Series:ESI Reports

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A BOSNIAN FORTRESS. Return, Energy and the Future of Republika Srpska

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

Twelve years after its own vicious war, Bosnia and Herzegovina has changed tremendously. It has seen the large-scale return of displaced persons, the return of property and a comprehensive process of demilitarization. Freedom of movement has been restored. Interethnic violence has disappeared. New institutions at the state level govern an increasingly integrated single market. The changes that have taken place in Bosnia over the past twelve years have been no less profound than those which transformed Western Europe in the 12 years after World War II. || This report investigates conditions in a municipality in Republika Srpska on the former frontline that was once infamous as a hotbed of (Serb) nationalism. Doboj, divided by the war and today split into four parts, has long been a mirror of wider trends. Ten years ago, Doboj was notorious as a centre of hard-line nationalism. The Bosniak and Croat villages in the vicinity had been ruthlessly destroyed. The few remaining non-Serbs were under intense pressure to leave. The SDS (Serb Democratic Party), founded by indicted war criminal Radovan Karadzic, held Doboj firmly in its grip. There was little reason for hope that the multiethnic life of this region could ever be restored.

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A REFERENDUM ON THE UNKNOWN TURK? Anatomy of an Austrian debate

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

Around the world, the quality press has been reporting for weeks on the run-up to theAustrian referendum on Turkish EU accession. In London, The Guardian writes: “In 1683, Turkey was the invader. In 2015, Austria still sees it that way.” A commentator in The Financial Times notes: “For many Austrians it is as though the Janissaries were even now aiming their cannon at the gates of Vienna.” The Austrian press (“Siege Mentality”, “The Return of the Turks”, “Bulwark Austria”) and the Turkish media (“The Walls of Vienna”, “Will Vienna fall?”) are awash with military metaphors. || There has never been any doubt about the outcome of the referendum. For more than a decade, Eurobarometer polls have recorded no more than 10 percent support among Austrians for Turkish accession. With the exception of the Green party, all political parties represented in parliament have campaigned for a ‘no’ vote. It is the inevitability of the result which fascinates some (and shocks others). Vienna 2015 will replace Vienna 1683 as a global metaphor for the eternal confrontation between Christian and Muslim Europe.

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A ROME PLAN FOR THE MEDITERRANEAN MIGRATION CRISIS. The case for take-back realism

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

The European Union urgently needs a credible policy on asylum and border management. It must combine effective control of external land and sea borders with respect for existing international and EU refugee law. || Such a policy must deter irregular migration of those who do not qualify for protection. It must treat asylum seekers respectfully. It must respect the fundamental norm of the rule of rescue - not to push individuals in need into danger - which is at the heart of the UN Refugee Convention (non-refoulement). Such a plan can replace the current Dublin procedures whose reform is currently being debated in the EU with no prospect for a successful outcome. What the EU needs instead is a Rome Plan for the Mediterranean: effective, humane, and politically viable. || This plan must also recognise a basic truth that holds for Italy and for other EU countries: EU countries are bad at returning third country nationals who do not qualify for protection. This is largely because most poor countries in the world have little interest in taking back their own citizens, who often send remittances. There is an urgent need for return realism.

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A VERY SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP. Why Turkey’s EU Accession Process Will Continue

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

One area where the EU has discriminated against Turkey has been in the field of visa-free travel. This suggests an obvious way to show that EU conditionality vis-à-vis Turkey remains “strict but fair”: to offer Ankara a visa roadmap similar to that which has been given to Western Balkan countries. Once the roadmap requirements are met, Turkish citizens should be able to travel to the EU without a visa. Visa-free travel to the EU is a right enjoyed by Central Europeans (since the early 1990s) and by most people living in the Western Balkans (since 2009). The EU already promised it to Turkey under the 1963 Association Agreement. A credible visa liberalisation process would provide tangible evidence to ordinary citizens that the EU remains committed to a future integration perspective. It would also be a useful tool to advance the implementation of non-discrimination policies and promote further improvements in Turkey‟s human rights record, bringing down still high rates of asylum requests granted to Turkish citizens in EU member states. Such a reform process would be a win-win proposition for the EU and Turkey and a big shot in the arm for the accession process.

