Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
Sam Vaknin is the author of “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited” and Editor-in-Chief at Global Politician

Its credit rating downgraded (in August 2011 by Standard and Poor’s), its politicians deadlocked in a bipartisan danse macabre, it middle-class impoverished, its hordes of long-term unemployed a fixture. It has been called a rogue state, a colonialist-imperialist throwback, the puppet of Zionism. But, is the United States of America a failed state?

The US State Department’s designation of “rogue state” periodically falls in and out of favor. It is used to refer to countries hostile to the United States, with authoritarian, brutal, and venal regimes, and a predilection to ignore international law and conventions, encourage global or local terrorism and the manufacture and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Most rogue states are not failed ones.

An “immature state” is a polity whose elites are dysfunctional, venal, and narcissistic; whose economy is not viable, frequently dependent on handouts; and whose coherence is threatened by a lack of social consensus. Immature states typically lack political traditions, change agents, goal-oriented bureaucracies, and institutional memory. Consequently, the denizens of immature states are often xenophobic and insular.

A “failed economy” fails to attract foreign direct investment. It is characterized by kleptocratic governments and rampant corruption, increased geopolitical risk, and lack of modern infrastructure. It features all-pervasive failure of institutions; lack of commitment to true reforms; absence of a functioning private sector; problematic mentality (laziness, passive-aggressiveness, pathological and destructive envy; xenophobia, resistance to learning, etc.); a low-level of research-and-development and innovation; an antiquated and dysfunctional education system; and primitive banking system and capital markets. While not failed states in the political and full-fledged sense of the word, “failed economies” come in a close second.

A “failed state” is a country whose government has no control and cannot exercise a monopoly on the legitimate use of force over a substantial part of its territory or citizenry. It is continuously and successfully challenged by private military power: terrorists, warlords, or militias. Its promulgations and laws are futile and inapplicable.

With the exception of the first criterion (hostility towards Pax Americana), some scholars claim that the USA is, itself, a rogue state (q.v., for instance, William Blum’s “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower” and “Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism And The Failure Of Good Intentions” by Clyde Prestowitz).

Admittedly, the USA’s unilateralist, thuggish and capricious foreign policy represents a constant threat to world peace and stability. But labeling the USA a “rogue state” may be overdoing it. It better fits the profile of a semi-failed state.

A semi-failed state is a country whose government maintains all the trappings and appearances of power, legitimacy, and control. Its army and police are integral and operative. Its institutions function. Its government and parliament promulgate laws and its courts enforce them. It is not challenged by any competing military structures within its recognized borders.

Yet, the semi-failed state – while going through the motions – is dead on its feet. It is a political and societal zombie. It functions due mainly to inertia and lack of better or clear alternatives. Its population is disgruntled, hostile, and suspicious. Other countries regard it with derision, fear, and abhorrence. It is rotting from the inside and doomed to implode.

In a semi-failed state, high crime rates and rampant venality, nepotism, and cronyism affect the government’s ability to enforce laws and implement programs. It reacts by adding layers of intransigent and opaque bureaucracy to an already unwieldy mammoth. The institutions of the semi-failed state are hopelessly politicized and, thus, biased, distrusted, and compromised. Its judiciary is in a state of decrepit decline as unqualified beneficiaries of patronage join the ranks.

The result is social fragmentation as traditional and local leaders, backed by angry and rebellious constituents, take matters into their own hands. Centrifugal politics supplant statehood and the nation is unable to justly and effectively balance the competing claims of the center versus the periphery.

The utter (but insidious) institutional failure that typifies the semi-failed state is usually exposed with the total disarray that follows an emergency (such as a natural disaster or a terrorist attack).

To deflect criticism and in a vain attempt to reunite its fracturing populace, the semi-failed state often embarks on military adventures (cloaked as “self-defense” or “geopolitical necessity”). Empire-building is an indicator of looming and imminent disintegration. Foreign aggression replaces reconstruction and rational policy-making at home. The USA prior to the Civil War, the USSR between 1956 and 1982, federal Yugoslavia after 1989, and Nazi Germany are the most obvious examples.

Is the USA a semi-failed state?

I. Empire-building and foreign aggression

Its neighbors always perceived the United States as an imminent security risk (ask Mexico, half of whose territory was captured by successive and aggressive American administrations). The two world wars transformed the USA into a global threat, able and only too willing to project power to protect its interests and disseminate its brand of missionary liberal-capitalism.

