LOCAL PRESS

Vucic: It is not stated anywhere that ZSO would be formed according to Kosovo law (RTS) 

President Vucic told RTS on Tuesday that the Brussels agreement did not state anywhere that the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO) would be formed according to Kosovo law and that he was surprised by European Commission spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic’s statement on that.

“I want them to show us where it says that in the Brussels agreement, I know the Brussels agreement by heart, it is on the website of the government, president, office, it does not say that anywhere,” Vucic said and added that the ZSO would be formed in accordance with the Brussels agreement, principles and plan. “I am surprise with that statement because I told them 100 times in Brussels that the ZSO will be formed in accordance with the Brussels agreement, principles and implementation plan, and only in accordance with that. We are not in Brussels because we agree with the existence of a Kosovo state, Kosovo independence, but precisely on the contrary. We are here in order to negotiate on everything on which we disagree,” said Vucic. He says that if harmonization with the Kosovo constitution is the only thing that is important for EU representatives, then they are not status neutral anymore.

Guns not most dangerous in Thaci’s statement  

When it comes to Hashim Thaci’s statement, Vucic says that not even the Serbian media and politicians understood what the most dangerous part of his statement was. “These guns of his were not most dangerous, not even the open threat with war in front of so many people. The most dangerous part of his statement what that 20 years ago there was an unambiguous and clear idea for removing all barriers between the two countries of the Albanian people,” said Vucic.

“Thus, you are revealing to us 20 years later that everything was a plan, that you wanted then two countries of the Albanian people, since the Serbs are probably here some error in existence and that it should be removed in some way and that nobody from Europe and the world reacted,” he said. He notes that the previous evening when the obligations in Mostar ended, he had received objections from many in Europe to the reactions of the Serbian government members.

“Then you stand and wonder whether this is possible at all. Then you stand and tell yourself – perhaps it is no bad for people in Serbia to see this, to know what we face, to know what is it that is their policy towards Serbia,” said Vucic. He thinks that Maja Kocijancic’s statement is good only in that sense, which shows Serbia in a clear way what kind of negotiations are in Brussels, how difficult it is, what Belgrade representatives face and what is their view. “Therefore, they unambiguously want independence of Kosovo, it is clear now to all of us, we are left to see what is that we want with ourselves, how we want it, and it seems to me that it is completely clear to us after all this, not only what we have to do, because sometimes you need to do something that you don’t like, but at least it is sufficiently clear who is our friend, and who we can’t really call by this name,” Vucic told RTS in Trebinje.

Djuric: How can constitutional court in Pristina annul principles of Brussels agreement? (Tanjug/RTS)

Reacting to an EU announcement that the remarks and conclusions of Kosovo constitutional court would serve as a foundation for further elaboration of a statute of the Community of Serb Municipalities (ZSO), the Head of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric asked how the court was entitled to unilaterally annul provisions and principles from the Brussels agreement. “My question is: where, under what point, article or paragraph of the agreement is it envisaged that the constitutional court in Pristina can unilaterally annul the provisions thereof, before the statute of the ZSO has even been adopted? Since something like that is not envisaged anywhere and in one single agreement, it should be clear to everybody what are the intentions of those who are presenting such stands precisely at this moment,” Djuric told Tanjug.

The ZSO will be established in line with Kosovo laws, European Commission spokesperson Maja Kocijancic said on Tuesday. Sources in Brussels said a management team set up by Pristina to work on the ZSO draft statute would also be assisted by OSCE experts.