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AVRUPA BATAKLIĞI. (HAVYAR DİPLOMASİSİ 2. BÖLÜM) Savcılar, Yolsuzluk ve Avrupa Konseyi

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Turkish

Can basic international norms be undermined by corruption? Can international politics be fundamentally reshaped by the personal greed of politicians? These are among the most important questions in global politics today. When it comes to the Council of Europe, guardian of the European Convention of Human Rights and, since its creation in 1949, the leading intergovernmental human rights institution in the world, the answer to both questions is yes.In this follow-up to Caviar Diplomacy, we take a closer look, four years later, at the progress that has been made on miring the Council of Europe in a swamp of corruption. This time we provide the names of members of the parliamentary assembly who paid bribes – including Elkhan Suleymanov, the mastermind behind this policy in Strasbourg. We describe in detail how the corruption of MPs proceeded, from early visits with precious gifts meant to test the beneficiaries’ reactions, to long-term contracts involving huge sums of money. In the third part in this series we will offer specific recommendations for what to do next.

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BEYOND ENLARGEMENT FATIGUE? Part 1: The Dutch debate on Turkish accession

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

Since the spring of 2005, when the proposed European Constitutional Treaty was rejected in referenda in France and the Netherlands, debate on the drawbacks of enlargement has gained in intensity. Senior politicians across Europe have called for a slow-down, freeze or even a permanent halt to enlargement.3 Voices opposing enlargement regularly make headlines, creating the impression that the future of enlargement is hanging in the balance. || Was 2005 a decisive break in a half century of European Union expansion, or just one of ist periodic episodes of gloom and self-doubt? Could enlargement fatigue become a self-fulfilling prophecy, slowing down reforms and spreading instability among the candidates? || To explore these questions, ESI is carrying out a series of studies on current debates on enlargement in key EU member states, entitled Beyond Enlargement Fatigue? The series begins with one of Turkey’s traditional supporters, the Netherlands, and examines how Dutch attitudes have developed since 1999. It will continue with studies of the enlargement debates in Austria, Germany, France and other EU members.

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BIJEG IZ PRVOG KRUGA PAKLA ili tajna iza reformi u Bosni i Hercegovini

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Bosnian

One popular idea about Bosnia and Herzegovina among European observers is that Newton’s first law of motion applies to its politics: this law says that an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. For Bosnian politics, that outside force has to be the international community. One debate in EU capitals today is whether Bosnia is “ready for the next step.” Now that Bosnians have applied for accession, the EU has an obvious way to find out: to give Bosnia a questionnaire, the first step towards preparing an opinion, without delay. The conventional wisdom that Bosnians cannot coordinate when it comes to EU matters is wrong. The history of relations between Bosnia and the EU since 2000 shows that whenever Bosnian institutions were seriously challenged by the EU to co-ordinate, they were able to do so – to the surprise of their European counterparts, who sometimes acted as though Bosnia was expected to fail. This report explores this history and sets the record straight.

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CUTTING THE VISA KNOT. How Turks can travel freely to Europe

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

Visa liberalisation has been a crucial element in the EU’s relations with Romania, Serbia and Albania. Yet until recently it had not even appeared on the agenda of talks between Brussels and Ankara. Then on 21 June 2012, the Council invited the Commission to establish a dialogue with Turkey aimed at visa liberalisation. Almost a year has passed since these Council conclusions. The dialogue on visa liberalisation has yet to begin. || There has never before been an EU candidate country that had been negotiating accession for years and whose citizens were unable to travel without a visa. As Turkey and the EU move towards the fiftieth anniversary of their strategic relationship, which started with the 1963 Association Agreement, the time to overcome this particular legacy of the 1980 coup is now. It is time to cut this Gordian visa knot. || Cutting a Gordian knot: Solving an intractable problem through thinking outside the box. Based on legendary event in the ancient city of Gordiyon, 70 kilometers south-west of Ankara.

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DISGRACED. Azerbaijan and the End of Election Monitoring as we know it

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

According to the Central Election Commission of Azerbaijan, there were nearly 1,300 international observers from 50 different organisations in Azerbaijan for the October 2013 presidential elections. Forty-nine monitoring groups praised the elections as free and fair, meeting European standards. One group of international election monitors refused to go along with the praise: the election monitoring mission of ODIHR, the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. || Aliyev’s victory and its scandalous endorsement by most international monitors offer an opportunity to fix a broken system. Doing so would benefit not just Azerbaijanis, but all those who believe that democratic elections are celebrations of basic human rights, in Europe and around the world.

