Interview with Jacques Rupnik, 2006, www.seetv-exchanges.com

Full transcript and shot list of the interview

00:00 Cutaways of the CERI/Paris

00:52 Beginning of the interview

On Bosnia’s new constitution

The question is: can they ten years after Dayton elaborate a new constitution that will make Bosnia a viable state? Dayton was not a viable constitution for an independent state. It was a viable solution to end the war, to separate the communities. The question is now we need a constitution to reintegrate the country. And that means not only common security, police, customs, it means also greater simplification of the political process. This multilayered constitution that Bosnia has is not a workable one. It was, as I say, a solution in the context of ethnic separation, now we need a constitution for the reintegration of a common policy in Bosnia. If that process is successful, well then obviously the European perspective can be accelerated and the European perspective itself is an incentive of course to make that process work. Basically the question that is put to the politicians, Serbian, Croatian or Bosniak Muslim politicians is are you seeking simply maximum advantage vis-à-vis the other communities in the local game, political game for rather limited resources or do you understand that your common faith depends on the prospects of European integration? And you have to do something in common in order to be successful in that process. That means a common constitution, that means, in the long run, building political parties, not along ethnic lines but on transversal lines too. Do you want a social-democratic policy? Do you want a liberal policy? Do you want a conservative? In other words, these are the political choices: what kind of economic reforms? What kind of social justice? What kind of environmental policy? What kind of rule of law do you want? These are issues that are political and not ethnic issues.

03:18 On Kosovo’s status

Kosovo has now one main question on the agenda and that is its future status. And that question, although it is the most important, should not make us forget that there is a lot of other issues that need to be resolved for the question of status to be meaningful and accepted by everybody else. Not only by the International Community, also by the neighbours.

03:55 On the fact that there hasn’t been much progress on the status negotiations

It is true that we haven’t made much progress in the negotiations on the Kosovo status between the Kosovo Albanians and Belgrade. There is some progress in the fact that the International Community in the whole is active in a concerted manner to bring this process to a conclusion before the end of this year hopefully. That is already very important because it wasn’t obvious to have the Russians and all the Europeans together on this question. However, the direct negotiations are not making progress and we must therefore consider two options. Either they will find some kind of agreement and go beyond posturing. From Serbian side you only hear “more than autonomy, less than independence”. The Albanians, nothing but independence is negotiable, we can discuss the specifics about the guarantees to be given to the protection of Serbian patrimony on Kosovo, the churches etc. We can discuss the specifics but there’s one thing you don’t discuss it’s independence.

Either you say this is just posturing and the real bargaining will start later. Or another option: both sides expect a solution to be imposed by the outside, which is of course a possibility, but not the most attractive one because we always know that solutions that are imposed from outside are sources of future conflict. So the great challenge today is to convey to both sides that the sooner they get over the status question, the better for themselves.

That means, on the Serbian side, to confront basically the fact ever since the intervention of 1999, because of Milosevic’s policies of the previous decade, since 1989 to 1999, basically now we have a situation where the return of Kosovo under Serbian control in a common state is totally unlikely. For the Albanian population in Kosovo, independence is not only a goal, it is a challenge.

08:06 Conditional independence as an option?

Yes, it is probably the least bad option. I say least bad because in itself independence of new states is not, from the point of view of Europe, of the International Community, a goal in itself. Europe is not in the business of proliferating new states. What Europe is seeking is stability and democracy and European integration. And that is where the challenge is. So we are left with first least bad option, I say least bad because nobody is particularly thrilled about the idea of conditional independence for Kosovo, in which there is the word independence, some only hear independence, they don’t hear clearly enough the conditionality of it. That is the challenge for the Kosovo Albanian political elites. To understand that independence is acceptable not only to its neighbours but to the EU and the IC, if it is a state that will be viable for all its citizens, including the Serbs, that security could be guaranteed, that the return of people who have fled the country could be guaranteed. If they understand that this sovereignty of independent Kosovo is not a sovereignty of the 19^th century time: you have control of the state and you have complete control over it. But that this is shared sovereignty, this is 21^st century concept of sovereignty, which is what the EU is.