In the last 150 years, the USA has repeatedly militarily attacked, unprovoked, other peaceful or pacified nations, near and far. To further its (often economic) ends, the United States has not refrained from encouraging and using terrorism in various parts of the globe. It has developed and deployed weapons of mass destruction and is still the biggest arms manufacturer and trader in the world. It has repeatedly reneged on its international obligations and breached international laws and conventions.

II. Dysfunctional institutions

Hurricane Katrina (August-September 2005) exposed the frailty and lack of preparedness of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) and, to some extent, the National Guard. It brought into sharp relief the cancerous politicization of the crony-infested federal government.

FEMA is only the latest in a long chain of failed institutions. The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) coped poorly with virulent corruption and malfeasance in Wall Street. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) capitulated in the face of commercial and political pressures and neglected to remove from the market malfunctioning medical devices and drugs with lethal side effects.

The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has sacrificed America’s nature reserves to business interests. A heavily politicized Supreme Court legitimized manifestly tainted election results and made a president out of the loser of the popular vote. The disenfranchisement of minorities, the poor, and ex-convicts is now in full swing.

The legislature – the two houses of Congress – are deadlocked and paralyzed owing to partisanship and corruption. The executive either ignores laws passed by the the legislative branch of government (President Bush issued well over 750 “presidential statements”, effectively obviating many of them) or actively encroaches on Congressional turf (for instance, by sending the FBI to search the offices of elected Representatives).

As the 2011 brinkmanship debate about the debt ceiling proved conclusively, the organs of the government of the United States now function only when exposed to acute embarrassment and a revolted public opinion. Private firms and charities sprout to fulfill the gaps.

III. The National Consensus

Americans long mistook the institutional stability of their political system, guaranteed by the Constitution, for a national consensus. They actually believe that the former guarantees the latter – that institutional firmness and durability ARE the national consensus. The reverse, as we know, is true: it takes a national consensus to yield stable institutions. No social structure – no matter how venerable and veteran – can resist the winds of change in public sentiment.

Hurricane Katrina again demonstrated the unbridgeable divides in American society between rich and poor and black and white. But this time, the rift runs deeper.

The Bush administration is the first since the Civil War to dare to change the fundamental rules of the political game (for instance by seeking to abolish the filibuster in the Senate and by a profligacy of recess appointments of judges and officials). Its instincts and reflexes are elitist, undemocratic, and violent. It is delusional and its brand of fanatic religiosity is not well-received even among the majority of Americans who are believers. Additionally, it is openly and unabashedly corrupt and ridden with nepotism and cronyism.

Yet, Bush, unlike Nixon, is not an aberration. He is unlikely to be impeached. He was overwhelmingly re-elected even as his quagmire war in Iraq unraveled and the self-enrichment and paranoia of his close circle became public.

This is the new and true face of at least half of America, to the horror and dismay of the other half, its liberals. If the history of the United States is any judge, these two camps are unlikely to sit back and navel-gaze. Semi-failed states typically disintegrate. A bloodied (perhaps even nuclear) second civil war is in the cards.

Should the United States devolve into its constituent states, the world will breathe a sigh of relief. A European Union (EU)-like economic zone between the parts of the former USA is bound to be far more pacific and to contribute to world stability – something its malignant former incarnation had so signally failed to do.

The Macedonian dilemma-to change the name or not to change it-that is the question?

The Macedonian state like any in the world has its dilemmas. Should this democratic state change its name and, thanks to a “European dictate” enter the European Union, or not accept this dictate and remain outside the Union?

Game of the European Union

The European Union acknowledges that Macedonia, more than any other country in the Western Balkans, at present meets, just as it did prior to the adoption of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union, all the requirements for entry into the Union, but there is a “but.” That “but” is that it must first change the name of the Republic of Macedonia into the Republic of Northern Macedonia or another name that is acceptable, and now attention- to Greece. Probably the majority of readers will ask why? Because Greece has a region that also has the name Macedonia. Paranoia? Yes, indeed, and the worst is that all of the governments of the countries in the EU know that, and so they accept that paranoia.

