Seventy-eight days of state-building in action: Kosovo as a terrain

Seventy-eight days of humanitarianism:

A report on NATO-EU relations and the colonial reapportionment of the Balkans

Rapporteur's report by Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

The war waged against Yugoslavia unraveled some of the fundamental problems characterising the state-building process of the EU, which also extend to the eastward enlargement process. These involve the coordination of divergent economic interests within the EU, the overlap of self-appointed jurisdictions over Balkan affairs between the EU, NATO, and the UN (i.e., an issue of struggles among colonisers), and the EU's lack of an independent military apparatus. To compound the convolution, there is an incomplete overlap of strategic economic and military interests between NATO and EU members, many of which belong to both or neither of the two international organisations.

The principal questions that guided this limited study concerned the problem of state-formation and expansion occurring in the absence of control over the classic means of coercion (i.e., military dispositifs), with an unresolved struggle over the partition of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) into colonial spheres of influence and in the context of the more intensely globalised reach of a single superpower, the US (Bornschier, 1997; Brcz, 1999; Krasner, 1999; Negri, 1998; Sassen, 1999; Tilly, 1992). I believe that the former two cannot be fully understood without grasping the role of the latter's centrifugal and centripetal effects. By this I mean that, through NATO, the US can exert disaggregative pressures on those members that also dominate the EU: France, Germany, and the UK. Centripetal effects would include the alliances that might be forged or intensified within the EU in order to counterbalance US-Japan(-Canada) and China (Russia has difficulty even maintaining a military budget, hence Putin's initiatives to decrease nuclear arsenals and expanding existing military treaties, cf. The Economist, 18 November, 2000: 62-63).

The recent dispute between French and German governments over EU Council/Commission voting procedures and population-specific scales of representation may act as a centrifugal factor in favour of greater US influence (The Economist, 18November, 2000: 59; Il Manifesto, 1 December, 2000, http://www.ilmanifesto.it/Quotidiano-archivio/01-Dicembre-2000/art16.htm). In addition, the colonial character of eastward expansion is checked by internal EU friction regarding the distribution of the spoils of the "Cold War" and/or the existing uneven political economic influence of EU states in CEE, which unfolded since the late 1960s (Berend, 1996). The issue of colonisation will be addressed superficially in the conclusion.

Methodological note

In this analysis, I assume power relations characterised by Franco-German predominance within the EU and US-UK domination within NATO. These assumptions are based on textual interpretations of official documents and on relevant political, economic, and military events that have occurred since the early 1990s. In order to detect the connections between the EU and NATO, analysis was mainly extended to the Kosovo crisis and the Stability Pact because they are instances of intense overlap that potentially betray the tensions among different "colonial" powers. A variety of official sources were consulted for this purpose. Aside from NATO itself, these include agencies formally extraneous to the EU, such as the UN Security Council, KFOR, USAID, and OSCE. Related documentation from the EU Council (headed by Javier Solana) and the European Commission responsible for External Relations (headed by Chris Patten) served as the basis of decoding EU policy for the Balkans. The general method is one of progressive elimination in order to deduce the possible elementary geopolitical blocs behind EU state-formation and expansion and then determine the objects of their struggles.

NATO-EU corridors of military and economic power: partitioning by destroying

At first, the opacity secreted by UN-NATO-EU overlap may confuse some of the issues at hand regarding EU state-formation processes and geopolitical configuration. NATO and the UN Security Council are mainly guided by US interests (underlain by occasionally internally divisive fractions of capital), which are often followed zealously by UK governments (witness the war against Yugoslavia and the continuous bombing of Iraq). The issue of the UN Security Council can be subsumed under that of NATO. The general role of the UN has been effectively subordinated to NATO prerogatives by means of NATO's unilateral military intervention in Yugoslavia (http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/en/1999/05/ ). This could also be interpreted as a logical consequence of the increasing dependence of the UN Security Council on NATO military might, as shown during the 1995 bombing of Serbian army positions in Bosnia-Hercegovina.

