EU aims to counter Chinese, Russian influence at Balkan summit

Source: Today online
May 6 2020

BRUSSELS/BELGRADE - European Union (EU) leaders host a summit on Wednesday with their six Balkan counterparts whose praise for Chinese and Russian support during the coronavirus crisis has ruffled feathers in the bloc, officials and diplomats said.

The EU says it has not been given enough credit for the 3.3 billion euros (£2.9 billion) it is providing, which officials said outweigh medical supplies Beijing and Moscow sent to Serbia and Bosnia in the early phase of the epidemic.

The summit, planned for the Croatian capital Zagreb 20 years after the first ever EU-Balkan gathering, will take place via video from 1430 GMT, linking the heads of Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and North Macedonia with the 27 EU leaders.

Still scarred by 1990s wars, all six countries aspire to join the EU, though the response to the COVID-19 disease is likely to dominate.

"The summit itself is the message, to say: we want you to join," said a senior EU diplomat involved in preparing the summit. "But we will also say that you cannot pander to the Chinese and the Russians when it suits you."

China and Russia flew doctors and medical supplies to Bosnia and Serbia in March to help halt spreading of the coronavirus at a time when the EU's initial response was slow.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic publicly thanked President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people.

The Serb member of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, Milorad Dodik, praised Russia last month, criticising Brussels for initially limiting exports of medical aid to non-EU members.

"The Europe we believed in ten years ago does not exist today," he said at the time, although he later softened his language.

BATTLE FOR INFLUENCE

After years of neglect, the six countries now have the attention of EU governments, who have been worried about Chinese and Russian influence in the region for several years.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned in November that if the EU did not do more, "others will."

In March, North Macedonia and Albania won approval to start EU membership talks after a two-year delay, helping to counter a sense in the region that hopes of joining the bloc were fading.

"We can't go backwards. The people in the region have nothing to fear," North Macedonia's Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov told a think-tank event. "The whole (EU) process is to help become prosperous, functioning democracies."

Vucic said on Saturday he had his own demands of EU leaders: "We will be asking (EU enlargement) commissioner Oliver Varhelyi for a bit more grants and fewer loans."

To add to the problems, five EU countries do not recognise Kosovo's independence, including Spain.

At the summit, all leaders will appear against neutral backgrounds to avoid any insignia that one EU official said "would make the video conference difficult" as lingering diplomatic tensions mean nationalist symbols could cause offence.

Greece companies seek Balkan refuge – Entrepreneurs move to Cyprus, Bulgaria

ATHENS: Efgenia Tsindoukidi, 75, is shown preparing garlic at the family greengrocery business in Athens, Greece. She says business at the family greengrocery, now owned by her son, is the worst it has been in its 30-years of operation. In recent months, she has had to contribute from her own meager pension to help pay the rent, blaming politicians for her predicament and saying she doesn't believe any of them any longer.

Πηγή: Kuwait Times
By Reuters
June 2 2012

RAKOVSKI: Iosif Komninakidis smokes nervously behind his desk in the sleepy Bulgarian town of Rakovski and contemplates plunging sales of his Greek company’s trendy jeans. Business in Komninakidis’s main market Greece was already in freefall when an election left Bulgaria’s neighbor rudderless and further threatened its solvency and euro membership. “Sales to Greece went down 30-35 percent. After the vote, they completely stopped. People just stand and wait,” said the energetic 57-year-old manager of Staff Jeans & Co’s sewing factory.

But his business can’t wait. Staff Jeans & Co already has 800 people in Rakovski – some 180 km north of the border with Greece. It now plans to move more operations to Bulgaria to cut costs and ease shipping to markets in Germany and Italy. Several of Greece’s top companies spotted the Balkans’ growth potential back in the 1990s, when names like Coca-Cola Hellenic and snack maker Chipita moved in to grab opportunities in quickly developing post-communist economies.

Now hundreds of small firms are following as Greek entrepreneurs abandon their shrinking home market with its uncertainty and high costs for lower taxes and cheaper labor in neighbors like Bulgaria, Romania and Albania. In a reversal of recent history, these countries – communist until just over 20 years ago – now offer stability compared to Greece. “Here you have security – you have a fixed tax rate of 10 percent, so that you know how much you can earn and how much you will have to pay – something that is not happening in Greece,” said Komninakidis, who moved to Rakovski in 1999.