The will of a sovereign nation is not valid

It does not matter that the Macedonians in a referendum Sept. 8, 1991 expressed their will as a sovereign state and that their country is to be called the Republic of Macedonia. The European Union hides behind Greece like a little coward who is not only a coward but a hypocrite. Neither the Union nor the EU hypocrites, the politicians, diplomats and experts of all kinds considers it important that this is contrary to international law, and that this claim would be political suicide for the government of the Prime Minister of Macedonia Nikola Gruevski as indeed for any Western government. But what if the economically weak Macedonia can be moved by such a paranoid request? The hope is that strong pressure will eventually succeed. The most interesting thing is that this absurd demand comes from the “heralds of democracy” and “teachers” of the countries of Central Europe and the Balkans.

Rights for minorities in Western Europe

The fact that the EU states themselves have problems with the rights of minorities such as those in France (Alsatians, Basques, Bretons, Catalans, Corsicans, Provencals), in Greece (Macedonians, Pomaks, Turks, Roma) and Spain (the Basques, Galicians, Catalans and those who dwell in the Leon region), is of little interest to anyone in the Union. This is in essence the hypocrisy of the European Union – one set of rights for us and another set for others. And still the mentoring tone, for teaching all in the Union and those outside. The Irish referendum is the example of Europe’s recognition of the will of the people. You will be voting as long as it takes to get the vote the EU wants. And now the same request is put to Macedonia. We know that you’re right but because of the fact that we are not a democratic EU federation of states and your country is too weak to oppose us directly, as Germany, France and the United Kingdom do, we will impose on you and the Serbs demands which that will break you, but then you will be accepted.”

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Macedonian dilemma

The Macedonian government now finds itself in a difficult situation. On the one hand Macedonians see their future in the Union. They still erroneously believe that it will be a new phase, which will increase their living standard and promote the economic development of the country. Wrong, because you need to have well-developed and competitive industries, which, unfortunately, Macedonia does not have. Not recognizing the Macedonian nation?s decision in naming their own state also does not bode well for the future, because if they do not recognize the state name now they will never recognize it in the future. While other EU countries will be able to redeem what they want, the sovereignty of Macedonia. Will have been weakened. Macedonia will become a colony or protectorate. But, of course, no one will acknowledge that the Union’s policy is such in relation to Macedonia.

Changing the name-the political suicide

Changing the name would be political suicide not only for the current government, but for everyone else. Unfortunately, Macedonian opposition – the party of the former communists – SDSM is doing everything to accept the demand of the EU – read the Greek ultimatum to change the name. This party has a huge influence on the media (90%), which presents a vision of political hecatomb if Macedonia does not change its name and remain outside the Union. On the other hand, a recent poll shows that 57% of the Macedonians refuse to accept the change. By contrast, 90% of the Albanians want the change in order to enter the Union, and thanks this change, they will be able to work freely and migrate to EU countries. Unfortunately, this is how different visions of the future of the state look in a multiethnic society. For some, Macedonian is a matter of self-identification and the historical past and for a second group, Albanians, it is a matter of self-interest rather than state interest, which for them is not regarded as the same as their own interest. Continual Albanian claims have led to political tension. Macedonians still feel the injustice of the international pressure which has granted disproportionate rights to Albanians. This gives them disproportionate access to wealth and parity in all state institutions, and the recognition of the Albanian language as a second official language, while, in fact, Albanians constitute no more than about 18% of the population. Officially, they claim 22% to 25%, but this figure was overstated by the presence of Kosovars living in Macedonia, who did not leave Macedonia after the Albanian-Serb conflict. Does the European Union or the United States recognize minority languages as official languages? No, but Macedonia was forced to grant such recognition.

The entire set of policies of the European Union regarding the Macedonian state are legal and historical injustices against the Republic of Macedonia.

Skopje, Republic of Macedonia 08/01/2010

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   Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.
Sam Vaknin is the author of “Malignant Self Love – Narcissism Revisited“

Proposed on April 11, 2010 in preparation for a simulation-game conducted by A1 TV (Macedonia).

The only way to resolve the seemingly intractable name dispute between Greece and Macedonia is to internationalize it. The negotiations should openly include — besides the primary parties and the hapless UN negotiator, Nimetz — the USA, the EU, and, possibly, Russia. The final Agreement should be signed by Macedonia and Greece with the USA, EU, and, possibly Russia as witnesses and guarantors. Such an arrangement is not unprecedented: the Ohrid Framework Agreement of 2001 included international assurances and guarantees. It is a common practice in international relations, too: Israel and Egypt signed a series of agreements in 1982 only after the USA issued side letters with guarantees and assurances to both parties.

