liberalization, stabilization and privatization). And if one combines the specific nature of the transition process of these post-conflict states, i.e. delayed consolidation of state’s (sub)systems that constitute a predictable societal framework, then one can start the debate on the so-called ‘anxious peace’.5 In this respect, we argue that if the instrumentalization of ethnic and/or religious differences between opposing groups is not subjected to successful institution-building process during the transition, then the problems within societal (sub)systems  
 
produce uncertainty, lack of control and agency in (inter)personal and (inter)group relations. This then prevents the establishment of predictable societal framework that would have been navigating day-to-day life of ordinary people (as it is the case in developed democracies) and leads to the fact that (post-conflict) anxieties become ‘normal’ way of life (Kocan and Zupancic, 2024).   
Such a context is ‘name of the game’ in most of the post-conflict societies in SEE. Two states that stand out in this regard are Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Kosovo, where the aftermath of the wars6 left deep marks in (inter)personal and (inter)group relations. Post-conflict anxieties are hence traceable in both states; from institutional discourses of ‘Us-Them’ on state level (Gagnon, 1994), the socially constructed spaces such as Republika Srpska or (Kosovo’s) North (Kocan, 2023; Vulovic, 2020; Zupancic, 2019) to ‘divided’ cities such as Mostar and Mitrovica (Gusic, 2020). Along these similarities, one could also highlight that both these states are characterized by a strong presence of the European Union (EU). While both BiH and Kosovo are normatively committed to the idea of membership in the EU, they are faced with both internal-driven (BiH’s institutional deadlocks) or external-driven (Kosovo’s non-recognition) challenges that prevent the facilitation of solid ground on which they would fully engage within the European integration process. The latter somehow constitutes a paradox, directly linked to the overall context of this discussion – even though European integration is considered a process that through functional cooperation enables the de-antagonization of (inter)personal and (inter)group relations (e.g., Franco-German relations after WWII), it has had limited impact in BiH and Kosovo until now. While opinion polls demonstrate that both BiH (52%) and Kosovo (66%) don’t lack support towards EU membership (Regional Cooperation Council, 2023), it seems that little (institutional-building and reform-wise) progress has been made. This in turn not only prevents meaningful European integration perspective of the states but also the consolidation of their societal (sub)systems, constituting an ongoing cycle of unaddressed post-conflict anxieties underpinning (inter)personal and (inter)group relations. 
6 While Bosnian War occurred in the period between 1992–1995, the Kosovo War lasted from 1998 until 1999.   
 This article aims to analyse a few cases of the political and security-related challenges in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. As we argue, these, as it seems, ever-lasting challenges contribute to the rise of anxieties and put people living there under constant pressure and a sense of extraordinariness/extraordinary times. In such  
 
 
circumstances, most people opt for one of the two choices: first, people become more and more motivated to leave the countries also for non-economic reasons; second, people become increasingly discouraged from  engaging in political life and turn into passive citizens. Such lethargy and apathy serve the ruling elites well, who often feel they are not accountable to anyone. 
   
Kosovo 
Geopolitical reality and circumstances in Kosovo changed significantly in early 1999, when the US and other major EU countries, in particular in the framework of NATO military operation, triggered a set of political-military actions that led to the fact that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (then consisting of Serbia and Montenegro) lost control over Kosovo. In June 1999, this once Yugoslav province came under the administration of the United Nations (UNMIK, supported by several international organizations, the EU, NATO/KFOR and the OSCE most notably). Less than a decade later, in 2008, Kosovo declared independence. Despite heavy international presence led by the Western powers remained in the ‘newborn’ country to date, one could argue that the future of this country remains bleak despite some successes – the last one being the EU visa liberalization in January 2024. 
To illustrate: Kosovo is nowadays the second poorest country in Europe (only Ukraine scores lower according to GDP per capita data from 2023, with heavy emigration – every third worker aspires to leave the country (Euronews, 2023). In addition to the demographic and economic challenges, a set of political and security challenges remains unresolved. In this section, we will address only a few of challenges that mark the anxieties in this post-conflict society: the question of northern Kosovo and relations with Serbia; the changed nature of relations between Prishtina and the West; and open issues with neighbouring states and the status of Albanian minorities there. 
 
