Preventing Balkan Conflict: The Role of Euroatlantic Institutions. Strategic Forum, Number 226, April 2007

摘要

Despite 15 years of international peacekeeping and security assistance, the West Balkans are still beset with major security challenges that will severely test the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU) in 2007. Bosnia-Herzegovina still requires the presence of NATO and EU police and peacekeepers and, along with newly independent Montenegro, needs help in building basic institutions. The same is true for Kosovo. As the United Nations addresses Kosovo's 'final status,' Kosovar and Serbian interethnic relations will likely grow more unstable, possibly with ripple effects in Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Among the instruments for enhancing Balkan stability today are NATO's Partnership for Peace and the EU's Stabilization and Association Agreements, along with an array of subregional organizations promoting cooperation. NATO and EU members Hungary, Slovenia, and Greece, along with Romania and Bulgaria, who joined the EU in January 2007 now provide a core for coordinating NATO and EU programs in promoting West Balkan security sector reform, encouraging regional collaboration, and providing a credible roadmap for Euro-Atlantic integration. Expanding the Southeast European Defense Ministerial and Civil-Military Emergency Planning Council for Southeastern Europe membership to include all West Balkan states and broadening their coverage to include interior ministers (police and border guards) would create the necessary conditions for advancing Balkan regional cooperation in a Southeast European Homeland Defense Ministerial. Such a union of defense and interior ministers would work with the Southeast European Cooperation Initiative to provide opportunities for West Balkan states to move beyond stabilization toward integration. These stabilization efforts and institutional developments are cause for optimism but no guarantee of success.