Kocijas: Kosovo trade office to be opened in Athens (RTS)

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kocijas said in Belgrade that his country will not change the stance on the non-recognition of Kosovo’s independence. Nikos Kocijas added that the commercial office, which will be opened in Athens, will not be Pristina’s diplomatic representation. Kocijas said that as early as 2011 and 2014, during the then government of Neodemocracy and PASOK, there was an agreement to open the Kosovo trade office in the Greek capital. “When it opens, and it will be opened at some point, that office will not be a diplomatic representation of Kosovo. The consulate is a diplomatic representation, and this is not agreed or foreseen,” Kocijas said at a joint news conference with Serbian counterpart Ivica Dacic. He stressed that Greece did not recognize Kosovo independence, nor will it do so. Serbian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dacic also confirmed that the opening of a Kosovo trade office in Athens was discussed a few years ago, when an initiative was launched. There is no agreement that this has anything to do with the change in Greece’s position regarding Kosovo’s independence, Dacic said. Asked about Greece’s position on whether the ZSO should be formed in accordance with the Brussels agreement or in accordance with Kosovo’s laws, Kocijas said that agreements should be fully implemented. “Agreements should be implemented, but not unilaterally, but in their entirety, and everyone should bear that in mind,” Kocijas responded briefly to the press. Dacic added that we should not expect from our friends from Greece to know all the details, but that they have the understanding, because we inform them about everything. He added that Kocias’ idea was to form trilateral with Serbia, Greece and Spain.

Asked whether the ZSO would be formed based on the Brussels agreement or on Kosovo laws, Kotzias said that agreements should be implemented in their entirety. Asked about the Macedonia name dispute, the Greek minister said that a step forward had been made, while the key to a solution lies in realism and pragmatism. “A compromise is needed, but not a rotten compromise. Both sides must understand that they can’t get everything,” he added.  Dacic said that the most effective way is to talk directly and seek a common interest in removing the problems that go into to the region’s past, tradition, and history. Serbia has understanding for the stance of Greece, he said, and described his country’s decision to recognize Macedonia under its constitutional name as an ill-considered move. Dacic added that Macedonia’s behavior toward Serbia has not been adequate, and recalled that Skopje recognized Kosovo.

Seselj found guilty on appeal, sentenced to 10 years in jail (RTS)

The Appeals Chamber of the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) has announced its ruling in the proceedings against Vojislav Seselj. Seselj has been found guilty and sentenced to ten years – however, considering that he spent 11.5 years detained by the Hague Tribunal, he will not go to jail.

Nis: Over 1,000 citizens protest plan to hand over city airport to state (Beta)

More than 1,000 citizens of Nis protested on 10 April a plan by the city government to cede control of the Constantine the Great airport to the central authorities. At the rally outside the Nis City Hall, the protesters raised leaflets in a symbolic vote against the decision to “give the airport to the state as a gift.” They peacefully ended the protest after one hour. The Nis city council decided on March 30 to transfer the airport’s assets and management rights to the state, but for the decision to be valid, it needs to be approved by the city assembly, too. A session scheduled or 10 April was postponed until further notice, with an explanation by the assembly that “too much misinformation about the status of the airport, distributed by individuals and different interest groups, undermines the credibility of the City of Nis.”

REGIONAL PRESS

Mostar Fair: Vucic calls for establishment of single market, Covic asks for support to EU path (TV1)

The 2018 Mostar Fair commenced on Tuesday. Organizers assessed that this is the most successful fair so far, being attended by 800 participants from more than 20 countries. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, whose country is a partner of this year’s fair, delivered the opening speech saying that Mostar is a center of the region. Vucic underlined that Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H) and Serbia can achieve progress only if they build good-neighborly relations, adding that the two countries must work together in order to implement major projects and accelerate development. He stressed the importance of such events in terms of cooperation among the “small” countries with “small” markets, which should be merged into a single market through undisturbed exchange of goods, knowledge and capital in the future. “Everyone will want to cooperate with such market,” Vucic concluded. Croat member of the B&H Presidency Dragan Covic, who is a host of this event, addressed the guests reminding that the fair used to be a small, local manifestation 20 years ago. In his opinion, the large number of participants this year suggests how big the fair is nowadays. Covic reminded that B&H aspires to become a part of the EU, stressing that the path towards the EU is the only path for this country. In this context, Covic asked Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, whose country currently holds the Presidency of the Council of the EU and Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, whose country has already done a lot for B&H to submit the membership application in the first place, to help B&H accelerate its path towards the EU even more – along with support of friends from Serbia and Montenegro. He added that the neighboring countries play a very important role on B&H’s path towards becoming a modern state. “I think it could significantly help B&H get entirely stabilized as a modern European state, and it could also help us secure full equality through legitimate representation of constituent peoples – Croats, Bosniaks and Serbs – in every part of B&H. That is our future. Thank you for helping us achieve it,” Covic said.