The question of northern Kosovo (and relations with Serbia) 
The north of Kosovo is the last region of this country that has not yet fully fallen under the full control of the Kosovo government. The Kosovo Serbs who are a majority there feel reluctant to integrate into a country that they do not consider ‘theirs’. This comes as a no surprise; it is important to understand that their attitude goes  
 
far beyond nationalistic ideas – the latter being an over-simplified accusation coming often from the authorities in Prishtina. The refusal of many Serbs to accept the full sovereignty of Prishtina and “integrate”, which is a buzzword of the EU and the US, is much linked to the pragmatic decisions. Namely, the educational, social and healthcare systems have been still operating in the framework of the state of the Republic of Serbia, which significantly supports their functioning due to the fact that they are one of the last leverages Belgrade still has over Serbs in Kosovo – and also perhaps the last means that the government of Serbia can offer, hoping that at least a couple of thousands of Serbs remain there. Compared to the state institutions of Kosovo, the Serbian healthcare and educational services in the north of Kosovo are in a much better shape, as they better – and cheaper or even ‘free of charge’ – address the needs of local Serbs, which is what many Kosovo Albanians south of the Ibar river could only hope for. 
One has to acknowledge that if Belgrade not so long ago still had almost unrestrained power to control and influence the Kosovo Serbs (through its “local subcontractor” Srpska lista), the era of full control over Serbs there has gone. Namely, many local Serbs nowadays do not seek permission in Belgrade for all of their actions (although their cooperation with ‘the structures in Serbia’ is still strong) and act on their own or under umbrella of certain businessmen. For example, the events in Banjska in 2023, when a group of heavily armed Serbs clashed with Kosovo police (KFOR was there, as well), demonstrated that the centres of power in the north of Kosovo have diversified. By observing the statements on social media, it seems not too far-fledged to argue that many Kosovo Serbs have lost patience and fear of the controversial strongmen living ‘between Kosovo and Serbia’, about which local people not so long ago rarely dared to speak publicly. 
However, the Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti does not seem to act with much understanding of the Kosovo Serbs’ issues. Quite on the contrary, in the last two years, by stretching the control over the north of Kosovo by all means, he managed to alienate the local Serbian population even much more than his predecessors had. One could also argue that Kurti is repeating the same mistakes than Miloševic did in the 1990s, when he often acted mercilessly and with no restraint in dealing with the issues of Kosovo Albanians. As it seems that Kurti wants to integrate the north as soon as possible and regardless of the means used, it must be acknowledged that the local Serbs have been through years, especially after the Brussels Agreement between Prishtina and Belgrade (2013), gradually forced to become more and more citizens of Kosovo. In other words, although this is rarely publicly debated, the following facts show that the control of Prihstina over Serbs has increased: Serbs have been were voting on Kosovo’s elections and electing their representatives in Kosovo’s parliament; they  
 
participated in the institutions of Kosovo’s state, e.g. police, courts, municipalities etc. (although withdrawals happen from time to time); the majority of Kosovo Serbs to date acquired Kosovo’s identity cards, as this practically became a prerequisite for any kind of work in Kosovo etc.  
 
