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North Macedonia heads to the polls on Wednesday in a vote overshadowed by one big issue: disputes with neighbors that could derail the tiny Balkan republic’s fledgling EU membership bid.
North Macedonia’s election stokes Balkan beefs
North Macedonia heads to the polls on Wednesday in a vote overshadowed by one big issue: disputes with neighbors that could derail the tiny Balkan republic’s fledgling EU membership bid.
The governing, center-left Social Democratic Union of Macedonia will likely lose power to a center-right coalition with a nine-word name that we’ll just call by its acronym VMRO-DPMNE.
While economic woes and corruption are key voter concerns, VMRO-DPMNE has also rallied support by striking a nationalist tone – namely by rejecting long-standing demands from neighboring Bulgaria that North Macedonia recognize its own, small Bulgarian minority.
Bulgaria, already an EU member, has threatened to freeze North Macedonia’s accession bid unless its demands are met.
VMRO-DMRE has also stoked an old dispute with Greece by publicly calling the country “Macedonia.” In 2019, Greece got North Macedonia to add “North” to its name, because of Athens’ view that “Macedonia” proper is a region of Greece. That agreement opened the way for North Macedonia to join NATO and begin EU talks.
But progress has been slow, raising popular frustrations and fueling VMRO-DPMNE’s resurgence. If VMRO-DPMNE takes power, as expected, the situation will heat up further, particularly as Bulgaria heads toward its own elections next month.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic speaks during an interview with Reuters in Belgrade, Serbia, September 28, 2023.
Kosovo and Serbia to restart talks
Well, even as one of the world’s most intractable conflicts gets steadily worse, there’s at least a chance that another will get slightly better. This Saturday, the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo will meet with US and EU officials to try to revive peace talks.
It will be the first time the two have met since tensions spiked last month due to a deadly shootout between Serb nationalists in Northern Kosovo and local Kosovar police officers. Kosovo accused Serbia of plotting the attack, while Belgrade briefly mobilized its troops to the border before backing down under US pressure.
Background: Albanian-majority Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, after a decade of war and Serbian attempts at ethnic cleansing. Serbia, which considers Kosovo part of its ancestral heartland, doesn’t recognize the Kosovar government – nor do ethnic Serb communities living in northern Kosovo.
The talks will aim to revive an EU-brokered peace framework that envisions de facto recognition of Kosovo in exchange for Kosovo giving broad autonomy to Serbs in the north.
There is a strong incentive to make progress: The EU will soon begin meetings on enlarging the union. Serbia and Kosovo both want in, but Brussels has been clear that it can’t happen until they make peace.
For more on the “dangerous limbo” of Serbia-Kosovo relations, see our explainer here.
Russian Black Sea Fleet commander still alive despite Ukraine's claims
Ian Bremmer shares his insights on global politics this week on World In :60.
Is Russian commander Sokolov still alive?
Black Sea fleet commander. The Ukrainians said he was killed in a missile strike, but after that missile strike, he's attending a meeting with the Kremlin and looks very much alive. Should all remember that there is a lot of disinformation and a lot of misinformation in the fog of war. You remember that Snake Island strike. And that, of course, turned out those guys didn't die. They were made prisoner and then they were released. So Russians are absolutely at fault for the invasion. Ukrainian information is meant to promote Ukrainian efforts in the war. And this is one of those instances.
Will the West intervene in Nagorno-Karabakh?
Intervene in the sense that they are trying to put pressure on the Turks and the Azeris not to engage in war crimes, not to support war crimes against the Armenians, the 120,000 Armenians living in this autonomous region that is part of Azerbaijan. Thousands and thousands are streaming out, getting out. They're not forced out, but they certainly don't feel that they're going to be safe in this region for long. The war has been lost pretty decisively by the Armenians. And the question I suspect that you are going to see a level of ethnic cleansing, ethnic migration of the Armenians from this space is going to be problematic. Armenia itself is a small country. It's going to be a serious burden for them to resettle these people. And of course, it's been their homes and their homes for generations. It's very sad to see like we've seen in the Balkans, like we've seen in Iraq after the Iraq war. But it's hard to imagine anybody intervening at this point to stop that from happening. That's where I think we are. Armenia's best friend has been Russia, and that's not very useful for them.
How is China's proactive approach to trilateral cooperation impacting its relations with South Korea and Japan?
Well, it's making them harder, especially because Japan right now is on a, their food, their seafood is being banned from China. It's a significant export because of the irradiated water from Fukushima that is being released into the Pacific. Certainly, I have a hard time seeing a friendly trilateral relationship given that and I don't think it would be fixed anytime soon. But the South Koreans and the Chinese are working hard to try to make this work, and it doesn't need to be at the head of state level. It historically hasn't been frequently. I suspect that comes off and it will be formulaic and incrementally positive, but won't lead to an immediate breakthrough in relations between those two countries.
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Police officers patrol in the aftermath of a shooting, at the road to Banjska village, Kosovo September 24, 2023.
Trouble brews in the Balkans
Is Europe’s tinderbox once again set to explode?
