Sorry, Not Interested (in joining the EU)

Serbia refuses to give up Kosovo—even if it means giving up its shot at entering the European Union.

There's a dark joke going around Serbia these days: "Russia finished the cold war with America—so Serbia is carrying on with it." Given the hostile stance of the two former superpowers over Kosovo, the assessment may be close to the mark. This week Washington heads to the United Nations Security Council's debate on Kosovo, with most of Europe alongside it, pressing for independence. But Serbia's Parliament has overwhelmingly rejected any future EU-imposed mission in Kosovo, and stands with the support of Russia and a growing list of countries including China, Indonesia and South Africa in its refusal to part with the region—even, according to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, if it means shelving EU membership talks.

Serbia, it seems, has flipped the tables on the EU. For the first time, a European country outside the EU is not clamoring to be let in, but, on the contrary, making demands of its own, insisting Europe continue negotiations over Kosovo until an agreeable solution to all parties is met.....

I did check the CIA Fact Book and I have no idea where you got that data from. You talk about Serbia as though it some “Third-World African country”, which it is not.

It is. I have been there. The data I refer to:

Serbia:

GDP - per capita (PPP): $4,400 for Serbia (including Kosovo) (2005 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rb.html#Econ

Bulgaria:

GDP - per capita (PPP): $10,700 (2006 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bu.html#Econ

Romania:

GDP - per capita (PPP): $9,100 (2006 est.)

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ro.html#Econ

On the rank order of the GDP per capita Serbia is located on place 143 between Ecuador and Egypt and therefore clearly a 3rd world country if we compare on a economic base. Romania is on rank 94 (between Turkey and Tunisia) and Bulgaria is on rank 87 between Uruguay and Mexico.

Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html

Serbia and its stand in Europe is a tragedy. To me this county indeed has potential, but it will unable to push through if it is continuing to work against its neighbors and the EU. Things for Serbia are quite simple. They are completely dependent on the economic strings to their neighbors. Especially to Italy, Austria and Germany. Therefore they have to play by the rules that those leading nations in the EU require for trade and partnership. If they do not they will remain the poor house of Europe. BTW - The people in Montenegro already understood.

According to the IMF, Serbia ranks at #72 on a list of 179 countries in terms of per capita income. (The US ranks at #9) And Bulgaria is at #74. Considering that Serbia includes Kosovo with over 50 % unemployment there, we bombed the crap out of their infrastructure in 1999 after years of sanctions, and Serbia has more refugees than any other country in Europe, they are not doing too bad at all!

I have checked out your list. The data of the IMF is indeed differing to the data of the CIA. BTW - I never said that the Serbs are doing bad under the current circumstances. The thing is that (as I said) they will be unable to develop into a normal standard again if they do it against their neighbours. Serbia (Yugoslavia) was probably the richest country in the former east bloc. Nevertheless those times are over since a long time. The Serbs are paying a horrendous price for their flatulent nationalism. The rest of Europe can do perfectly without the Serbs while the Serbs can not do anything without the rest of Europe.

Their claims to Kosovo are as legitimate as the Mexican illegal immigrant claims to Aztlan.

This might be. Who cares? The fact is that the vast majority of residents in Kosovo or Kosova (whatever you like) are Albanians. We Europeans want silence and peace there. Everything else is not relevant to us. Nobody has interest to mix up in boring affairs on the Balkan. We do not care if Albanians or Serbians win since our level of sympathy is everywhere quite the same: Practically not existing.

Things might change if those both nations would do anything to be likeable (i.e. building nice cars, open their countries to tourism, selling good alcohol or whatever). You can believe me that we would do anything to help them (through a "Marshall-plan" or whatever). Regrettably this is not the case so far. Everything Albanians or Serbians care about is obviously the extermination or expulsion of their neighbours.

The real reason to intervene for Germany (who has been the trigger-nation) and the NATO was the flood of Albanian refugees that gushed into western Europe after the Serbian intervention in Kosovo. If Milosevic and the Serbs would have solved their ethnic problem without this level of violence nothing would have ever happened. We simply could not tolerate a massacre in our backyard. Espechially not if it is Germany and France that have to pay for the outcome (through thousands of Albanian refugees).

Western Europe simply made Serbia pay the biggest part of the bill since we gave the Albanians the possibility to stay in their homes.

In Germany we say that those who are ordering a beer have to pay for it.

What makes me angry is that unregarded of the above we Germans still have to secure and pay for a piece of godforsaken land we are not interested in. Our soldiers are forced to waste time and money in Kosovo.

German troops in Kosovo

This is something that has to be ended soon. I do not care if Kosovo is written Kosova or Kosovo. I do not care if it is Albania or Serbia. I simply want that the inhabitants of Kosovo stay the same and that they and the surrounding nations arrange themselves. That is all.

Germany played a major part in the destruction of Yugoslavia from the start. It's no coincidence that Yugoslavia started unraveling with the reunification of Germany. Germany was sending East German weapons to the non-Serb separatists before the war official started and continued doing this during the war. Germany also had many neo-Nazis (witnessed by UN personnel of various nations) who were fighting with the Croats and Muslims - same as WWII.

And yes the EU is paranoid about Serbia liking it - for why else to they push the pro-EU projects to the hilt in Serbia and start chewing their nails when the Serb support for joining the EU flags? In addition they are constantly lecturing and talking about even the nitty gritty decisions going on in Serbia and want insight and meddling into all legislation and politics it seems.

As for the Albanians flooding Germany - that was already starting a few years before the war. Germany had training bases on its territory for UCK (which is the German acronym for the KLA). They hosted websites and, along with other European countries, served as a base for Albanians raising money for weapons and war.

There was also the Albanian pyramid scheme collapse in early 1997, which was 2 years before the NATO bombing, and which caused Albanian refugees to flee to European countries.

The same peoples Germany support in WWI and WWII in the Balkans were supported this last go 'round. And the same peoples Germans bombed and worked against - the Serbs - were hit again.

It's funny that you, as a German, trust data from the "CIA Fact Book" far more than I do as an American. US Intelligence services and US Department of State are far too much in bed with one another, politically, to be trusted for that kind of information. Even the article's author quoted data that was based on what I used rather than on the numbers you quoted.

Nothing personal, AB, but Serbia is not "part of Germany" -- no matter how many attempts Germany makes at Drang nach Osten. In short, Serbia really isn't (and never should have been) Germany's "problem to solve" -- and more people died in the Balkans because Germany stuck her nose where it didn't belong than would have otherwise.

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