Changing attitude towards the Western powers 
Kosovo Albanians are predominantly aware of the fact that their country 'owes' a significant credit for its independence to external factors (the US and major European countries in particular), without which the rule of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia would perhaps not have ended so dramatically than it had in 1999. If the first period of Kosovo without Serbia’s rule has been marked with unequivocal and intensive pro-EU and pro-American stance, the attitude of Kosovars towards the West has changed in the last years. This is not surprising. The Kosovo Albanians have long been waiting to get the EU visa liberalization, which they finally did in January 2024. In other words, only from this year the citizens of Kosovo can travel freely to the EU, without a need to acquire EU visa – a costly and often painful process, which required a lot of patience and time when waiting in queues for the appointment at the embassies of the EU countries. However, this long process of getting a bit closer to the EU could be understood to be more a result of changed geopolitical realities (the war in Ukraine etc.) than the EU whole-hearted willingness to liberalize the visa regime. This, in turn, led to the rise of the EU scepticism.  
The ruling Kosovo’s political elite believes - and many Kosovars concur - that the EU has been treating Kosovo unfairly and unjustly also in the Belgrade-Prishtina dialogue process, which, as many in Prishtina argue, favours Serbia over Kosovo. Also the sympathies for the US nowadays are getting new nuances. Although Kosovo remains pro-American, the US diplomat Richard Grennel (a special US envoy) and the US Ambassador to Kosovo Jeff Hovenier have been often criticizing Kurti and his government for undermining the joint American-European efforts to achieve a lasting solution for peace between Kosovo and Serbia. Finally yet importantly, Washington has openly attributed the last outbreak of violence in the north of Kosovo between the Kosovo police and the Serbs from northern Kosovo, which took place last year, to Kurti’s irresponsible policies. Many in Kosovo fear that Kurti’s unpreparedness for compromise has been leading to the loss of unwavering support of the US for Kosovo. 
 
Relations of Kosovo with neighbouring countries 
Kurti openly speaks that his political goal is the unification with Albania. This raises concerns in Kosovo’s neighbouring states. In Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, he has been actively promoting ‘the Albanian cause’. During his visits in the Northern Macedonia, he often does not refrain from using the symbols of Kosovo and Albania. Recently, he also actively supported one of Albanian parties at the elections in North Macedonia, leading to the upheaval of the Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), the major Albanian-dominated political party in North Macedonia. Also the relations and support for Albanians of Preshevo and Bujanovac (the municipalities in Serbia) by Kurti are intensive and cordial  (and often go far beyond the normal support a foreign head of state to ‘his people’ living as ethnic minority in another country). The same could be said for Kurti’s attitude towards Montenegro, which also has a significant Albanian presence; Kurti has frequently met the Albanian politicians from Montenegro and has also been giving statements that some Montenegrin politicians (e.g. the country’s prime minister Dritan Abazovic) consider as eventual interference into other country’s internal affairs. Such behaviour does not only encounter severe criticism of the neighbouring states, but also leads to raising the eyebrows of the Western diplomats. 
 
Bosnia and Herzegovina  
 
Similar than in the case of Kosovo in 1999, BiH’s reality significantly started to change in 1994, when the scope of NATO involvement increased at the expense of Bosnian Serbs (this was the year when NATO launched its first close air support mission). This continued in 1995 and soon after the Operation Deliberate Force (August–September 1995), the belligerents in the Bosnian War met in Dayton and signed the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), which ended the end of the War. As part of the DPA, NATO agreed to provide 60.000 troops to deploy to the region, as part of the Implementation Force (IFOR). These forces remained deployed until December 1996, when those remaining in the region were transferred to the Stabilization Force (SFOR); the latter remained in BiH until 2004, when it was replaced by the European Union Force (EUFOR – still present). If one couples this reality with the Office of High Representative and its Bonn’s Powers (civilian implementation of the DPA), then one could argue about strong international presence led by the Western powers in post-war BiH. However, almost 30 years after the War, institutional challenges (state-wise)  
 
seem to stay rather unresolved. BiH is nowadays the fifth poorest country in Europe, with a permanent demographic decline and nearly half of young people thinking of emigrating (Efendic et al., 2023). Alongside clear economic and demographic challenges, there are also pressing political and security challenges that are yet to be resolved.  
In this section, we will address only a few of challenges that fit within the post-conflict anxieties framework: the question of Republika Srpska; new geopolitical reality vis-ŕ-vis European integration process; and open issues with neighbouring states and the dynamics of the ‘Croatian question’ in BiH.  
 