At the same time, there must also exist a (often forced) consensus among other EU powers, France and Germany, which are part of NATO. The intensification of French and German co-operation remains in spite of recent differences expressed over EU structure. The UK, on the other hand, even flaunts its allegiance to the US. In a recent address to the Polish Stock Exchange in Warszawa, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair emphasised that

in a world moving closer together, with new powers emerging, our strength with the United States is not just a British asset, it is potentially a European one. Britain can be the bridge between the EU and the US (Blair, 6 October, 2000).

Given the currency of these alliances, it can be surmised that both the EU and NATO are internally divided into two predominant blocs. The Chirac and Fischer pronouncements have rendered explicit a plan to centralise the membership according to a hierarchical system based on Franco-German leadership (Chirac, 2000; Fischer, 2000). Less powerful states and the UK could form separate blocs or retain existing ones. Yet this is not the case, as will be discussed in the concluding section of this report.

In the case of NATO, the war in Yugoslavia has given ample evidence for a US-Canada-UK axis with French, German, and Italian government coalitions at the brink of collapse as a direct result of the intervention. The debate over intervention raged in nearly all EU states and evinced the lack of representativeness of the ministers involved in the decision-making process within the EU Council (see, for instance, the debate within the Irish Parliament, http://www.irlgov.ie/debates-99/25mar99/sect4.htm). Though the EU Council initiated the Rambouillet accords (France and the UK), there were EU member states that remained "neutral" or "passive" throughout the conflict (Raptis, 2000).

Moreover, the US, along with the usual British ally, ultimately pressured all sides into a full-fledged conflict by excluding the Rugova faction during the Paris meetings and imposing the infamous Appendix B which could not be signed willfully by any sovereign state (http://www.state.gov/www/regions/eur/ksvo_rambouillet_text.html). The arbitrary application of international human rights legislation purposefully exacerbated matters (Hayden, 1999; Skoco and Woodger, 2000).

Aside from the universalisation of US-EU policies and the internal political legitimacy reinforced through "humanitarianism", direct intervention in the Balkans has permitted a more effective penetration of capital (see USAID example below). The destruction wrought through the conflict allows core countries to establish greater control over the region by means of rebuilding projects, as currently witnessed by the Stability Pact. Successful belligerence, however, reconfigures geopolitical schemes and initiates newer forms of great power struggles over CEE. The global constellations of resource access and control complicate this process further. For instance, US and EU interests extend beyond CEE, so that the Stability Pact implicitly considers the construction of infrastructure aiding incoming oil and gas pipelines from the Central Asian republics, interestingly circumventing Turkey (Adriaticus, 2000: 94-97).

NATO's internal differentiation has a direct bearing on EU enlargement. Applicant countries that have recently joined NATO could be rallied in support of the preponderant US-dominated bloc or join in weak, acquiescent "dissent" with other members, such as the Italian government. The ambiguity created by NATO-EU relations may pressure new NATO members in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), namely Hungary and Poland, to undertake inconsistent foreign policies that might be used as excuses to bar them from EU membership. In terms of EU enlargement, the accession to NATO has been linked to improving chances for EU membership consideration (e.g., the 1998 referendum in Hungary). This partial superposition makes the task of creating a unified EU foreign policy, or disentangling multiple intersecting geopolitical interests, appear to be a very convoluted process that extends beyond the current negotiations carried out through the EU Commission on Enlargement.

The Franco-German colonisation of CEE by the EU may be tempered by the insertion of high-ranking personnel of ambiguous allegiance, forming an interlocking directorate between pivotal offices within the EU combined with (former) NATO affiliation. Mr. Javier Solana, initially a physicist by profession, constitutes a primary example. He is currently the Secretary General of the Council of the European Union as well as the High representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU (CFSP). This latter post was created as part of power-expanding provisions in the revised Maastricht Treaty, effective with the Köln European Council of June, 1999 (Council of the European Union, nd). Before the Maastricht Treaty revision, Mr. Solana was NATO Secretary General between December, 1995, and October, 1999 (http://ue.eu.int/solana/default.asp?lang=en ). In other words, shortly after the cessation of NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, the NATO Secretary General was appointed as head of the EU Council, "the main decision-making body", according to the EU's own definition (http://www.europa.eu.int/inst-en.htm ). With the introduction of the CFSP, the EU Council becomes effectively the foreign policy executive organ of the EU.