The issue is not building new states for the sake of asserting unlimited sovereignty, but it only makes sense as e conclusion of the break-up of Yugoslavia. If you take it as a step towards a new concept of shared sovereignty, that doesn’t mean rebuilding Yugoslavia, it means integrating Balkans into the EU and that is the biggest challenge for political elites: whether they can understand that conditionality is the most difficult part. It’s not enough to wave a flag and proclaim independence, anybody can do that. Then the most difficult: do you have rule of law in the country? Do you have independent courts? Do you respect human rights of all citizens and particularly the minority? Can you ensure their security, their legal access to schools etc? That is the challenge of a democratic pluralist society in the Balkans today.

10:42 Serbian political scene and radicalisation

There is always a good excuse for not saying the unpopular news to the public and the result is that we do not have in Serbia a Western oriented, European oriented, democrats versus backward-looking authoritarian nationalists. Whether Seselj type or Milosevic type. No, we have a continuum of nationalism from more radical: Seselj type, to slightly more moderate: Draskovic, Kostunica, to most moderate which represent president Tadic. So I do not see a break in Serb politics, I see more a continuum of nationalism and the question is how to make a break with Milosevic’s legacy but also to make the alternative a plausible one. Not good democrats, European oriented versus backward-looking nationalist. But how do we make nationalism in the Balkans euro-compatible? So the question now is not only do we have liberal democrats of European persuasion and nationalists on the other side, but if we have a continuum of nationalism, how do we make nationalism in the Balkans moderate, non-conflictual and what I would call euro-compatible.

Can the Croatian model of the evolution of the HDZ under Sanader, basically making a break with the Tudjman past, can something like that happen in Serbia as well? Can a sort of moderate, euro-compatible nationalism emerge? But that would mean be able to make a clean break with the Milosevic past, and the curse of Serbian politics has been the question of Kosovo. This has been the poison that has been instilled in Serbian politics since the eighties and the competition as who’s going to be a greater defender of the Serbs in Kosovo? As long as you play on this tune, which has allowed Milosevic to come to power, this how he seized and perpetuated his power, and this has led Serbian politics into a dead end. Either you take the conclusions for that, and you make a clean break with that, and it doesn’t mean I’m a patriot, you consider that the best way to defend Serbian national interest today is to defend the murderers of the Serbian state and do what is on the agenda today that is all the reforms necessary for joining the EU. That is what I call making Serbian nationalism euro-compatible.

14:22 On Macedonia

There are really two conditions for Macedonia to move faster and closer in the process of integration into the EU. One is internal reform and the capacity to keep the momentum. We have seen e.g. that the reforms in Romania and Bulgaria had been considered insufficient. There’s a lot of pressure at the moment in order to accelerate the speed of reforms. So one thing is the state of reforms of the countries that want to join and opening of negotiations obviously with the EU is a strong incentive for that. The other condition is not the country that’s joining but the Union, which is supposed to enlarge and we are now in a situation in the EU where we have just had an enlargement to ten countries and two other countries are coming to join the Union in a few months, Romania and Bulgaria, and there’s a great feeling of doubts, perplexity, questioning about not just whether enlargement is a good thing, it’s not a measure of sympathy towards a particular country, traditionally France has sympathy and closeness towards Romania, does it mean that French are enthusiastic about Romania joining the EU? Public opinion is very divided. Why? Because the EU clearly is being completely redefined by enlargement. It is not the same thing bigger.

16:20 How far should EU enlargement go?

How far should this enlargement go? Turkey, whose negotiations started last October, that means common borders with Iraq, Iran and Syria. I don’t need a referendum to know what most Europeans think about it. There’s Ukraine, that has just had democratic change, that aspires to join Europe, Moldova, the countries of the Caucasus, there’s at least 15 countries of the Balkans, so we are talking about an entirely new EU and people who are the founding countries of the EU feel a kind of estrangement from the European project, they created something that is so successful that everybody wants to join.

17:30 On the priorities of the enlargement process

If we want to be serious about the enlargement of the EU to the Balkans, we must establish a hierarchy of priorities for the EU in terms of enlargement. We cannot say, we’ll enlarge to Turkey, to the Balkans, to Ukraine, to the Caucasus, to Kazakhstan etc. This is irresponsible and will be rejected. The priority number one should be the Balkans because we have the unfinished business of the wars in Former Yugoslavia and the question of the Balkans are for today. Montenegro independent just taking place, Kosovo question on the agenda now, stabilization of this region is the test case for Europe. If Europe had to fail in the Balkans, its credibility would be undermined.

18:19 END OF TRANSMISSION