A Flourishing Albanian ‘Neighborhood’ Benefits the Balkans

Photo by: Shkumbin Saneja

Euro-Atlantic integration is the cornerstone of international efforts to stabilize the Balkans.

The lure of membership in NATO and the European Union is a powerful incentive for reform, the rule of law, and economic prosperity.

Commercial, cultural and people-to-people contact creates a web of shared interests, acting as an alternative to confrontation.

But the European perspective today is more aspirational than realistic. The euro-zone crisis has changed the calculus of Balkan countries aspiring to EU membership.

European leaders are now also taking a different attitude towards EU expansion. They want to get their own houses in order before pitching a bigger tent. With Europe in disarray and US leverage limited by scarcer resources, the international community needs a new approach.

I call this new approach “the Albanian neighborhood.” It is based on the recognition that groups have natural affinities, reflecting their common history, culture, and commercial relations.

Allowing organic affinities to flourish can act as a safety valve, by allowing groups to blow off steam. Frustrations naturally arise when aspirations are thwarted either by geography or irredentist politics.

The strategy for stabilizing the Balkans must be multi-faceted. Fostering an Albanian neighborhood should occur in tandem with efforts to promote good governance and the rule of law within existing states.

The Albanian neighborhood is more than a territory encompassing Albania, Kosovo, and parts of Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece and Serbia.

It is a community of shared values based on a commitment to democracy, human rights and free markets. As such, the Albanian neighborhood is fundamentally European and aligned with US interests.

Cross-border clustering of interests among Albanians is already underway. Family, clan, and business ties are the fabric of Albanian society. Legitimate commercial contact focuses on cross-border trade of local produce and livestock.

The Albanian highway, A1, is a milestone project. At a cost of more than €1 billion, this four-lane superhighway will reduce travel time from Tirana to Pristina from six hours to two, enabling more efficient movement of goods and people.  

Business also requires predictability and reliable energy supplies. The unbundling of the power company KESH in Albania led to an agreement connecting its utility grid system with Kosovo’s.

Upgrading the regional distribution network will be a boon to hydro-power developers and other small scale power producers.

Technology is also important to connectivity. Tech-savvy youth interact through social networks and other hand-held communications devices such as cell phones, Blackberrys, and I-pads.

Albanian-language universities increasingly share curricula and textbooks. And there are a growing number of faculty and student exchanges.

Diplomats may feel a reflexive concern about the concept of ethnic solidarity. Not only can clustering group interests be misunderstood as a pit-stop on the path to independence.

Ethnic solidarity is reminiscent of Slobodan Milosevic’s project to create an ethnically pure “greater” Serbian state. In the 1990s, the ethnic partition of Yugoslavia was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions.

Diplomats will have to think out of the box to recognize that the Albanian neighborhood is actually an alternative to ethnic partition. It takes a sophisticated worldview to appreciate that enabling cross-border contact, based on historic and organic affinities, can strengthen existing state structures.

As a paradigm shift in relations among Balkan nations, the rationale and mechanics of realizing the Albanian neighborhood requires study and dialogue. A Conference on the Albanian Neighborhood would bring together scholars, think-tank, and media representatives from the target countries, as well as the diaspora. 

The conversation should be informed by an understanding of the political, legal and institutional framework that currently regulates cross-border cooperation.

Working groups comprised of Albanian experts could be established on agreed topics with their findings comprising the core of a detailed action plan.

Their findings would be presented at a summit attended by government officials, parliamentarians, civil society leaders, scholars, as well as the worldwide Albanian diaspora. To be held during Albania’s upcoming centennial year, the summit would be a forum for strengthening the “Albanian neighborhood,” while affirming support to regional and Euro-Atlantic integration.

Innovation is always risky. Yet, the status quo is also fraught with problems. The West’s current approach to the Balkans is clearly not a solution to problems in the region. US interests are ill served by weak and fragile states that are vulnerable to corruption, criminality, and the influence of outside extremist groups.

The United States and Europe must continue to work together for democratization based on Western standards and European ideals. “Europe, whole and free” is still the ultimate goal.

To realize this vision, US policymakers must see the Balkans as it is, not as they would like it to be. Ethnic solidarity is a reality. The challenge is harnessing it as a force for peace and prosperity, rather than as a source of conflict and violence.

David L. Phillips is Director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. He is author of an upcoming book – “Liberating Kosovo: Coercive Diplomacy and U.S. Intervention.”