Borissov meets Vucic in Mostar, says he is not satisfied with what he sees in Balkans (N1)

A number of bilateral meetings were held on Tuesday on the sidelines of the Mostar Fair. Namely, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov. Borissov, urged leaders in the region to preserve peace and stability. He stressed that he is not satisfied with what he is seeing in the Balkans. Borissov also said that failure to adopt amendments to the B&H Election Law would mean a kind of blockade of B&H, adding that he is not optimistic a solution to that issue will be found. “When it comes to the Election Law, three sides in B&H will not be able to come to an agreement. At least, that is what I believe and that is not something the EU wants. Failure to adopt the amendments to the B&H Election Law will permanently block BiH,” Borissov underlined. Vucic, on the other hand, said that there is no alternative to cooperation. Vucic stressed that he tried to convince Borissov that Serbia will do everything in its power to preserve peace and stability. “Any kind of conflict would set us back one hundred years just when we started to recover in the economic sense,” Vucic stressed.

According to Borissov, he will find a way so that Kosovo President Hashim Thaci can attend the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Sofia, on May 16-17. Borissov also said that leaders of the Western Balkans are not optimistic that problems in the region will be solved soon. Addressing media, Borissov called on “brothers, Muslims, Bosniaks, Croats, Serbs, the entire region from Greece, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, everyone in the region” to be reasonable, saying that only the Balkans will bear consequences. Borissov emphasized: “We have already seen this before. Bulgaria returned decades backwards due to the war in the (former) Yugoslavia. We would not want this to happen again. We should not be egoists, no country in the Balkans”.

“Vucic pays great efforts. I know Serbia and I am aware how difficult is for him to preserve peace. I really hope that colleagues from Kosovo will continue in the same spirit, since latest conflicts are concerning for all of us”, Borissov told the press conference after the meeting.

SDA to nominate candidate for Bosniak member of B&H Presidency on May 26 (TV1)

After the session that took place in Sarajevo on Tuesday, SDA Presidency confirmed that a candidate for the Bosniak member of the B&H Presidency will be nominated by secret voting at the party’s convention on May 26. Possible candidates include Sefik Dzaferovic, Safet Softic and Denis Zvizdic. SDA leader Bakir Izetbegovic said that the work on solutions to the issue of amendments to the Election Law of B&H is underway, adding that it would not be too late to reach an agreement by the end of September. “The problem that is being solved in line with the motion by Mr. Ljubic has come down to one or two of 17 delegates in the Federation of B&H House of Peoples coming from West Herzegovina and not from Gorazde, for example. That is the level of this problem. The problem of asymmetry between the Republika Srpska (RS) Council of Peoples and the Federation of B&H House of Peoples is a much more important thing for this country, in my opinion,” Izetbegovic explained. Izetbegovic commented the position of HDZ B&H leader Dragan Covic on the Election Law on B&H and stated that HDZ BiH’s stance on this matter is “a bad sign for the EU, but that a solution can still be found by September”. When asked why he and Chairman of the B&H Council of Ministers (BiH CoM) Denis Zvizdic did not attend the opening of the 21st Mostar Fair on Tuesday, Izetbegovic stated: “I believe that it is neither fair nor wise, it is especially not fair to the institution of the B&H Presidency and the coalition partners. I personally believe that Mister Covic was not fair towards the Bosniaks, towards his coalition partners during the entire mandate. He made bad choices, even though I know we could have done more for all, even for Croats. You cannot really know why Mister Covic ‘sticks a torn in a completely healthy foot’ and spoils relations, thus reducing any chances of changing something for Croats and all others”, said Izetbegovic.

