Saturday’s protests in the Republika Srpska, Kosovo, and FYROM ended mostly peaceful and all political actors were satisfied by it. However, bearing in mind that continuation of the protests were announced, we explored whether the Western Balkan is again the powder keg.
Balkan pot or a powder keg. The names are different but for a long time describe the situation in the region. Even the Vice-President of the European Parliament, Ulrike Lunacek, recently said that there was a danger that EU, conditionally saying, loses the Western Balkans.
Protests are held long in FYROM, they are becoming increasingly common in Kosovo, there were protests in Montenegro, and the last were held in the Republika Srpska.
“What’s interesting this time is that the madness does not occur because of a conflict between states or nations as it used to be in former Yugoslavia, but it is the product of political tensions within these newly created states, where simply none of them managed to build-up a sufficient level of democratic capacity, nor is able to sufficiently strengthen institutions so that they can give some answers to the important questions of the states: where these countries and where these societies should go at a time when you have a serious redistribution of cards,” said Branko Miljus, director of the weekly Express.
Everyone agrees that this fragile situation does not correspond the citizens of the Western Balkan countries, from whichever country they come from. Dragan Djukanovic of the Center for Foreign Policy, believes that outer influences are not behind all this, and that the EU, led by Germany as the strongest country, will not allow a possible escalation of the conflict.
“Certainly, there is no event that is happening in a country which does not reflect, by the principle of communicating vessels, on the rest of the Western Balkans. Of course, that the escalation of the crisis would be problematic. But I do not believe in the possibility of some major challenges in terms of regional security. I think that these forms that now exist would be rehabilitated through political dialogue, and in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Montenegro and in FYROM and Kosovo”, said Dragan Djukanovic of the Center for Foreign Policy.
The bad economic situation and the absence of strong institutions are mentioned as the biggest causes of discontent. Analyst Vlade Simovic says that throughout history it brought some other problems.
“I am afraid of some other scenario. Balkan countries are countries that do not yet have sufficiently consolidated democracies. Countries that did not yet complete the process of democratic transition in full, as such are the space where democracy is still uncertain or the survival of democracy is uncertain. I really fear that in such a situation of economic crisis, the situation happens where some other powerful authoritarian currents appear which could lead this space into some form of authoritarianism, dictatorship or the like,” said analyst Vlade Simovic.
Some see this situation as a Balkan spring by drawing a parallel with the Arab Spring. One thing all analysts agree is that the protests in the Western Balkans will continue.
