The revival of Muslim religious space in the Balkans continues to take place in two broad ways. First is the top-down state-driven official Islam designed to further national security interests. Second is the rediscovery of religion at the societal level. Thus, Islam exists both at the political level as an identity marker and in the form of personal religiosity around informal social networks.
Government-sponsored “official Islam” remains the dominant form of Islam. This is maintained through religious hierarchies, endowments, educational entities and civil society organizations – all tied to the state. However, other forms of Islam increasingly have arisen because of the quest of the believers after the reopening of religious space aided by growth of communications technology. Political Islam seeks to promote indigenous Islam and sees the latter as subversive foreign impulses.
This has led to a division between local traditional moderate Islam and foreign radical Salafi Islam. The former is seen as highly compatible with European values while the latter as antithetical. However, foreign expressions of Islam are also divided into competing trends: Salafism (either through Saudi-sponsored institutions or driven by informal networks tied to individual preachers and militant ideologues) and Turkish forms of Islam (either sponsored through official state institutions or through the Gülen movement). Both forms have their own further subdivisions pushing competing interpretations.
Against this backdrop, there have been reports of increasing radicalization in some Balkan countries in recent years. Islamic State for example has been explicit about its desire to recruit from Bosnia, even threatening to kill a senior Islamic cleric in the country in February. Various small scale attacks in Bosnia over the last year or two bear out this trend. It is also not just the Islamic State. Other groups, some funded by the Saudis or Qataris, provoke tensions with ethnic Serbs in Bosnia. Hundreds of radicalized Bosniaks have joined the Islamic State fight in Syria; others can pass into the European Union via Croatia.
Bosnia is also not the only problem here. Macedonia claimed in early September that IS recruiters have had a presence in Kosovo for at least the last two years. Various Balkan countries have cracked down on potential recruits and have tried to stop the radicalization, but the success of these efforts is so far unclear. Macedonia and Turkey cooperated in September to arrest suspected Islamic militants who had moved to Turkey in order to plan attacks in Macedonia. This is perhaps not yet a serious problem, but it has all the hallmarks of an area where militancy could flourish: struggling economies, disillusioned youth, inter-religious conflict, easy access to weapons and various other forms of smuggling and trafficking, and terrain that lends itself to covert places to hide and plan.
Together, the three dynamics of poor economic performance, political conflict and the potential for Islamist militancy make a usually unstable part of Europe even more off-balance. By themselves these challenges would present serious concerns. But these developments are not taking place in a vacuum, and competition between foreign powers in the Balkans adds another set of variables that does not bode well for the region’s near-term future.
Pawns of Other Powers
This year has been busy for Balkan leaders, who have intensified visits with the U.S., EU (and EU representative countries Germany or France), Russia and Turkey. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev will visit Belgrade in October. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden visited in August. German Minister of State for Europe Michael Roth visited on Sept. 12. Russian President Vladimir Putin spent a weekend in Slovenia in late July, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid a state visit to Croatia in late April. Everyone seems to be looking to intensify their presence and influence in the Balkans.
The EU and the U.S. have two major interests in the region: to avoid any kind of conflict and to diminish Russian influence. NATO is still involved in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, having dedicated troops to similar operations in Bosnia as well.
The EU and U.S. have been involved in the peacekeeping and state-building process in the Balkans and thus have been involved in the region’s politics since the end of the 1990s. Both have granted funds for institutional buildup. The EU has been the largest donor in the region, and most of the countries in the western Balkans have applied to join. While Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia are unlikely to become members soon, they benefit from the EU financial assistance programs as they negotiate accession. Between 2014 and 2020, the EU has allocated about $2.75 billion under the pre-accession program. These funds are to help the countries build their socio-economic infrastructure, encompassing various sectors from governance to agriculture, education, regional cooperation and the environment.