Wigemark: EU is not here to impose solutions, but we expect agreement on Law on Elections (Oslobodjenje)

Head of the EU Delegation to B&H and EU Special Representative Lars-Gunnar Wigemark stated that the EU is not present in B&H to take anyone’s side, but to help B&H officials find solutions. “Any solution that is reached must be a result of a compromise. Reaching compromise is not anyone’s defeat, but a sign of wisdom and strength,” said Wigemark and added: “There is a chance to make a true step forward, and the fact it is the election year is not an excuse not to work. Authorities will be here until October.” Wigemark rejected allegations of “offering of cakes” to B&H politicians, saying that the Law on Elections is much more important issue than the Law on Excise Duties.

The delegation of the State Duma of the Russian Federation met with Mladen Bosic (BNTV)

Within the official three-day visit to B&H, the delegation of the State Duma of the Russian Federation met with Speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR) of B&H Mladen Bosic and members of the B&H parliament’s Friendship Group for Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), in Sarajevo on Tuesday.  Collocutors stressed that there is a need for enlargement of political and economic cooperation between the two countries. Bosic assessed that B&H and the Russian Federation have good and stable relations, but the cooperation between the Russian Duma and B&H Parliament is unreasonably at the low level. He invited the Russian Duma leadership to visit B&H. Bosic added that Russia plays a great role in international, political and economic relations and that it is an important country for B&H, reminding that B&H has not joined the EU in introduction of sanctions against the Russian Federation. Commenting on the meeting, Bosic said: “We exchanged concern over possible new situations in which big forces would play games in this area, while small nations are affected. The best thing would be to try to resolve our problems alone though talks and dialogue, so that others do not need to resolve these problems instead of us.” He noted that there is significant level of economic trade in favor of Russia, stressing that BiH also has to pay efforts to be more present on the Russian market where there is a lot of room for progress. Bosic also reminded that Russian parliamentarians promised that they will find a way to address the topic of improvement of the economic and political cooperation between the two countries. Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma’s Financial Market Committee Igor Divinsky said that the visit of the Russian Duma delegation is the first step towards development of cooperation between the two countries’ parliaments.  Member of the Friendship Group for Central and Eastern Europe of the B&H parliament Stasa Kosarac said that Russia is not interfering with the internal matters of B&H, that it is respecting the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) and encouraging dialogue between the constituent peoples of B&H. “At the same time, Russia is strongly against any kind of imposition of solutions and the use of the so-called Bonn powers of the High Representative, who with their decisions in the past caused serious damage in B&H and Republika Srpska. Any new intervention by the High Representative, particularly when it comes to the electoral system and electoral rules, will not bring anything good to the citizens of B&H,” Kosarac underlined.

Bosnian leaders deny allegations of Islamic radicalization (Hina)

Bosniak political parties and associations, together with the Islamic community in Bosnia and Herzegovina (B&H), strongly believe that the country can function only as a secular state and resolutely deny accusations that their real plan is to establish an Islamic state – this is the key message of a meeting the chair of the B&H Presidency Bakir Izetbegovic held in Sarajevo on Tuesday with prominent Bosniak officials and leaders of cultural and non-governmental organizations and the leader of the Islamic community Husein Kavazovic. “Bosniaks are permanently committed to preserving and strengthening the integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a democratic, multi-ethnic, European, secular and civic state founded on the rule of law, as a member of the European Union and NATO. We also resolutely reject evident attempts to reduce the status of Bosniaks to a religious group by emphasizing their Islamic identity. Islam has had an important role in the development of Bosniaks’ modern ethnic identity, but they are above all a European people with all the rights that belong to them,” read conclusions published after the meeting. The leaders described claims about plans to create an Islamic state in B&H as “brazen, insulting and completely unfounded”, a reference to earlier statements by the Croat member of the presidency and HDZ B&H party leader Dragan Covic, and repeated statements by Serb political leaders such as Milorad Dodik. The Bosniak officials most strongly denied as unfounded claims of the “radicalization and thriving of violent extremism among Bosniaks,” assessing that such xenophobic and Islamophobic claims were designed to poison the global public by falsely depicting B&H and its Muslim citizens as an alleged security threat and in that way to politically delegitimize them. The Bosniak leaders also jointly condemned the “glorification of joint criminal enterprises” which Bosniaks were exposed to in the past war and which resulted in judgments by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, as well as the glorification and decoration of convicted war criminals. They called on the authorities of the Republika Srpska entity to stop with the systematic discrimination of returnees to that entity.