The presence of a former NATO head in "the main decision-making body" of the EU may imply that predominant US and EU policies remain sufficiently similar that such rapid exchanges of high-ranking officials present no conflict of interest. In this light, Patten's statements regarding the establishment of the CFSP could be interpreted as corresponding to actual aims.

The objective is for the Union to have an autonomous capacity to take the decisions and to launch and then to conduct military operations "where NATO as a whole is not engaged". This is not a threat to NATO. The suggestion that Javier Solana … would put his name to any policy that might damage that organisation is seriously misguided (Patten, 16 December,1999).

And yet there do exist differences, as attested by the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia and the notable absence of the majority central EU powers in the repeated bombing of Iraq; however, these differences are mitigated by US political economic influence and military supremacy. This is a characteristic that Patten himself depicted inadvertently in the same speech, when stating that "The EU member states import from the US seven times more armaments than they export."

The partitioning system of the Stability Pact

On 10 June, 1999, shortly after the killing of hundreds of civilians and the destruction of Yugoslav industrial capacity, a meeting was held in Köln ostensibly to establish the foundations for the political and economic stabilisation of Southeastern Europe. The meeting involved all major international organisations that feature strong US, EU, and Russian representation (http://www.seerecon.org/KeyDocuments/KD1999062401.htm). The stated objectives identify the primary responsibility of Southeastern European countries "to foster peace, democracy, respect for human rights and economic prosperity, in order to achieve stability in the whole region." The incentive for such efforts is the ambiguous reward of the possibility of "integration into Euro-Atlantic structures."

The Pact reproduces a history of colonialist partitioning of resources and spheres of influence as well as the paternalistic and colonial discourse over the Balkans among Western European elites. The rhetoric has shifted, but the strategies remain similar in terms of constructing the "savage" Other, implementing policies that reinforce political economic subordination, and using national elites against each other through the uneven distribution of concessions and military-economic support (Berend, 1996; Croci, 1991; Samary, 1995; Todorova, 1997).

The US, for example, has already intervened effectively in the economic restructuring of Bosnia-Hercegovina through a USAID loan scheme for "small- to medium-businesses" (it is unreported what these terms actually mean). Accordingly, "USAID loan recipients account for an impressive fifty percent of all of Bosnia's post-war exports" (http://www.usaid.ba/information/sheets/mainapr.htm). This magnanimous event is accompanied by correlate programmes to aid businesses. As explained in the same USAID document, "Through its Business Development Program, USAID is assisting Bosnia-Herzegovina to make the transition from a planned to a market economy." There may be a certain irony to the deployment of a form of central planning from the US state in order to forge a "market economy" elsewhere. Internal inconsistencies aside, this aid to capital in Bosnia-Hercegovina is subsequently constructed in terms of humanitarian assistance, equating state aid to capital with the welfare of war victims. "The BDP loans are expected to provide employment to over 17,000 Bosnians, including returnees and women adversely affected by the war, representing a mix of ethnic backgrounds." Undoubtedly, a similar dependence on US financial capital, inflected with paternalistic overtones of economic transition and humanitarian intervention, awaits the regions currently within Yugoslavia.

Given the above-mentioned uneven dispensation of the law in the European courts, the arbitrary military attacks with the pretext of "human rights" (Yugoslavia and Iraq, but not Rwanda, Israel, or Indonesia), the unwillingness of Euro-American powers to maintain or facilitate peace (or, rather, their active role in promoting warfare, such as the bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan), and the vagueness of "democracy", other purposes must underlie the Stability Pact under the guise of "economic prosperity."