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EGE’DE SEYRÜSEFER. AB’nin Mülteciler ve Yunan Adaları Hakkında. Bilmesi ve Söylemesi Gerekenler. Bir Siyaset Önerisi

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Turkish

This paper has one simple purpose: it is an appeal to European institutions to improve their reporting on what is actually happening on Lesbos, Chios, and other Greek islands. The information that is needed to assess the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement is straightforward and should be presented in a weekly update. The fact that this does not exist yet is troubling. It raises the possibility that European institutions do not have this information. It also suggests that the implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement is not proceeding as foreseen, and that the EU support mission to Greece resembles a vessel sailing in the dark, without instruments, without a captain, which might hit a rock at any moment.

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EL PANTANO EUROPEO. (DIPLOMACIA DEL CAVIAR Parte 2) Fiscales, corrupción y el Consejo de Europa

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): Spanish

Can basic international norms be undermined by corruption? Can international politics be fundamentally reshaped by the personal greed of politicians? These are among the most important questions in global politics today. When it comes to the Council of Europe, guardian of the European Convention of Human Rights and, since its creation in 1949, the leading intergovernmental human rights institution in the world, the answer to both questions is yes.In this follow-up to Caviar Diplomacy, we take a closer look, four years later, at the progress that has been made on miring the Council of Europe in a swamp of corruption. This time we provide the names of members of the parliamentary assembly who paid bribes – including Elkhan Suleymanov, the mastermind behind this policy in Strasbourg. We describe in detail how the corruption of MPs proceeded, from early visits with precious gifts meant to test the beneficiaries’ reactions, to long-term contracts involving huge sums of money. In the third part in this series we will offer specific recommendations for what to do next.

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ESCAPING THE FIRST CIRCLE OF HELL or The secret behind Bosnian reforms

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

One popular idea about Bosnia and Herzegovina among European observers is that Newton’s first law of motion applies to its politics: this law says that an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force. For Bosnian politics, that outside force has to be the international community. One debate in EU capitals today is whether Bosnia is “ready for the next step.” Now that Bosnians have applied for accession, the EU has an obvious way to find out: to give Bosnia a questionnaire, the first step towards preparing an opinion, without delay. The conventional wisdom that Bosnians cannot coordinate when it comes to EU matters is wrong. The history of relations between Bosnia and the EU since 2000 shows that whenever Bosnian institutions were seriously challenged by the EU to co-ordinate, they were able to do so – to the surprise of their European counterparts, who sometimes acted as though Bosnia was expected to fail. This report explores this history and sets the record straight.

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GENERATION FACEBOOK IN BAKU. Adnan, Emin and the Future of Dissent in Azerbaijan

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

Observing the events in Egypt, Tunisia, and the Middle East as a whole suggests that the hold on power of the Azerbaijani elite might also not be as firm as they like to believe. Beneath the glossy exterior that they have created lives a generation that has learned to expect more from its leaders than handouts at the expense of rights and stability at the expense of democracy. It is a generation that has not given up on the promise of Azerbaijan turning, one day in the near future, into a genuine European democracy. In their endeavours they deserve support, particularly from organisations such as the Council of Europe, whose whole raison d'etre is to preserve democratic standards among its members. In the end it would also be in the interest of Azerbaijan's rulers to respect the rules to which they have themselves committed their country.

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HAMSTER IN THE WHEEL. Credibility and EU Balkan policy

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

Balkan enlargement was in crisis even before EU leaders failed to agree in 2019 on opening accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania. Unless there is a change in methodology and pace, no Western Balkan country is likely to be a member of the EU by 2030. || Carrying out the reforms needed to join the Single Market and to join the EU has been phenomenally beneficial for peripheral economies. Catching up is possible. North Macedonia today is at the level of development where Lithuania was in 1999. Serbia today is where Estonia was in 1999. Bosnia 2018 is the Romania of 1999. Countries can change. Enlargement policy can have a major impact. For this is must be credible, merit based and serious. It has happened before. It can happen again.

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IM EUROPÄISCHEN SUMPF. (KAVIARDIPLOMATIE II) Staatsanwälte, Korruption und der Europarat

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): German

Can basic international norms be undermined by corruption? Can international politics be fundamentally reshaped by the personal greed of politicians? These are among the most important questions in global politics today. When it comes to the Council of Europe, guardian of the European Convention of Human Rights and, since its creation in 1949, the leading intergovernmental human rights institution in the world, the answer to both questions is yes.In this follow-up to Caviar Diplomacy, we take a closer look, four years later, at the progress that has been made on miring the Council of Europe in a swamp of corruption. This time we provide the names of members of the parliamentary assembly who paid bribes – including Elkhan Suleymanov, the mastermind behind this policy in Strasbourg. We describe in detail how the corruption of MPs proceeded, from early visits with precious gifts meant to test the beneficiaries’ reactions, to long-term contracts involving huge sums of money. In the third part in this series we will offer specific recommendations for what to do next.