Cyprus, which offers European Union membership, strong cultural ties and is richer than Greece’s Balkan neighbors, may also be benefiting most from the trend thanks to its low taxes, though labor costs are higher. Lo c al press reported 1,500 companies moved headquarters there in the 20 months leading up to August 2011. More than a quarter of the 2,800 Greek-owned companies now operating in Bulgaria were registered last year, according to the national revenue agency.

At the same time, the number of Greek-owned companies in Romania has risen 12 percent since 2009 to more than 5,200 and nearly 200 Greek-owned businesses registered in Albania in 2010-2011, a jump of nearly a third from the previous two years. “The interest of Greek businessmen from different sectors – from IT companies to plastics, glass and food, as well as timber, has doubled in the past two years,” said Dimitrios Tourikis, managing partner at Callamus, a consultancy offering services to foreign companies in Sofia and Athens.

GREEK PLAYGROUND

The fall of communism opened up a wealth of opportunities for Greeks in the Balkans, shown in the firms which have a major presence in Bulgaria’s economy: from telecoms companies OTE and Intracom, to construction firm GEK Terna and steelmaker Sidenor and cement maker Titan. Greek-owned banks, led by National Bank of Greece’s UBB and EFG Eurobank’s Postbank, control a quarter of Bulgaria’s financial system and also have a major presence in Romania, Macedonia, Albania and Serbia.

These big companies and others tapped the region’s rapid growth, investing 3 billion euros in Bulgaria since 1996, creating over 80,000 jobs and preparing the ground for the current influx of smaller businesses. These will create more income and jobs in Bulgaria and the region but economists say the impact will be gradual and is unlikely to give a major short-term boost to economies which have boomed and bust and are only slowly recovering. The wider concern is that the Greek investment that has underpinned these emerging economies now makes them highly vulnerable to any Greek d e fault or exit from the euro zone, which has knocked their stock markets and currencies in the last month.

Some observers see potential in that scenario as well because it will make Greek companies even more likely to find countries like Bulgaria attractive. “The coin has two sides, however, as I see several positives of the possible Greek exit from the euro zone,” said Yassen Ivanov, a fund manager at the Sofia-based DSK Asset Management. “The most straightforward one being … (More) Greek enterprises moving to Bulgaria, thus bringing employment for the people and tax revenues for the country.”

LIFESTYLE CHOICE

In Bulgaria and Greece, consultancies and law firms offering registration, legal and accountancy services to foreigners have mushroomed. Flexi Hellas started only five months ago and already has 30 clients. One is looking for a way to bottle its high-quality olive oil in Bulgaria and ship from there to clients in western Europe to cut costs and avoid potentially delayed payments in Greece. Another wants to move his GPS system business after sales at home dropped 60 percent. “Some of them cannot meet their basic needs already, while the state is breathing down their necks. The insecurity makes them look for other solutions. They choose Cyprus or Bulgaria,” said Flexi Hellas executive director Stefi Della.

Bulgaria, along with Cyprus, boasts the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU at 10 percent and starting a new business is easy and cheap. Romania has a flat tax of 16 percent. Corporate tax in Greece ranges between 20 to 25 percent and the minimum monthly wage is 586 euros, significantly higher than even the average of 350 euros in Bulgaria and Romania. Of course, setting up shop in southeast Europe is not perfect. Bureaucracy can be mind-numbing, infrastructure creaky, professional skills in short supply and graft is perceived as widespread throughout the region – perhaps even more so than in Greece itself, ranked the second most corrupt EU member after Bulgaria. Transparency International puts Albania, which is not an EU member, as even worse for corruption.

“It is remarkable that even Greek businessmen who had never before thought of doing business in Albania express a certain interest these days,” said Spiros Economou of the Greek Embassy in Albania’s capital Tirana. As and when Greece shows signs of recovery, a return to what is still a richer country – even after five years of recession – may prove attractive. “Then probably some of the capital and companies will go back,” said Georgi Ganev, an economist with the Sofia-based Centre for Liberal Strategies. “But some of them will stay.”

For Greeks used to a relaxed Mediterranean lifestyle, spending time with friends and family and enjoying the climate, the Balkans offer one attraction that trumps other countries. “Why did I choose Bulgaria instead of the Netherlands or England?” asked Meletios Melentis, 30, who set up IQ Electronics – selling automation systems for garage doors and remote controls and satellite locator units – in Sofia this year. “Simple. It’s easier to do business in England, people there just go for the better deal. But I did not like to live there,” he said. “The lifestyle here is very close to the Greek one. People go out, they have fun and when you make friends.”