In accord with general US/EU foreign policy, the capitalist aims of the Pact are at least explicitly declared in the agreement itself, under point number 10. The Pact involves

creating vibrant market economies based on sound macro policies, markets open to greatly expanded foreign trade and private sector investment, effective and transparent customs and commercial/regulatory regimes, developing strong capital markets and diversified ownership, including privatisation, leading to a widening circle of prosperity for all our citizens; fostering economic cooperation in the region and between the region and the rest of Europe and the world, including free trade areas … combatting organised crime, corruption and terrorism and all criminal and illegal activities (http://europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/see/stapact/10_june_99.htm)

Actual investment priorities cement the primacy of favouring capitalist interests. Funds made available through international financial institutions (mostly the EIB and World Bank) have been channelled predominantly (roughly 76% of 2,413.4 million Eurasia) into infrastructure deemed of economic rather than humanitarian importance, such as oil and gas pipelines, electricity, motorways, and financial institutions. Approximately 15% of the economic infrastructure aid has been apportioned directly to private enterprises (calculations based on figures furnished by Adriaticus, 2000: 91).

In order to coax Yugoslavia into changing regime, Montenegro at first became the preferred recipient of this aid assortment. In addition, oil, gas, and electricity routes were carefully planned so as to circumvent and isolate Serbia. The former was etched into the agreement itself by stating that "In order to draw the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia closer to this goal, respecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity, we will consider ways of making the Republic of Montenegro an early beneficiary of the Pact." The latter plans emerged subsequently through various high-level meetings in which mostly the US, Italy, and Greece resolved their long-term economic interests (Adriaticus, 2000). The capitulation of the Milosevic regime was then hastened through strikes and popular revolt (Hudis, 2000). Economic pressures clearly in place prior to this successful insurrection may nevertheless have had a similar outcome.

The Stability Pact inserts the variety of EU-US interests directly into Yugoslavia, arguably one of the remaining pieces in the consolidation of EU's eastward expansion., Aside from the numerous negotiations that achieved temporary compromise between the US and the EU powers, the methods used to consolidate control over the Balkans are already in place but require intensification. I will only cite but one example for the sake of brevity. KFOR, which, as Solana and Patten hasten to remind the EU Parliament, is comprised of 80% EU troops (Solana and Patten, 7 February, 2000), is partially deployed to secure trade routes and extinguish illegal trafficking. The Italian state, or a fraction thereof, is probably anxious to eliminate this source of capital for various criminal substatal organisations, such as the Ndrangheta. At the same time, oil and gas ducts, as well as access to an enlarged Adriatic market, further facilitate the penetration of various interests incorporated within the Italian and Greek states. The re-opening of a Serbian corridor may bring these two states, possibly along with the US, into renewed negotiations over which areas should be receiving priority infrastructural development funds through the Stability Pact participants.

Conclusion: questions of internal and external partitions

The relationship between the EU and NATO is characterised by the superposition of competing imperial powers vying to extricate themselves from US superpower dominance and simultaneously to gain predominance within an embryonic EU state. The central EU powers of France and Germany have tended to intensify their alliance and extend their economic leverage through EU enlargement. This leverage may unravel with a dispute over the EU's internal command structure, but established commonality of geopolitical interests and economic influences over CEE will not necessarily wither as a consequence. The British vacillate between increasing economic clout through the EU and maintaining a military edge through an alliance with the US within NATO. The overlap of these states between a mostly military and a mainly economic bloc partly results from the subordinate character of EU states in military affairs relative to the US. The increasing economic power derived from development of the EU remains insufficient to counterbalance US hegemony, which also benefits from Japanese support (Arrighi, 1994).