What should such a guarantee include as a minimum? Clearly, it should cater to the needs and assuage the anxieties of both parties, the Greeks and the Macedonians. It should not be too rigid: constructive ambiguity is essential for the final resolution of the name dispute in the future.

The main elements of such an assurance side letter should be:

1.   Both parties renounce all claims on each other’s territory and recognize the current borders between them as final. These borders are guaranteed by the USA, EU, and Russia;

2.   The USA, EU, and Russia support the use of the term ?Macedonian? to describe the ethnicity and language of the citizens of Macedonia who so choose to define themselves;

3.   Article (2) above notwithstanding, the USA, EU, and Russia, together with the United Nations, will continue to collaborate with the parties to find an appropriate and lasting solution;

4.   Greece will support Macedonia’s accession to NATO and the EU and will not veto its admission, nor will it obstruct negotiations with Macedonia;

5.   Macedonia will terminate all legal proceedings against Greece brought by it in international or other courts.
The “name issue” involves a protracted dispute over the last 18 years between the two Balkan polities over Macedonia’s right to use its constitutional name, “The Republic of Macedonia”. The Greeks claim that Macedonia is a region in Greece and that, therefore, the country Macedonia has no right to monopolize the name and its derivatives (“Macedonian”).

The Greeks feel that Macedonians have designs on the part of Greece that borders the tiny, landlocked country and that the use of Macedonia’s constitutional name internationally will only serve to enhance irredentist and secessionist tendencies, thus adversely affecting the entire region’s stability.

Macedonia retorts that it has publicly renounced any claims to any territory of any of its neighbors. Greece is Macedonia’s second largest foreign investor. The disparities in size, military power and geopolitical and economic prowess between the two countries make Greek “fears” appear to be ridiculous. Macedonians have a right to decide how they are to be called, say exasperated Macedonian officials.

The Greek demands are without precedent either in history or in international law. Many countries bear variants of the same name (Yemen, Korea, Germany until 1990, Russia and Byelorussia, Mongolia). Others share their name with a region in another country (Brittany in France and Great Britain across the channel, for instance).

In the alliance’s Bucharest Summit, in April 2008, Macedonia was not invited to join NATO. Macedonia was rejected because it would not succumb to Greek intransigence: Greece insisted that Macedonia should change its constitutional name to cater to Greek domestic political sensitivities.

Discussion regarding the accession of Macedonia into the European Union was postponed until June 2010. Two countries have delayed this process, the first of course being Greece which cannot accept Macedonia being a member of the EU. Neither can it accept the name ‘Macedonia’ nor the Macedonian idenity or language. In other words, everything that has any connotation to ‘Macedonia’ and ‘Macedonian’ is unacceptable to Greece.

The other country that opposes Macedonia by supporting Greece in this endeavour is France.

Why is France doing this?

Perhaps because Greece has signed a contract to purchase military supplies from France or perhaps because, similar to Greece, France does not recognize minorities in its own territory.

What about indigenous minorities like the Alsatians, Basques, Bretons, Catalans, Corsicans and Occitans (Provencals) who today exist in France? Unfortunately all of these national minorities, and the languages they speak, are not formally recognized by France.

France, like Greece, has “specialized” in signing but not ratifying resolutions for the protection of minorities and their languages. If there is any doubt as to the existence of minority languages in France, let me remind you that all manifestos written just before and after the great French Revolution of 1789-1799 were written in these so-called local languages.

After the Revolution was over authorities withdrew from this linguistic pluralism and took advantage of a single obligatory language and that was ‘French’. The methods used to discourage the use of local languages was to make fun of adults and young children who spoke them, a similar method was used by Greece against the Macedonians.

Greek State-Promoted Terror and Persecutions

In addition to making fun of people, Greek authorities also employed terror tacticts, beatings, imprisonment and expulsion to prevent Macedonians from speaking their native language even on their own native Macedonian territories.

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This is why these two so-called ‘democratic’ countries allied themselves to block Macedonia’s accession into the European Union. Thus the paradox; if other countries are willing to accept Macedonia into the Union they cannot because current EU law allows any single member country to veto and block the other 26. This shows how fragile and abnormal the foundation of this Union is.

Can this be called democracy? No, definitely not!

This is a dictate of one, or in this case, of two countries dictating to the rest. Also there is little logic in this. In this situation we cannot say all countries are treated equally.

This is nothing more than a European circus.