The question of Republika Srpska   
Even though Republika Srpska (RS) is highly autonomous political entity just like the Federation of BiH (FBiH), there are important differences between these coequal entities. The most obvious one pertains to the demographic reality, as RS is understood as majority-Serb political entity (83% of Serbs), while FBiH is considered a Bosniak-Croat entity (70% of Bosniaks and 22% of Croats). This is of crucial importance, as it allowed the political elite in RS to project an image of ‘quasi-statehood’ within BiH’s institutional framework, epitomized in the so-called political capabilities of the entity – while FBiH is divided into then highly autonomous cantons with their governments, assemblies and exclusive and shared competencies, RS is rather centralised (64 municipalities and one central government and assembly). This in turn managed to consolidate the political power of Milorad Dodik and his party during the last 15 years or so, and enabled him to hold a strong ‘grip’ over the institution-building efforts in BiH, for which the Western powers have strived ever since; after the signature of the Stabilization and Association Agreement in 2008, BiH entered in a ‘period of regression’, as reform incentives that aimed to create ‘a more functional state’ failed (i.e., Prud and Butmir Processes). Milorad Dodik has managed to successfully install the idea in broader socio-political framework of RS that these reforms are ‘cutting back the Serbs and Croats while empowering Bosniaks’ and ‘would put an end to the political capabilities of RS as (highly autonomous) political entity (Kocan, 2023).   
This period coincides with strong secessionist rhetoric, which in turn managed to maintain the status quo in the country – lack of structural reforms, which were meant to build appropriate political, economic, societal and security conditions in BiH. Narratives such as ”BiH is led by foreigners (primarily by OHR and foreign  
 
constitutional judges)” and that ”BiH is a failed state” have persisted up until today; even though Dodik is under strong pressure from the Western powers, encompassing not only OHR’s ongoing struggle to impose laws in RS (e.g., annulation of three adopted laws in RS in 2022 and 2023 on constitutional court of BiH and property law, election law in 2024), but also US and UK sanctions on Milorad Dodik, his family members and wider business network connected with him (Singh and Landay, 2023). In a new geopolitical circumstances, driven by Russian aggression on Ukraine, pro-Russian Dodik seems to become an unsolvable enigma for Western powers; even though BiH received conditional green light regarding its EU candidate status, Dodik has managed to open a new frontier with both the US and OHR – on 19 April 2024, RS adopted new laws on elections and referendums, meaning that the new laws gives RS control over elections and referendums and envisages the creation of a Republic Election Commission, making the state-level one invalid (Kurtic, 2024). This in turns adds another layer of challenges for the institution-building efforts, which are perceived as prerequisite for further European integration of BiH, facilitating the idea that in BiH, ‘one step further by the political elite is always accompanied by two steps backwards’.   
 
New geopolitical reality vis-ŕ-vis European integration process  
Since the start of the Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2022, BiH has become one of the most imminent questions for the EU and Western powers; particularly because of the pro-Russian sentiments in RS and institutionalized ties with Serbia, the only state in the region that didn’t impose sanctions on Russia. After the start of the aggression, most of the political analysts, alongside the political elites from various EU capitals (e.g., Slovenia, Austria, Croatia, Hungary) have started to advocate for BiH’s EU candidate status, even though BiH managed to fulfil only one out of 14 recommendations issued by the European Commission in 2019. This reality was quickly wrapped within the ‘technical aspects of the process’, meaning that there were several voices who openly emphasized the political aspect of enlargement. Such an approach has proved successful for Ukraine and Moldova, who received the green light to open accession negotiations already in December 2023. The latter proved decisive also for BiH, which received the status of a candidate for EU membership in 2022; while the Netherlands and Denmark were sceptical about the green light, von der Leyen’s visit to Sarajevo in February 2024 signalled that BiH will get a chance to open accession negotiations if some reform  
 