Slovenia asks EU to mediate in another dispute with Croatia (Hina)

The Slovenian government will send a written request to the European Commission asking it to accept the role of a mediator in the dispute between Slovenia and Croatia over transferred savings accounts held by Croatian citizens in the now defunct, Yugoslav-era, Ljubljanska Banka Zagreb, Slovenian media reported on Tuesday referring to a statement by Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec. “We will call on the European Commission to conduct mediation regarding the problem of transferred foreign currency savings accounts. The letter is being prepared by Finance Minister Mateja Vranicar Erman and will probably be signed by Prime Minister Miro Cerar. Whether the letter will be sent is a matter to be agreed to within the framework of Slovenia’s policies,” Erjavec said as carried by the Slovenia STA news agency. In the event the EC agrees to mediate in the dispute and Croatia rejects that, or if the mediation is conducted but ends inconclusively, then Slovenia could sue Croatia before the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, but that still isn’t being considered, Erjavec added.

Serbian President “not into extradition” (CDM)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters he cannot answer their question about Montenegro’s request for the extradition of Svetozar Marovic, because that’s “not his job”.

“I do not know anything about this request. We have good cooperation with Montenegro, and the Serbian judiciary will act in accordance with the principles of international legal assistance. I do not think it is the job of the President,” he said. Deputy Prime Minister Zoran Pazin, on the other hand, said he expects Serbia to arrest Svetozar Marovic and his son Milos Marovic and hand them over to Montenegro. Lawyers of Svetozar Marovic maintain that their client is being treated at a private psychiatric clinic in Belgrade and that this was the reason why he hasn’t started serving his prison sentence.

VMRO-DPMNE leader meets Head of EU Office, ambassadors of EU states to Macedonia (MIA)

Opposition VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski had a meeting Tuesday with the Head of EU Delegation, Samuel Zbogar, and the ambassadors of EU states to Macedonia.

At the meeting Mickoski criticized the incumbent government coalition over a lack of democratic capacity and poor implementation of reform that ‘distances the country from the European agenda and puts it in the group of most corrupted states,’ the party said in a press release. The government’s disastrous economic results have impoverished the citizens, Mickoski told the EU ambassadors. ‘VMRO-DPMNE believes that Macedonia’s accession to the EU as soon as possible is vital for the country and the party will support any process to that effect,’ Mickoski said.

Civil disobedience will continue (ADN)

Democratic Party declares that the civil disobedience will continue in many other forms. Democrat MP, Flamur Noka, said on Tuesday that the civil disobedience will continue because citizens cannot afford more the high taxes of this government. “The protest of the small businesses this Tuesday is part of the civil disobedience. Albanians cannot afford anymore the high taxes of Government. We are here to support the citizens. They will continue their strike if Prime Minister, Edi Rama will not make a step back and remove the new VAT scheme,” said Noka. The Democratic Party MP, Genc Pollo, said on Tuesday that Albania must go on the next local elections, with another government. “It is necessary to enter in the next local elections with another government and with ongoing protests. This is the right thing for the country,” said Pollo. According to him, Rama should be overthrown immediately and the civil disobedience should continue until the removal of the actual government. Meanwhile Former President of the Republic, Bujar Nishani warned on Tuesday for an unexpected and unpredictable people’s revolt against Government. According to him, the actual Government is making a lot of pressure to the citizens and soon everyone will protest with the words ‘arrest me’. “The last citizens protest against Nation’s Road toll was an explosion of an accumulated angry against this governance that has raised a culture of impunity, corruption, ignored and insulted the dignity and personality of the ordinary citizen. This anger is in every corner and town of the country. This massive blast will be unimaginable,” said Nishani.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA SOURCES

