The Albanian National Project Between Ethno-Politics and Europeanisation

Fatić, Aleksandar and Korać, Srđan (2012) The Albanian National Project Between Ethno-Politics and Europeanisation. The Review of International Affairs, LXIII (1148). pp. 5-24. ISSN 0486-6096

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Abstract

The article discusses the re-emergence of ethno-politics as the determining factor for regional strategy in the Balkans, after the wars of disintegration of the former Yugoslavia 1991–1995, the subsequent NATO intervention over Kosovo in 1999, and the resulting declaration of independence of Kosovo and its gradual international consolidation. This has important strategic consequences for NATO and the EU in the region. While all Balkan countries have a future EU membership as their “number one” foreign policy priority, and all apart from Serbia have either joined, or are in the process of joining NATO, Kosovo’s independence and the related upsurge of ethnic unrest in Macedonia suggest that the very South-East of the region is drawn once again into an essentially ethnonationalist strategy, which NATO and the EU will have little manoeuvring room to counter. The authors suggest that the way forward is to bravely meet Albanian ethnic demands half-way through territorial settlements by way of a new series of diplomatic conferences on the Balkans.

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