 
progress will be shown by March – this was achieved by Bosnian authorities when it came to the establishment of operational cooperation with Frontex, Law on courts and Law on the prevention of corruption.  
The above-mentioned green light for the accession negotiations would never be a possibility without the changing geopolitical context, in which Western Balkans in general and BiH in specific would not be perceived as a potential security pocket for further institutionalization of Russian influence; while one could acknowledge the positives that such a signal by the EU entails for the BiH’s citizens (i.e., the transformative potential that the EU supposedly entails with its European integration is now tangible), one cannot neglect the broader impact of such decision – not only it has somehow damaged the perception of the EU in the region if comparing the situation with for example North Macedonia, a country that changed its official name to start the accession negotiations process but later faced first French and later Bulgarian veto, but it has also opened the question of the impact of such decision for the domestic (BiH’s) political elite; the green light came without implementation of all recommendations, meaning that the green light didn’t come as a reward for the work that would entail functional cooperation among the representatives of the constitutive peoples, but despite this. If one understand the EU membership not as an end-goal but as a process in itself, then one mustn’t be surprised if the relations between the political elites stayed on the same level as they were before the green light – this is already vivid in at least two reactions in March and April, when Dodik for example said that ”they cannot live with Bosniaks, who persistently slander us and impose responsibility where it does not exist”, referring to the latest attempt to adopt resolution on Srebrenica genocide in the United Nations, and a decision on a joint Easter Assembly between Serbia and RS in May 2024; the latter demonstrating a continuation in maintaining relations with foreign country outside of the usual framework of bilateral relations in international politics (RS and Serbia instead of BiH and Serbia).  
 
Relations with neighbouring states and the dynamics of the ‘Croatian question’ in BiH 
While special relations between RS and Serbia are not new, a potential new challenge for BiH is opening via official Zagreb. Even though that Croatia in general and ruling Croatian Democratic Union (CDU) in specific never endorsed foreign policy with BiH, but instead understood foreign policy towards BiH as relations between CDU and CDU BiH, a new kind of momentum has occurred; since 2022, when Christian Schmidt (High Representative) changed election law when the votes were still being counted, the so-called ‘Croatian  
 
question’ has become an ever-pressing topic. In the past two years, it has become evident that Croatia has intesified its presence in BiH, particularly when it comes to the potential changes of the Law on Elections and Croatian member of the BiH’s presidency. Dragan Covic, a leader of CDU BiH, the most important Croatian party in BiH, has openly advocated for a new formula under which a Croatian member of the Presidency could not be elected by Bosniaks, but only by Croats in FBiH. Because such formula cannot be achieved without additional layer of discrimination in (F)BiH, Herceg-Bosna started to become a part of the everyday agenda-setting in FBiH (i.e., historical circumstances of Herceg-Bosna, the idea that without this entity, there would be no BiH) (Sarajevo Times, 2023). Interesting enough, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic has – on 18 April, a day after the general elections in Croatia – emphasized that the question of the election of Croatian member of the Presidency of BiH is one of the most important questions in his (most probably) third mandate as Prime Minister. While one would consider this as an interference into BiH’s internal affairs, there were no reactions from BiH on this, demonstrating that this Plenkovic and his CDU belive that this is somehow part of the Croatian internal affairs.  
 
Conclusion 
In such ambiguous conundrum of many pessimistic and rare optimistic circumstances, the anxieties of people living in the post-conflict society of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo are being constantly reshaped; new sorts of post-conflict anxieties emerge and come on the top of the existing anxieties, which make local population apprehensive and worried (and political elites more wealthy and corrupt, as cynics would say). Current context in both countries demonstrate that socio-political, economic and security challenges need to be addressed within Euro-Atlantic framework, encompassing both top-down and bottom-up approach; meaning that the local turn to institution-building in the region should become a doable complementary to the existing institutional (top-down) efforts. Only in such a way the societal (sub)systems would enable the needed agency, predictability and much-desired fairness that would successfully address post-conflict anxieties among individuals. Until then, the local people of the two countries will be forced to live in a bleak reality, in which ethnic distance and antagonisms are a norm that hinders the integration of these countries in the EU.  
 
 
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