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ISOLATION CONFIRMED. How the EU is undermining its interests in Kosovo

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

This report highlights the discriminatory treatment of Kosovars – whether they are Kosovo Albanians, Kosovo Serbs, Kosovo Roma, Kosovo Bosniaks, or Kosovo Ashkali and Egyptians – by the European Union in the context of the EU‟s visa policy. || This paper explores what has happened in the last twelve months in detail. It argues that the EU has demanded things from Kosovo to be allowed to start a visa liberalisation process than it had not demanded from all other Western Balkan countries. Importantly, our analysis shows that in fact Kosovo has met even those additional demands. Nevertheless, it is still kept out in the cold.

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MONTENEGRO: DEUTSCHLANDS BALKANSTIPENDIEN – Asyl und der Rožaje-Exodus

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): German

In 2015, many Montenegrins went directly to the Braunschweig reception centre; when an NGO visited it in June it met hundreds of people from northern Montenegro. There, Halima and her relatives filled out a form. They provided personal data and fingerprints. They did not have to explain then why they applied for asylum (they did this in an interview a few weeks later, referring to their desperate economic situation). They spent the first three days in the reception centre, before being taken to a hostel. Two weeks later, they were assigned a house in a village near Bremen. A social worker visited them regularly to see how they were doing; there were bikes provided for them to move around. In late August, they were allocated a house with two floors in a small town closer to a kindergarten for Halima’s daughter. “It is equipped with modern household appliances and there is even a garden,” they told relatives in their village. In addition to free housing and health care, the five receive a total of € 1,290 per month. This is more than five times the monthly salary in the private sector in their municipality. It means even more for them; in their village, almost nobody has a job and many households do not get any social aid.

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MONTENEGRO: GERMANY’S BALKAN STIPENds – Asylum and the Rožaje exodus

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

In 2015, many Montenegrins went directly to the Braunschweig reception centre; when an NGO visited it in June it met hundreds of people from northern Montenegro. There, Halima and her relatives filled out a form. They provided personal data and fingerprints. They did not have to explain then why they applied for asylum (they did this in an interview a few weeks later, referring to their desperate economic situation). They spent the first three days in the reception centre, before being taken to a hostel. Two weeks later, they were assigned a house in a village near Bremen. A social worker visited them regularly to see how they were doing; there were bikes provided for them to move around. In late August, they were allocated a house with two floors in a small town closer to a kindergarten for Halima’s daughter. “It is equipped with modern household appliances and there is even a garden,” they told relatives in their village. In addition to free housing and health care, the five receive a total of € 1,290 per month. This is more than five times the monthly salary in the private sector in their municipality. It means even more for them; in their village, almost nobody has a job and many households do not get any social aid.

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MURDER IN ANATOLIA. Christian Missionaries and Turkish Ultranationalism

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

In April 2007 a gruesome triple murder took place in the Central Anatolian city of Malatya. The victims, tortured, stabbed and strangled, were two Turks and one German. All three were Protestant Christian missionaries who had recently moved to Malatya. Five young men, armed with knives and covered in blood, were found at the scene of the crime only moments after it happened. What made the Malatya killings different from an ordinary murder case was the suspicion, present from the outset, that this was not an isolated attack by a group of nationalist youngsters.

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NOAH’S DOVE RETURNS. Armenia, Turkey and the Debate on Genocide

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): English

No single topic poisons relations between Turks and Armenians more than the 1915 destruction of the Armenian communities of Anatolia, and the question of whether it constituted genocide. For Turkey, the fight against genocide recognition on the international stage has been a central goal of foreign policy. For Armenians, the genocide and the resulting loss of a traditional homeland is a defining element of their national identity. At present, the two countries have no diplomatic relations. The border between them remains closed. In recent times the first signs of a rapprochement have appeared, with the political leadership on both sides making conciliatory gestures. For a normalisation of relations to take place, however, both sides will have to overcome some deeply entrenched prejudices. || Today is a critical period for both countries. Restoring diplomatic relations and opening the border, though only first steps towards reconciliation, would marginalise extremist voices on both sides, enabling a more reasonable and measured debate to go forward. Turkey should stop trying to stifle discussion of the Armenian genocide both at home and abroad – and avoid over-reacting if, as might well happen, any more of its allies recognise the events of 1915 as genocide. For their part, Armenians must accept that recognition of the genocide will never pave the way for challenging a territorial settlement that has stood for nearly a century.

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