Tensions are running high in Kosovo after three people were killed in a gun battle in a monastery in Leposavic, near the Serbian border. About thirty armed men stormed the building following a battle with police at a road blockade near the village of Banska, in which one officer was killed. Police managed to regain control of the monastery, arrested 6 gunmen, and found "an “extraordinarily large amount of weaponry and ammunition, explosives.”
According to Prime Minister Albin Kurti, police were attacked by "professionals, with military and police background" and police said they had used "an arsenal of firearms, including hand grenades and shoulder-fired missiles.” Kurti blamed "Serbia-sponsored criminals" for the attack. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucicspoke later on Sunday, condemned the attack but accused the Kosovo authorities of “brutal” treatment of the Kosovo Serbs.
Violence has been escalating following the Kosovo government’s decision to install ethnic Albanian mayors in four Serb-majority municipalities in May. Demonstrations ensued, including one in which thirty NATO peacekeepers were injured.
This latest incident comes one week after EU-mediated talks designed to normalize relations between Serbia and its former province ended in stalemate. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008, a decade after a bloody war with Serbia that claimed 10,000 lives, but Belgrade has since refused to recognize the country.
As a means of cooling the temperature, Brussels warned both countries that unless they put their differences aside and abide by the EU’s ten-point plan to end the latest round of tensions, they will not be allowed entry into the EU. If what happened this weekend is any indication, however, that goal is still a long way off.
Ukraine’s Kherson victory is a turning point in the war
Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden, shares his perspective on European politics.
What's the importance of Putin losing the city of Kherson?
Major, I would say. I mean he lost, first, the battle for Kyiv immediately after launching his invasion. Then he lost the battle for Kharkiv, the second largest Ukrainian city. And now he lost the absolutely key city of Kherson, where he had said even that it's an exit to Russia. He is totally absent from the issue in the Russian media, blaming it all on the military, but it's a turning point in the war. Very big. More to come.
Is the trouble that we now see between Kosovo and Serbia the beginning of something more?
Not necessarily. It is a continuation of difficulties that have been there. Implementing an agreement is a couple of years back on both the license plates and an association of Serbian municipalities of Kosovo. And it's also coincided with efforts by the EU and US to have a more lasting solution to the problem. I don't expect an immediate breakthrough. I don't expect any immediate break down. That's the way the Balkans normally is.
A woman walks past election posters in Sarajevo.
Is Bosnia’s stability at stake?
Before Ukraine, the worst conflict in Europe since 1945 was the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina sparked by the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. The region’s multiethnic population of Croats, Bosnian Muslims (aka Bosniaks), and Serbs wrestled for control from 1992-1995, when the West finally helped end the fighting, culminating in the Dayton Accords. The deal created a power-sharing peace agreement between the three ethnicities.
Nearly 30 years later, political tensions are rising again – with Bosnian Serbs challenging state institutions and threatening to secede as Croats are vying to gain more political representation – and Bosnia’s economy is struggling, raising the specter of another crisis. Against this backdrop, Bosnia and Herzegovina's voters head to the polls for presidential and parliamentary elections on Sunday.
How things should work. The state is divided into two autonomous entities, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) and Republika Srpska (RS). Both have regional legislatures that together form a bicameral parliament, and the presidency is shared by three elected members representing the “constituent nations” – a Bosniak, a Bosnian Croat, and a Bosnian Serb. The Office of the High Representative (OHR), an international institution, was established by the Dayton Accords to oversee the peace deal. The complexity was intentional – aimed at keeping power decentralized.
Pushing reforms. When it was leaked in late July that High Representative Christian Schmidt wanted to amend parliamentary delegate election procedures and grant new powers to the Central Election Commission (CEC), accusations flew that he was trying to undermine those three constituencies.
The main point of contention? Schmidt wanted to change how FBiH parliamentary delegates get elected. The existing procedure codifies a 1-1-1 voting process, requiring at least one Bosniak, one Bosnian Croat, and one Bosnian Serb represent each of the Federation’s 10 local bodies, or cantons. But Schmidt wanted to remove the requirement of equal representation to allocate parliamentary seats in closer proportion to each canton’s ethnic population, in the name of representative democracy. It’s no secret that Croats would benefit most from such a change – canton demographics would dictate a shift in at least two parliamentary seats from Bosniak to Croat delegates. Given this reality, Bosniaks cried foul, likening the proposal to “ethnic gerrymandering” and turning out in Sarajevo for three days of protests.
In response, Schmidt decided to forego the parliamentary reforms and instead pushed through a series of CEC-focused technical amendments geared toward preventing electoral fraud. Schmidt insists, however, that more election reforms are needed. In fact, he has explicitly left OHR-imposed reform on the table, imploring leaders to work together to implement the necessary changes themselves.
Will election results be trusted? The electoral reform push and resulting protests have led to uncertainty around the election. In the aftermath of Schmidt’s leaked proposal, Croat politicians warned voters that the election would be illegitimate in the absence of parliamentary election reform. Such fearmongering has been a consistent feature of Croat nationalist party messaging. In fact, The Croatian National Parliament, a body representing Bosnian Croat political parties, has for months been teasing the possibility of boycotting Sunday's election. On the other hand, Bosniak politicians, fearing the loss of legislative power, have also ensured that their base remains mobilized to demonstrate, underscoring the need for renewed protests if Schmidt does follow through with additional reforms – even if this happens after the election.
