EU BREAK OR BUST ISSUE

[brother]

Gündüz Aktan

  How many of us had heard the word ?Podgorica,? which is the name of the capital city of Montenegro, a tiny new state, before the referendum held in that country on May 21? Ending the federation they had founded with Serbia in 2003 the 750,000 people living on an area half the size of Turkey's Thrace region have set up their own new state, probably opening a new age of ?fragmentation.? Kosovo, which was placed under U.N. mandate in the wake of the NATO intervention in 1999, will gain independence in December 2006 in line with a U.N. decision to this effect.

  Serbia and Russia have reacted strongly to this situation. Certain ?unofficial? circles in Serbia -- that enjoy support from some European Union circles as well -- say that if Kosovo will sever its ties with Serbia then a certain part of Kosovo (the region in northern Kosovo where some 100,000 ethnic Serbians live) and the Republic Srpska (Serbian Republic) in Bosnia-Herzegovina should both merge with Serbia. No one doubts that the ethnic Serbs in the Krajina and Western Slovenia regions of Croatia would make similar demands.

  During the 1991-1995 period the international community has recognized the four countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia) that emerged as a result of the partition of Yugoslavia along the federated state borders. Since Montenegro and Kosovo too are constitutional structures such as those, their separation may be deemed legitimate.

  The partition of U.N. members Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia -- this time along ethnic lines -- would be another story, which could cause major problems. The ethnic Albanians in the southern parts of Serbia too may want to merge with another country: the new Kosovo. The separatist aspirations of the ethnic Albanians that make up one-third of the population in Macedonia may be rekindled. In such a situation on which grounds could Montenegro possibly defend its unity and existence, itself having a population consisting of nearly 20 percent ?Muslim Bosniacs and Albanians? and 32 percent ethnic Serbians?

  The Republic Srpska was founded as a result of the ethnic cleansing and genocide perpetrated in Bosnia-Herzegovina. If it severed its ties with Bosnia-Herzegovina and merged with Serbia (Serbian Republic) now, that would create moral and legal problems of magnitude. And if the Croatians too withdrew from the federation they founded with the Bosniacs, Bosnia-Herzegovina would become a poor little country that has lost its Herzegovina region as well.

  Russia argues that if Kosovo becomes independent and if Yugoslavia becomes partitioned once again -- this time along ethnic lines -- then the ethnic Russians of the Trans-Dniester that lead a separate existence in Moldova too should be independent as well as Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have separated themselves from Georgia. Naturally, Karabagh's becoming independent from Azerbaijan would be an issue too.

  If, in a world where ?partitioning? becomes the latest craze, the ethnic Russians in Ukraine that make up roughly 35 percent of the Ukrainian population also sought separation, all hell would break loose.

  Montenegro demanded independence on the grounds that its bid for EU membership was being stalled as a result of Serbia's refusal to deliver war criminals, a refusal that was stalling the EU membership of Serbia. The EU is now letting Montenegro enter the EU membership process. In other words, EU membership has caused the partitioning of Serbia-Montenegro.

  As the May 24 main editorial of the International Herald Tribune pointed out, it was the ?dubious interests? of Austria, Germany and the Vatican that triggered the fragmentation process in former Yugoslavia. The EU refusal to initiate Bosnia-Herzegovina's membership process on the grounds that the latter has not ensured ethnic stability, will obviously facilitate the new partitioning process. Meanwhile, the way the EU has concluded with Albania a stability and partnership agreement in haste, may be reflecting a desire to prevent Kosovo from merging with Albania after gaining independence. However, the EU has made the Greek Cypriots -- who do not want a solution in Cyprus -- a member while refusing to lift the international embargoes on the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) and opposing the KKTC's independence. This unprincipled behavior of the EU is about to cause great trouble for everybody.

  Until now there had been a widely-accepted assumption to the effect that EU member countries do not break up. It was believed that once a country joined the EU the separatist dynamics in that country would become ineffective. Yet, the referendum held in Spain's Catalonia region nearly 10 days ago gave results in exactly the opposite direction. No one doubts that similar demands will be heard from the Basque region and Galicia as well. Let us wait and see what the Spanish army will say to that.

  On the other hand, it is being said that on the occasion of the 2007 elections in Belgium the Flemish may vote in favor of separation from the Valons. If division takes place in Belgium -- the country whose capital city, Brussels, is also the capital of the EU -- too, that will be a truly interesting situation. Apparently there is some kind of interaction between the intra-EU fragmentation trends and the independence movements in the West Balkans and South Caucasus.

  God forbid if we too started displaying the ?Sévres syndrome!?


http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=47324

[cypezokyli]

[pg]

I have never understood how that guy draws conclusions...

[magikthrill]

who is this person who wrote the article? catalunya voted to gain the autonomy equivalent to the basque region; not the other way around,.

furhermore, spain and the belgians are irrelevant to cyprus because the regions of each communities were defined BEFORE union.

in cyprus the regions were defined after an illegal invasion.

[brother]