Bulgaria, Greece, Romania Launch Western Balkans EU Strategy

Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikolay Mladenov at a sitting of the Counicl of Ministers Thursday.

Πηγή: novinite
Oct 13 2011

The foreign ministers of Bulgaria, Greece and Romania sent a letter to EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule and regional policy Commissioner Johannes Hahn Thursday proposing a strategy to speed up the integration of countries from the Western Balkans.

This comes just a day after Wednesday the European Commission released aprogress report on potential members from the Western Balkans, as well as Turkeyand Iceland, in which it offered official candidate status to Serbia and opened negotiations with Montenegro.

The three main objectives of the joint strategy are: (1) fulfilment of the membership criteria, (2) Enabling more European projects in the region, and (3) cross-border cooperation in the construction of infrastructure, energy and the fight against organized crime.

“Our commitment to the European perspective of the Western Balkans is based on the conviction that this is the way to assist reforms in our neighboring countries and to contribute to neighborly relations in the region," stated Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Nikolay Mladenov.

The Bulgarian Foreign Affairs Minister expressed particular satisfaction at the progress the EC has noted in Serbia and Montenegro.

Germany Makes Another Balkan Mess

Πηγή: The National Interest
By Ted Galen Carpenter

Sep. 26 2011

German chancellor Angela Merkel has received undeserved praise for adopting an uncompromising position regarding Kosovo in meetings with Serbian president Boris Tadic. The latest example of a laudatory reaction is the piece by Morton Abramowitz and James Hooper.

Abramowitz and Hooper are thrilled that she made it clear to Tadic that “Kosovo would not be partitioned” and that “the area inhabited by Serbs north of the Ibar River was Kosovo territory.” Further, she told the leader of a still-fragile democratic Serbia that the Kosovo issue “had to be resolved before Serbia could enter the EU.”

Rather than meriting praise, Merkel’s rigid, obtuse and decidedly unhelpful stance may have torpedoed any chance of resolving the Kosovo dispute in either a timely or sustainable fashion. Her ultimatum also undercuts the most democratic and pro-Western Serbian government that the EU is likely to encounter in the foreseeable future.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that a German government has made an already-difficult situation in the Balkans even worse. As Yugoslavia came apart in the early 1990s, Berlin sabotaged a promising international initiative that might have calmed the brewing storm in the newly minted country of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This time, German officials have spurned Belgrade’s hints that, despite major domestic political impediments, the Serbian government might be prepared to accept Kosovo’s independence—if territorial adjustments were made so that the predominantly Serb region north of the Ibar River would remain with Serbia. Shrewd diplomats would have explored those hints to see if they were serious. Merkel and her advisers, unfortunately, rejected any suggestion of reciprocity.

Yet, if a partition of Kosovo would remove a major headache from the Balkan region, it would seem to be a price well worth paying. To reject such an idea out of hand is a case of diplomatic malpractice. Insisting that Kosovo be recognized within its current, arbitrary boundaries creates needless instability. At best, the Serb population north of the Ibar will be a restless minority discriminated against by the Albanian Kosovar regime. At worst, they become a candidate for ethnic cleansing on the watch of NATO and the EU.

Not only did Merkel probably wreck any chance for an orderly end to the Kosovo squabble, virtually guaranteeing that peacekeeping forces will have to remain for a very long time, she also set a worrisome precedent regarding the standards for joining the EU. By demanding that Serbia abjectly accept the secession of a portion of its territory, she is including a requirement that no current member had to meet. The contrast with the treatment of Cyprus is especially striking. There was no demand that the legitimate Cypriot government accept the independence of the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus before Cyprus could become a member of the EU.

Merkel’s position—one that is supported by most (although it should be noted, not all) EU governments—will strengthen the impression among Serbs that the West has one standard for them and a different standard for everyone else in Europe. Unfortunately, that impression often seems well founded. Since the early 1990s, U.S. and EU policies appear to be based on the belief that all ethnic groups in the former Yugoslavia have a right to political self-determination, including secession—except for Serbs. It is an ugly, discriminatory approach, and Merkel’s conduct is but the latest example.

Far greater Western realism and flexibility is imperative. The option of partition to create more cohesive and stable political entities needs to be put on the table. That means being receptive to territorial changes based on ethnic partition with respect to both Bosnia and Kosovo. The former is no closer to ethnic reconciliation and political viability today than it was when the Dayton Accords were signed nearly 16 years ago. The artificial nature of that pretend country is exceeded only by its chronically dysfunctional nature.