In a New Cold War With Russia, Balkans Become a Testing Ground (The New York Times, by Steven Erlanger, 10 April 2018)

SARAJEVO, Bosnia and Herzegovina — Cradle of the First World War, the Balkans have been a flashpoint, a place where empires, ethnicities and religions abut and contest. Now, analysts warn, the region is becoming a battleground in what feels like a new Cold War. Russia, they say, is expanding its influence and magnifying ethnic tensions in countries that hope to join the European Union. Its involvement has already spurred Brussels to revive dormant aims for enlargement. It is also prompting fresh attention from Washington about security risks to NATO members. After the concerted Western response to the poisoning in Britain of a former Russian spy and his daughter, which expelled around 150 Russian diplomats and intelligence officers, “the Balkans become even more important,” said Mark Galeotti, a senior researcher at the Institute of International Relations in Prague. “Russia is looking for ways to retaliate that are asymmetric and provide Moscow opportunities,” he said. In a new paper for the European Council on Foreign Relations, Mr. Galeotti says that “Russia looks to the Balkans as a battlefield in its ‘political war,’” seeking “to create distractions and potential bargaining chips with the European Union.” Charles A. Kupchan, who was Europe director of the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, said that “the Russians are taking advantage of the last part of Western Europe that remains politically dysfunctional.” The situation bears distant echoes of Ukraine, where Russia originally agreed that Kiev could join the European Union — though not NATO — and then changed its mind, leading to the revolution that prompted Moscow to annex Crimea and foment secession in eastern Ukraine. In the Balkans, the competition with Russia has the potential to sow fresh instability in a region still emerging from the vicious war of 1992-95 that broke apart the former Yugoslavia. In Sarajevo, many of the scars of the war have been erased. The former Holiday Inn, once a nearly windowless shelter for reporters near Snipers’ Alley during the Bosnia war, is restored and busy. The neo-Moorish City Hall, a monument to multiculturalism that was shelled and burned, has been burnished to a high standard. Yet Bosnia and Herzegovina, the broken country patched together in 1995 at the end of the war, remains a fragile construct, riven by corruption, weak leadership, and ethnic and nationalist strains among communities — a metaphor for the Balkans. It is one of several key entry points that Russia is seeking to exploit, Mr. Kupchan said, as the leader of the Serb semiautonomous region known as Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, continues to press for an independence referendum. The others include Macedonia, where relations between ethnic Albanians and ethnic Slavs remain tense, and between Kosovo and Serbia. Wary of Russian meddling, the European Union is holding out a renewed prospect of membership to Bosnia and to the other five nations of the Western Balkans — Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo — in return for fundamental structural reform. The skepticism among these countries about Brussels is deep. Many doubt the sincerity of a European Union that is turning more populist, more wary about migration and more cautious, after Romania and Bulgaria, about taking in nations before they are ready for membership. No one believes any of these countries is yet ready to join. But the urgency for reform fell away as the goal receded. Four years ago, the head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said there would be no more quick enlargement of the bloc, sending the process into somnolence. It has been, as the Macedonian foreign minister, Nikola Dimitrov, often says, like “being locked in a waiting room with no exit.”

