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Kosovo

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea. He and I have stood together on many occasions and on all of them, I think, we have stood on the same side on crucial foreign policy issues. I followed his perceptive speech with a good deal of interest and agreement, and I shall touch on some of the matters that he did. I cannot quite agree with the noble Lord thatthe October elections in Bosnia produced a more nationalist outcome. In fact, all the nationalist parties were weaker at the end of those elections than at the beginning. I do not think that Haris Silajdzic is any more nationalist than the Bosniak whom he removed in the elections. I have kept quiet on the Balkans since I left there at the end of January because I believe that, when you leave the stage, you leave the stage, and I wanted to let some time go by. However, time and events now persuade me to say one or two words about an increasingly troublesome situation in the western Balkans. I fear that I shall be critical of the international community, but that criticism does not extend to the policies of Her Majesty’s Government, which are correct, robust and well targeted; I suspect that what has happened recently in the Balkans is despite them, rather than because of them. I pay particular tribute to the Government’s ambassadors on the ground in the western Balkans, especially the remarkable and extremely able Matthew Rycroft in Sarajevo. I fear that I cannot be so complimentary or encouraging about the recent policies of the international community in the Balkans. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, is correct: things have gone backwards in the past year or so. I find the situation at present extremely troublesome. There are brighter signs: Macedonia, despite the election, seems to be moving forward gently, and Albania continues to surprise us by its progress. However, I deeply regret that the international community has allowed the remarkable progress made over the past years in Bosnia and Herzegovina—not during my time alone, but before that—to be checked. In my view, the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has now moved into reverse. Maybe all this is because it is election year or because Governments still have to be formed. Elections were held in October and I do not suppose that the Governments will be formed until February, if the past is anything to go by. But I fear that it is more than that. I am especially disturbed that the Republic of Srpska has been allowed again to behave in a fashion by which it seems to indicate that it thinks of itself not as part of a state but as a state itself. It has gone backwards on the agreements made to transfer powers to the state level in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It has reneged on the agreements that it made about police reform. It has been allowed to threaten referenda, which is deeply irresponsible in the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially as they have been proposed contrary to Dayton. It has been allowed to begin to open representation in capital cities abroad, and allowed—even encouraged—by Belgrade to entertain the idea that a resolution in Kosovo would need some change in the status of the Republic of Srpska and the borders of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Meanwhile, it seems that the Serbs in Belgrade have decided once again that the way to the futureis back to the past. The Serbs are a great and remarkable people, for whom I have admiration and respect; nevertheless, from time to time, they love to believe that it is Serbs against the world. I fear that that is happening. I fear that the elections on21 January will see a shift to the right and a rise in the power of Seselj’s party. Against this, we must view the situation in Kosovo. Here I fear that we made a mistake right at the start. There is a rule about peacemaking—if the international community, together with the local community, can form a common project that they can seek to achieve together, they can move things forward. But I regret that in 1999 we left a vacuum where the answer to the only question that anybody wanted to ask—what is the status of Kosovo?—should have lain. One thing was plain and obvious—whatever else happened, Kosovo could not again be governed by Belgrade. But we would not admit that. I cannot imagine why. By their actions in Kosovo, the Serbs lost the moral right to govern a province in which they had only5 per cent of the population. But our incapacity to tell Kosovo at least that it would not be governed by Belgrade did two things: it enabled the nationalists in Belgrade to play the issue for votes and it enabled the destructive forces in Kosovo to fill the vacuum that we would not fill with an answer by seeking to provide the answer themselves, usually by force or the threat of force. We must address the issue that we should have addressed in 1999. This is not the benefit of hindsight. With Senator Joe Biden, I wrote a paper in 1999 for both our Governments, recommending that we should at least recognise that Kosovo would never again be governed by Belgrade; we argued that to allow Belgrade the illusion that that might be so and to allow Kosovo the opportunity to doubt our intentions on this matter would only damage the prospects of making peace there. That is what has happened. We proposed at the time that some tests should be set for Kosovo. When it had reached those attributes that a state can fulfil—good relations with its neighbours, proper protection of human rights, protection of property—we might entertain its claim for statehood. In 1999, we proposed what later became known as ““standards before status””, but by then it was too late because the malevolent forces had already gathered and both sides, in Kosovo and Belgrade, had begun to grip the situation that we had failed to grip. So now we must return to this question. I heartily congratulate Martti Ahtisaari, whose patient, sagacious and determined diplomacy has produced a set of proposals, the outline of whichis visible to all. What is proposed is strong decentralisation, strong protection for minority rights—in this case, the Serbs—and a form of independence under international tutelage. I think that that is the right solution. However, it was not right that the international community, faced with the Ahtisaari proposals—he has now finished his work and there is nothing further that he can do—decided yet again to delay. I cannot imagine why. I suppose that it was in the mistaken belief that, somehow or other, delaying until 21 January might save us from a backlash from the right in Serbia. It will not. It is almost never right in the Balkans to delay or to appease. We have simply allowed the nationalist forces to gather around behind the delusion that Kosovo might have some status in the future other than ultimate independence. That has been extremely damaging. I hope that delay will not continue. It does nobody any good. The Ahtisaari proposals are there. We all know that the Russians are opposed to them and that some new members of the European Union will follow the old, historic pro-Belgrade policy in whatever circumstances, but this is a nettle that must be grasped. I hope that we will have the Serb elections on 21 January, and on 22 January we will announce what the Ahtisaari proposals will be. Belgrade will want to delay again. It will say, ““Hang on, let’s wait until we have formed a Government, months down the track””. The Belgrade policy is very clear. It wants to provoke the Kosovo Albanians into a strong reaction—one of force, disturbance and instability. That is Belgrade’s game and we should not be playing it. I suspect that the Government share that view, although they have probably not been able to say so. I suspect that the Government did not want NATO to abandon conditionality on Karadzic and Mladic, but we were forced to do so because of a sudden and unexpected volte-face by the United States, which I deeply regret—it was wrong. I suspect that the Government have been taking a robust line on this question of delay and I recommend that they continue doing so. I have one final point. The one thing that keeps the western Balkans on the track of reform is the magnetic pull of Brussels—nothing else. The sadness is that that magnetic pull has weakened because there is doubt in the capitals of Europe about whether we want the western Balkans in the EU. The question of enlargement has become muddled up with Turkey. But this is not about expanding Europe beyond its present borders. It is about unfinished business within our present borders. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Swansea, is right. If we do not bring them in, we will find them in our cities, with criminality and trafficked women, because that is the corridor through which they come. It is in Europe’s interest to keep that magnetic pull strong and to keep the western Balkans on the track of reform. The international community has allowed that to slacken; it has allowed the conditionality and the magnetic pull of Brussels to be weakened in the past year, and the Balkans are now moving backwards. They will not return to conflict, but they will stay in a black hole of dysfunctionality and criminality for as long as we allow this to continue. I deeply regret the way in which things are going. I hope that the Government and the international community will insist that the Ahtisaari proposals for Kosovo are published on 21 January, that there is no further delay and that this nettle is grasped—and that we do at last in the early part of next year what we should have done in 1999.