The European Union, which does not hesitate to mentor and teach others about democracy and human rights, harbours two countries which care nothing about human rights or democracy, worse, they can’t even be punished for this. New countries with aspirations of joining the European Union and have fulfilled all requirements put before them, for ‘some reason’ are being blocked while ‘old’ European Union countries, like France and Greece, which have broken every minority law, are not only allowed in, but are treated like the proverbial ‘holy cows’.

Macedonia

Macedonia, the only ex-Yugoslav country in the Balkans able to meet all European standards since 1991, has not been allowed entry into the EU. Macedonia comparing to other Western Balkan’s countries is ahead of reforms . Even today, attempt after attempt to gain entry has been obstructed by Greece and all obstructions have been accepted without question by the EU.

Where have we ever seen or heard of a situation where a paranoid country like Greece ‘forcibly imposed’ a name on a normal country like Macedonia? How is it possible for the majority of democratic European countries to accept and come to terms with such dictates from a small economically and morally bankrupt country like Greece?

The Merciless Persecution of Macedonians in Greece

A country which after its unlawful seizure of Macedonian territories in 1913 has issued a number of racist laws against its own citizens. A country which after its Civil War in 1949 exiled both Greeks and Macedonians and in 1982 and 1985 allowed only Greeks by birth to return. How long will the EU allow Greece, which does not recognize the 250 thousand strong Macedonian minority living on its territory, a minority already recognized by international organizations, to break European and international laws? When will the fools of Brussels move their heavy bottom and go to Northern Greece and see and hear for themselves the Macedonians living there?

When will decision-makers from the EU understand that it is not Macedonia but Greece that is a destabilizing factor in the Balkans? It is not Macedonian but Greek nationalism and the Greek Orthodox Church that inflames other Balkan nationalisms.

Fake “Greek History”

Another idiotic idea that inflames hatred and nationalism is Greece’s claims of having 4000 years of cultural continuity and being ethnically pure, which are nothing more than a myth. The Greek nation is an artificial creation invented in the XIX century by the Philhellenic English and German fans of Classical Greece. The Greek language is also an artificial creation which survived only because it was a language of Eastern Christianity and not the language spoken by the Greek people.

In the XIX century the language spoken in Athens, a small Ottoman village, was Albanian, called Arnautian or Arvanitika. The Greek language was revived by academics and taught in schools and in this way it became the official language of the Greek state. These facts are not taught in school.

The so-called ‘Greek studies’ offered to students are no more than fictional concepts promoting an invented continuity and an invented language. It is enough to read the 19 century memoirs of scientists and travelers in order to learn that they were not able to communicate with the people of Greece in Greek. Macedonia was incorporated into Greece in 1913 against the will of the Macedonian nation which dwelt in these territories from times immemorial.

EU support to Turkey’s Kurds – but not to Greece’s Macedonians

Turkey is constantly being accused by the EU for not respecting minority rights, particularly those of the Kurdish people.

•   Why has no one in the EU accused Greece of doing the same with regards to the Turkish and Macedonian minorities living there?

•   Why isn’t criticism directed at Greece?

Why this anti-Turkish obsession, not justified by the way, because racism is present in the EU and nobody in Brussels is asking questions about that?

There are more liberties for minorities in Turkey than in Greece.

It is a result of the very nature of Turkey which was an empire and was comprised of many nations and religions. While Turkey left all Christian Churches intact in its territory, Greece on the other hand after 1915 destroyed all Turkish minarets in the Greek territory.

Do Turks from Thrace have guaranteed rights as a minority? No, they, as well as the Macedonians have no minority rights and are discriminated against to no end in Greece. But do you see anyone writing about this, particularly in Europe? No, not at all! And why is Turkey presented in such bad light and not Greece?

Greeks living in Istanbul enjoy full religious freedom but not Turks living in Thrace.

These people are called Muslims because Greece forbids them to call themselves Turks. This says a lot about how the EU operates and how much member nations like Greece respect the rights of their citizens who cannot call themselves what they are but need to be called as deigned by governments!

If we are to speak frankly, Turkey, not Greece, is a stabilizing factor in the Balkans even though a small part of Turkey exists in the Balkans.

It seems that political correctness has taken European politicians away from common sense. They look at one thing and call it something else. The EU has taken a dogmatic approach to things like an aparatchik and preposterously dictates instead of using sound logic and reasoning. In theory a EU is a sound idea but it does not practice what it preaches. Instead of being a union governed by citizens, the EU is a union run by nonchalant bureaucrats.