“Juncker made a mistake to say that he was not interested in enlargement,” said Carl Bildt, a former Swedish foreign minister and United Nations special envoy to the Balkans. “The E.U. took its eye off the ball for several years, with detrimental effects.” But with Britain leaving the bloc and Russia playing on the fissures of the region, the European Union has now laid out a relatively detailed plan for the Balkans. It has even gone on record to say that if all goes well, Serbia and Montenegro, the only two countries now engaged in an accession process and hence the front-runners, could join by 2025. The bloc’s strategy for the Western Balkans, published in February, laid out six initiatives: rule of law; security and migration; socio-economic development; transport and energy connectivity; digital agenda; and “reconciliation and good neighborly relations.” Bulgaria, the current president of the bloc, will hold a special Balkans summit meeting in May. T he Balkans are on the agenda for the European Council in June, and the British will be hosts of a Western Balkans summit meeting in July, just before NATO has its own meeting in Brussels. “It is time to finish the work of 1989,” said Johannes Hahn, the European Union commissioner in charge of enlargement. “We have set 2025 as an indicative date for Serbia and Montenegro, which is realistic but also very ambitious.” Mr. Bildt said tartly: “Whether this is realistic or not remains to be seen.” Many think it is too ambitious, given that the bloc insists that all these countries settle their numerous, passionate border disputes. There are also serious internal problems, the bloc’s report acknowledged. “Today the countries show clear elements of state capture, including links with organized crime and corruption at all levels of government and administration, as well as a strong entanglement of public and private interests,” it said. There is strong evidence of “extensive political interference in and control of the media” and lack of independence in the judiciary, it noted. Add to that uncompetitive economies and the flight of young people looking for better jobs, and prospects seem dim.

But now the Americans are suddenly more interested, too. Renewed Washington concern “stems in part from concerns about expanded Russian influence,” said A. Ross Johnson, noting that Congress now demands that the Defense Department provide “an assessment of security cooperation between each Western Balkan country and the Russian Federation.” Russia has made it clear that it considers new NATO expansion to the Western Balkans as unacceptable, and Moscow was implicated in a strange coup attempt in Montenegro in 2016 before that country joined NATO. Russia is trying to establish itself in the region, both with government and business, so when these countries do enter the European Union, “they will bring Russian influence with them,” Mr. Galeotti said. The strategy is similar to what China and Russia are doing with Greece and Cyprus, widely considered places where Russian money can be laundered into euros. Russia is also deeply engaged in local language media, both with Kremlin-owned websites like Sputnik and with bots that harp on local grievances. Mr. Bildt points in particular to Russian investment in critical Serbian infrastructure, like energy. Though Russian investment pales compared with that of the European Union countries, Serbia has a natural affinity to its Russian Orthodox brethren and remembers Russian support during the Kosovo war. “Is the E.U. sensitive enough to what is happening in Serbia?” Mr. Galeotti asked. He thinks not. “E.U. policy has generally been to support whatever keeps the Western Balkans quiet,” Mr. Galeotti said. “It’s deeply dangerous and creates the perfect environment for Moscow to play its games.”

Brussels, he and others say, should put more weight behind both the carrots and the sticks — offering genuine incentives for institutional reform, and genuine sanctions for falling short.

A former senior United States official called the region a new Cold War battlefield, and said that Brussels was too rigid with the ways it tried to keep people on the good behavior track, while the money is not as connected as it should be to reform goals. The official, who asked for anonymity to preserve influence in the region, said that the countries reformed only when Brussels and Washington worked together to push leaders hard to break old habits of corruption, state capture, a politicized judiciary and Russian shell companies trying to take over key infrastructure and media. But Europe is not eager to import more problems. “The argument is that only by taking in the Balkan states are we assured to strengthen stability,” said Norbert Rottgen, the chairman of the German Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee. “But is that true?” “If we import fragile states into the E.U., we import fragility,” he added. “If we compromise on conditions, we let in fragile countries open to foreign influences, so we have to be tough on the entry requirements.”

The irony of history, Mr. Bildt mused, is that had Yugoslavia remained together, it almost surely would have been in the European Union by now, having been well ahead in 1990 of current members Romania and Bulgaria. “If the wars of dissolution hadn’t happened, all of this area would have been an E.U. member,” he said. “The Balkans have always lived best when integrated into a wider framework, as necessary today as in the past, and the one available today is the European Union.” Mr. Kupchan remains an optimist. “We know where this story will ultimately end, with all the former Yugoslav states integrated into the European Union,” he said. “But when?”