Malik Sakić, a Bosniak and president of the European Democracy Youth Network, a coalition of young political leaders and civic society activists, condemned Schmidt’s proposed reforms. “[They would] create even more problems for the people of BiH by increasing existing hatreds among people and even leading to increased violence,” he said, hinting at deep-seated, ethnically motivated resentments that stem from the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.
Serbs aren’t happy either. Many Bosnian Serbs in Republika Srpska are upset too, but for different reasons. Obrad Kesic, director of the Republika Srpska Office for Cooperation, Trade, and Investment, argues that Schmidt granted disproportionate judicial and punitive power to the CEC – a traditionally Western-aligned institution – in an attempt to tip the election scales in favor of sidelined RS opposition parties. In his view, the new powers give the CEC the ability to remove the head of a party’s ticket based on any number of broadly defined “technical violations,” which significantly undermines perceptions of election legitimacy.
Kesic compares the voter uncertainty to the US’ recent struggle with perceptions of election legitimacy. “In BiH, we’re now in a similar situation where we risk leaving a major question mark over election results, regardless of the outcome, which creates a scenario for even greater instability and crisis,” he said.
Kesic’s argument is in line with the majority of RS voters, who see the CEC-focused electoral reform as a Western-backed attempt to remove Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik, a member of the tripartite presidency in BiH, from power, and to secure victory for the opposition. Dodik called Schmidt’s electoral reform push a breach of the constitution and publicly declared that the RS is now justified in defying future OHR decision-making. Such strategizing could lead to violence again in the Balkans.
If Dodik – a self-proclaimed RS secessionist – follows through on opposing OHR-sanctioned electoral reforms, he could pursue one of three potential scenarios: refusing to hold elections, holding separate RS elections at a later date, or pursuing RS secession. In any of those scenarios, RS police would likely need to be engaged, laying the groundwork for election-related violence that could quickly spread.
Ahead of this weekend's election, the OSCE has sent international monitors to work alongside the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Workshops were held on Thursday to help authorities prosecute attempted election fraud and ensure democratic processes are protected.
The international community will be keeping a close eye on Sunday's proceedings and any further pushes for electoral reforms, wary of the potentially destabilizing effects they may have on Dodik’s secessionist ambitions and broader Balkan stability.
Sarah Waggoner is a freelance writer and international development professional based in Belgrade, Serbia.
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Other pressing issues to discuss in Munich
Much of the media attention on the Munich Security Conference will focus, understandably, on the Russia-Ukraine standoff. But other important security questions will be discussed. Here are three of the most important.
The Balkans. Bosnia now faces its most worrisome threat since the end of the Yugoslav civil war in 1995. To keep warring factions apart, the peace agreement ending that war created a special enclave within Bosnia for ethnic Serbs. The leader of that enclave, Milorad Dodik, has threatened secession over a new law banning the denial of the genocide that Serbs inflicted on Bosnian Muslims during that conflict. A breakup of Bosnia could trigger a new war.
The Caucasus. Ukraine is not the only former Soviet Republic weighing the costs of war. Armenia and Azerbaijan have long been locked in a struggle over control of Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave inside Azerbaijan that’s populated mainly by ethnic Armenians. In 2020, the frozen conflict turned hot, with Turkey and Russia becoming directly involved when hostilities erupted. Following major gains for Azerbaijan, the guns have gone silent, but a ceasefire has not brought confidence that peace can be kept, and the status of prisoners is making its way through international courts.
The Sahel. In some West African countries, the inability of governments to respond effectively to jihadist emergencies has frustrated both military leaders and civilians caught in the crossfire. One result of this instability is a series of recent coups that have toppled governments across the region. France, the former colonial power, has long been a major player in the Sahel. As part of a plan called Operation Barkhane, French troops have tried to lead a regional effort to quell the insurgency, but lack of success has left West Africans angry at Paris and French voters unhappy. As a result, France has pulled back, leaving the EU to debate how to manage a problem that is destabilizing an entire region – with blowback for European security.
A deal on the EU Recovery Fund? North Macedonia and the EU
Carl Bildt, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Sweden, with the view from Europe:
Is it likely that there will be a deal on the EU Recovery Fund at the summit this weekend?
That remains to be seen. There's a huge amount that needs to be decided, both concerning the immensely big recovery fund and also the entire seven-year budget for the entire European Union. And there are significant divergences between views, so far. So, there might be a deal, but it might also be somewhat delayed. I'm quite certain at the end of the day there will be the deal.
Does the result of the North Macedonia election make it more likely that the Balkan country will start to enter the European Union?
Yes, in the sense that I think that there will be the start of negotiations for accession of North Macedonia to the European Union starting by the end of this year. And that is a significant breakthrough for a country that has been in a difficult situation prior both to the agreement on Greece, with Greece on the name, and this election. So, it's a positive sign for the region.