“Balkans, crossroads under influences, in 100 questions” by Jean-Arnault Dérens and Laurent Geslin

Focus today on the Balkans, with the release last spring of a key work for understanding the history and current events of this space, called The Balkans. This crossroads under influences. Balkans, crossroads under influences, in 100 questions, published by Tallandier, is co-written by journalists Jean-Arnault Dérens and Laurent Geslin, co-editors in chief of Balkan Mail.

franceinfo: Jean-Arnault Dérens, you are a historian, journalist, Balkan specialist, co-founder of this famous media that is The Balkan Courier, so a book now?

Jean Arnault Dérens : Yes, a book that tries to present the main historical, geopolitical and social issues of this space, which we call the Balkans. So we focused on the countries of the former Yugoslavia and on Albania. Although the Balkans may have broader definitions.

That goes a little further anyway… Balkans, is it a Turkish word?

Yes, absolutely, old mountains. But this space, we do not know exactly where the Balkans begin, where they end. So many countries have a Balkan identity which basically refers to the fact that they were, for centuries, an integral part of the Ottoman Empire. That’s the common point, to bring these countries together in their history, even if afterwards, of course, they all experienced more or less different developments.

So, these Balkans, we start in Slovenia, we stop in Albania in your book, but we could go as far as Thessaloniki. Be that as it may, we see news from the Balkans when we are interested in it, because it is exciting news. It remains a powder keg, it must be said?

So I think that the Balkans is a space which, for at least two centuries, has been a space under influence. This is precisely why the book has, as a subtitle Crossroads under influences, where the great powers of the moment, if we look at the beginning of the 20th century, were Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary. Today, the European Union, Russia, China, and increasingly Turkey, where, of course, these great powers are still testing their balance of power. From this point of view, the Balkans is above all a kind of sensitive plate revealing many of the geopolitical contradictions of our continent, and of the world in general.

Two member states of the European Union, Slovenia, Croatia, we often say that well, it would be good to bring in North Macedonia or Albania, but we never hear about Serbia. Serbia, is it still the black cat?

So Serbia certainly has a bad brand image…

Which is absolutely unbearable, it must be said…

It is a legacy, in any case, of the wars of the 90s. The Western Balkans are all theoretically destined to join the European Union. In the bureaucratic logic of Brussels, we even distinguish two countries which would be the most advanced, because they have opened their negotiation chapters, it is Serbia and Montenegro. But anyway, the process today is blocked for the entire region, and it is fundamentally blocked because the European Union has no defined project for this area…

But in Europe, nobody takes care of the Balkans, whereas somewhere, the Balkans, it is a base?

It’s a base, it’s an extremely close stranger. This is something that concerns us directly. Today, for example, the Balkans are also spaces in the process of being emptied of their population, because people have waited too long for this integration which was promised. And they say to themselves: since the European Union is not coming to us, we will go into the European Union with our feet, and those who are leaving are competent people, qualified people, from neurosurgeons to plumbers, people with skills…

With an incongruity all the same, because the Americans got involved, it’s Bosnia-Herzegovina. Are the Dayton Accords nonsense today?

So the Dayton Accords (Editor’s note: signed on December 14, 1995 in Paris, putting an end to the inter-ethnic fighting taking place in Bosnia-Herzegovina) have made Bosnia-Herzegovina a State which is very largely non-functional. But I tend to say that the Dayton Accords are the worst possible solution. Except there are no others.

Three Prime Ministers, a Catholic, an Orthodox and a Muslim with 200 ministers, I don’t know how many parliaments, a great observer for the United Nations who, for the moment, is German. We can tell the truth, it can fart from one day to another?

I think there is paradoxically a logic of poor stability. The real question that is essential for all these countries is the question of the rule of law. If the rule of law worked, if people could study, build their lives, find a job, develop projects without having to pass under the caudin forks of the patronage networks of the parties in power, the situation would be very different. However, it is the rule of law that the Balkans need most. I think our fate, anyway, is linked to the Balkans. Geographically, we are in the same boat.

And thehe Balkans really need us, just as we need the Balkans. It is time to get out of this fixed framework and above all, I would say, this pseudo-stability which has been the sole concern of Europeans for too long. But it’s like a minimum stability, just that it doesn’t move, that there are no new wars. On the other hand, there is the need for all Europeans to ensure that these Balkans can experience the normal functioning of societies.