Russia has also participated in peacekeeping, with troops in Kosovo and Bosnia, and maintains close relations with its historical allies in the region, which are all part of the Slavic Eastern Orthodox community. Russia wants to keep the region as a buffer zone, opposing Western influence. Russia is against the idea of building integrated infrastructure for the region, for the simple reason that such infrastructure will connect the region to the West and to NATO countries. Russia needs to prevent the development of military infrastructure that would facilitate movement of Western troops in the region and to the Mediterranean and the Black seas. Since the Ukraine crisis, NATO has expanded its multinational response force, creating a chain of outposts called “force integration units,” which could act like command units and respond to security threats along the alliance’s eastern border, including in Romania and Bulgaria. In response, Russia has maintained a special center for emergency situations in Niš in southern Serbia and has been organizing joint counterterrorism military exercises with the Serbian army since 2014.
Russia has also expanded its influence in the Balkans by investing in strategic economic sectors, from energy to transportation, tourism and financial markets. In 2008, Gazprom bought a majority stake in Serbian oil company Naftna Industrija Srbije, and Lukoil owns a majority stake in Beopetrol. Russia’s Sberbank and Moscow Bank entered Serbia and Montenegro, while state-run Russian Railways has been upgrading a 350-kilometer (220-mile) stretch of track in Serbia. The Kremlin has also sealed energy deals with Republika Srpska and awarded it a $300 million loan through a private investment fund. Russia is the most important investor in Republika Srpska, after Sberbank bought Austrian Volksbank operations in the region and Zarubrežnjeft invested $700 million to acquire the oil refinery in Brod.
In Montenegro, Russian investment makes up more than 30 percent of total foreign investment, while no individual Western European country accounts for more than 5 percent. Russian money went to almost all sectors of the economy, including tourism, the metals industry and real estate. Russia maintains good relations with Bulgarian business moguls and has increased investment in Macedonia since 2013. However, considering Russia’s current economic problems, its influence will likely stall, which is why Russia sees its position threatened. Meanwhile, Montenegro recently received an invitation to become a NATO member and Serbia is courting the Europeans and the Americans for more investment.
Turkey’s interest is primarily in maintaining its influence in the Black Sea. At the same time, Turkey maintains close relations with Muslim communities in the former Ottoman Empire for political reasons and through economic activity. In this sense, Turkey has special relations with Bulgaria, which has a large Turkish minority that has some influence in both Turkish and Bulgarian elections, and with Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a few million Turkish citizens claim Bosnian roots, after the large migration of Bosniaks to Turkey in the 17th century. While Turkey doesn’t invest as much as Russia and the West do, most of the funds and initiatives coming from Turkey go to highly symbolic projects, meant to revive cultural links based on the country’s imperial heritage, the Ottoman Empire. But Turkey must maneuver carefully, considering its relationship with Russia. This is why Turkey does not rival the West and Russia in the Balkans, but only seeks to maintain relations with the countries in the region, while keeping a fairly neutral stance toward the other powers interested in the region.
Conclusion
While much of Eurasia looks similar to the way it looked on the eve of the World War II, the Balkans look like they looked on the eve of the World War I. Political borders do not coincide with ethnic boundaries – but this would not be possible, considering the ethnic geography of the region. Several nation-states are still building up their institutional framework, while Kosovo is not recognized by all the countries in the region. Some of the states are members of the EU, some of NATO and some are in accession talks with one or the other. All countries in the western Balkans fear a potential increase in militancy, and they are all facing socio-economic problems.
Balkan politics have historically enabled foreign powers to boost their influence through financial and political support for local governments to avoid instability, which is what foreign powers fear most. With the Russian economy declining, the EU with its own problems, the U.S. looking to avoid any involvement in a potential conflict and Turkey with limited room to maneuver, the Balkan nations need to find solutions to their problems. While they can’t ignore foreign influence, the fragile state of their societies, as well as their location in the European borderlands, make the balancing strategy the best strategy they have.
This means that governments in the western Balkans can access financial assistance and political support from multiple external powers. But as the usual creditors encounter economic problems and geopolitical rivalries grow, local regional disputes may intensify. This means the nuanced competition between foreign powers and regional actors could turn into a real conflict. The way these countries will manage their economies and societal demands is key to how things will evolve in the region.
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