The relations between the two organisations reveal the tensions spawned by internal and external pressures of imperial struggle. The centralisation of authority within the EU has been repeatedly articulated in the various speeches made by the head of the EU Commission, Romano Prodi, the President of France, Jacques Chirac, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer, and even by the head of the EU Commission for Enlargement, Günter Verheugen. Within the EU there protracts a struggle for a structural rearrangement largely benefitting either the British or the French and German states. The Franco-German initiative for a two-tiered system aims at curtailing British power, while securing a position of leadership in an expansionary EU. In addition, another unstated purpose seems to be achieving supremacy over EU expansion in CEE, as the "spoils" of the "Cold War". As Verheugen stated,

The European Union is by far the largest trading partner of the thirteen candidate countries. Between 1993 and 1999, the total value of trade almost trebled to ?210 billion. Together, these countries account for 13.7 % of total foreign trade, a fact which makes them the EU's second most important trading partner after the USA. The EU's trade surplus with the candidate countries for 1999 stood at ?25.8 billion. Trading relations between the EU and the candidate countries have become even more intensive (Verheugen, 8 November, 2000).

What Verheugen conveniently fails to mention is the preponderance of trade from CEE in the direction of Germany. The principal contention over which EU powers will be able to extract the most surplus from CEE has been virtually decided, at least between Germany and France, according to Chirac (27 June, 2000).

The EU's continued subordination to US economic power and dependence on US military technology stunts the effectiveness of this imperial strategy, which is being feebly addressed through the formation of an EU military outfit. The bombing of Yugoslavia, at the same time that it annihilated the decisionary powers of the UN Security Council, also underlined the subordination of NATO-member EU powers to US strategic imperatives. Within NATO, the US continues to dominate with the aid of the UK, an obedient and mediating EU-NATO ally. For this reason, there are attempts to make of the EU a superpower, absorbing those CEE states that further strengthen the process.

In a world with the power of the USA; with new alliances to be made with the neighbours of Europe like Russia; developing nations with vast populations like India and China; Japan, not just an economic power but a country that will rightly increase its political might too; with the world increasingly forming powerful regional blocs - ASEAN, Mercosur; Europe's citizens need Europe to be strong and united. They need it to be a power in the world. Whatever its origin, Europe today is no longer just about peace. It is about projecting collective power. That is one very clear reason, quite apart from the economic reasons, why the central European nations want to join … Such a Europe can, in its economic and political strength, be a superpower; a superpower, but not a superstate (Blair, 6 October, 2000).

Finally, the issue of colonisation itself requires further elaboration that will not be explored in detail here, but that is problematised by the same peculiarity of the relative absence of coercive means mentioned above. Comaroff (1997) identifies three concurrent forms of colonialism in the South African context that may be partially relevant here. Each form derives from the respective social relations involved in administration, settlement-invasion, and "civilising" missionary work. The juxtaposition of these colonial elements may be a more appropriate indicator of state-formation in CEE and the expansionist form of the EU than the various forms of "capital" suggested by Bourdieu (1998) regarding the "ambivalent" character of the states developed in Northwestern Europe.

These concurrent colonial processes are arguably encountered in the EU/NATO-CEE relation as revamped forms. Administrative colonialism is occurring through bureaucratic means whereby the acquis communautaire is being transposed by (indirect) political economic coercion onto applicant states in CEE. As Verheugen betrays in his optimistic proclamations,

I am absolutely convinced that without the prospect of European integration, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe could not have managed the process of transformation so rapidly or so successfully (Verheugen, 3 October, 2000)

This administrative and institutional transposition is reinforced by capital flows. Settler colonialism is much less brutal than Enlightenment antecedents with the settlement of relatively wealthier EU proletarians in "safe" CEE countries (as occurred in Spain, Italy, and Greece earlier) and the migration of EU capital to exploit cheaper labour-power and purchase property in CEE. Finally, "civilising" colonialism is comparable to the various EU-, NATO-, and USAID-supported NGOs, inter alii, that diffuse the gospel of "free markets", "democracy", and "civil society" among the masses of CEE. These diverse colonial processes ensure an ambivalence and contestability within the functions and structures of the prospective EU state, as well as within applicant and member states.

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