Accepting countries like France and Greece which have committed serious human rights violations and imposing unjust conditions on countries like Macedonia will cause that the EU sooner or later, will get the hiccups which it deserves. It is not a union of equal nations. It seems that some are more equal than others in the EU and that is not right.

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By Risto Karajkov

A “historic day,” the “fall of the wall,” the “end of visas” — these were some of the headlines in the Balkan media in response to the European Commission (E.C.) proposing visa liberalization for Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro. The visa-free travel could ideally be possible by the beginning of January 2010. Macedonia has already fulfilled all the technical conditions, while some benchmarks still remain to be met by Serbia and Montenegro.

The E.C. proposal would next be discussed in the European Parliament, and the final decision would be made by the European Council later in the year. “I trust that this proposal should be adopted by the E.U. member states by the end of this year after we have also consulted the European Parliament,” Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said at the announcement of the Commission’s proposal yesterday in Brussels. Visa liberalization will bring an end to a costly, unpleasant, and sometimes humiliating ritual for people who need to travel abroad. “For the citizens of the Western Balkans, visa-free travel means no more queuing at embassies, no more visa fees, and no more collecting of supporting documents such as invitation letters, tickets and paying for their translation,” Rehn said. “In a nutshell,” he added, “this will mean a further Europeanization of the civil societies in the Western Balkans and it is an example that European integration is not only a matter of integrating nations, but also peoples and citizens.” The news was greeted with undivided enthusiasm in the three countries.

The issue of painful visa regime has made headlines and topped political agendas for some years. “Our citizens deserved this, and this is success of the European idea in Macedonia,” said Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, welcoming the news in Skopje. Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic received the news in Kotor where he was in a meeting with E.U.’s H.F.S.P. chief Javier Solana. Djukanovic said that Montenegro will meet the remaining conditions by October and expressed confidence that his country will be visa free on January 1, 2010. “We have fulfilled most of the conditions from the roadmap for visa liberalization and now we have a few more things to do,” Djukanovic said. “There is no doubt that our partners will be satisfied with our results.”

In response to the motion from Brussels, Serbian President Boris Tadic said that the Commission’s recommendation is an important thing for the citizens of Serbia. He added it was good that other countries in the region would also be visa free because that would improve the quality of life in the region overall. “Serbia is not responsible only for itself, but also for the cooperation in the region, given that it is the central country in Southeast Europe,” President Tadic said. Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic added that visa liberalization would restore people’s dignity. “From January 1, the citizens of Serbia will be able to travel without visas to Europe, and this will give them back their dignity,” Cvetkovic said. Serbian Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration Bozidar Djelic also welcomed the move but underscored that work had to continue. “The visa darkness has been lifted from the citizens of Serbia, but there is no time for relaxation. We have to continue the reforms.” Djelic was cited by Serbian media comparing the fall of the visa barrier with the national holiday celebrated by the French, the fall of the Bastille in 1789.

Some of the reactions in Serbia expressed concern over the fact that the visa liberalization will divide Serbs in Serbia from Serbs living in Kosovo. The visa-free travel will be a possibility for Serbian citizens with biometric passports, but because of security concerns, even with new biometric passports, residents of Kosovo will still need visas. Kosovo authorities accepted the decision as a further recognition of their separate independent status from Serbia. In addition to Kosovo, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Albania were excluded from the recommendation because they did not make sufficient progress with the needed reforms. Mr. Rehn, however, left the door open. “The ‘roadmaps’ that the E.U. gave them last year are still valid, and they are still perfectly doable if the authorities in these two countries put their full will into delivering now,” Rehn said. “If Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina keep up the pace of reforms and thus meet the conditions, the Commission could envisage making a new proposal by mid-2010.” Bosnia greeted the news with expected disappointment, but Minister of Civilian Affairs Sredoje Novic said that the government could start issuing new biometric passports by mid-October. B.I.H. officials hope that could allow the country to join the first three countries by mid-2010.

Reactions in Albania also showed optimism. Albanian Interior Minister Bujar Nishani said that Albania needs only to meet a few technical conditions in to join the visa liberalization process, and that the country would come on target by the end of 2009. After a longer period of time, Brussels sent an encouraging message to the Balkans. For most people in the Balkans the European idea is by and large associated with the freedom of movement. This article was originally published at www.osservatoriobalcani.org

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