The task of partition in Kosovo would be more limited and less challenging. The Kosovars would retain control of nearly 90 percent of Kosovo’s current territory, and the Serb population would be able to leave the jurisdiction of a political entity that they loathe. In addition, such a breakthrough might enable Kosovo to receive diplomatic recognition from the dozens of countries around the world that, despite intense pressure from the United States and the principal EU countries, have thus far refused to do so.

Ideally, Washington should be able to view Merkel’s antics and the entire misguided policy in the Balkans as a bemused spectator. But thanks to the insatiable desire to meddle on the part of previous administrations, we are entangled; the United States has peacekeeping troops in Kosovo. Indeed, personnel from the Texas National Guard are currently on their way there to participate in that quixotic nation-building mission.

U.S. leaders ought to have had enough of the international social-engineering crusade in the Balkans by now. Washington’s response to Merkel’s ham-handed approach should be to caution Berlin and other EU capitals about the probable deleterious ramifications of their current policy. U.S. officials also should put their European counterparts on notice that if the Balkans again blow up because of German-led diplomatic mismanagement, the EU will have to deal with the consequences entirely alone. As a first step, the United States should immediately withdraw all of its peacekeeping forces from Kosovo. The broader message to the Europeans should be: Don’t even think about calling on Washington to help bail you out of your folly—especially after you’ve spurned the last best chance for a peaceful, equitable resolution of the Kosovo problem.

Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of eight books on international affairs, including Bad Neighbor Policy: Washington's Futile War on Drugs in Latin America. He is also a contributing editor to The National Interest.

Greece, a European hub for China

Πηγή: Defencegreece
September 3, 2011

According to a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on China’s new Balkan strategy, Beijing sees Greece as a modern gateway linking Chinese factories with consumers across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

More specifically, according to the report:

Communist China did not assume a direct role in the volatile Balkan region until the late 1970s. Despite robust cooperation with Albania, mainly built upon a shared opposition to Soviet claims of world communist leadership, it was not until the summer of 1978 that Beijing articulated a coherent policy to deal with Southeastern Europe.

For a post-Mao leadership, the Balkan region had then become an important element in a broad diplomatic offensive meant to secure a foothold in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, open up to the Third World, and forge valuable relationships with nations which could help modernize the Middle Kingdom. In effect, China severed ties with Enver Hoxha’s Albania to develop tighter economic, political, and personal bonds with Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia and Nicolae Ceauşescu’s Romania.

However, the fall of the Iron Curtain and the bloody disintegration of Yugoslavia prevented China from sustaining strong links with Southeastern Europe. As the Balkan region is returning to stability, the time has come for Beijing to invent a new strategy and spread its influence through increased trade, clean energy investments, and embryonic political alliances.

To increase commercial exchanges with Southeastern Europe, China has made considerable investments in Greece. Since the onset of the country’s debt crisis, Beijing has been playing a proactive role by supporting the purchase of Greek bonds, announcing plans to double its annual trade with Athens to USD 8 billion by 2015, and setting-up a special Greek-Chinese shipping development fund of USD 5 billion.

More strategically, at the height of the financial crisis, in November 2008, Chinese President Hu Jintao signed a EUR 3.4 billion agreement to allow the state-owned China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) to upgrade and run part of the country’s chief port in Piraeus. The deal’s entry into force on 1 October 2009 also allowed COSCO to enhance the port’s capacity by building a third pier. The pending construction of a logistics hub in nearby Attica should help attain the goal of tripling operations up to 3.7 million containers by 2015. Ahead of these projects, Beijing has already decided to gradually stop using the ports of Naples and Istanbul to redirect maritime traffic toward Greece.

Furthermore, COSCO is bidding to operate the port of Thessaloniki, linked by rail to the rest of the Balkan Peninsula into Central Europe. The Chinese government is also vying to buy shares of the struggling state-owned Hellenic Railways Organization (OSE), scheduled to go up for privatization in the years to come as part of the massive Greek deficit-reduction plan. Such a move would allow the rapid delivery of Chinese products transiting through Greece.

This planned Chinese takeover of maritime and rail assets intends to transform Greece into a Southern rival for Northern Europe’s Rotterdam. Indeed, the country’s strategic position makes it easier for container ships transporting Chinese goods to travel from East Asia to Europe via the Suez Canal. It also provides an ideal base to reach emerging markets in the Mediterranean Basin and the Black Sea region. In other words, Beijing sees Greece as a modern gateway linking Chinese factories with consumers across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.