15:23, 24 December 2009
From December 19, after almost two decades, the citizens of Macedonia, Serbia, and Montenegro will be able to travel to the EU Schengen zone. The rest of the West Balkans is still on the waiting list, pending EU Commission approval once they have fulfilled obligations. Since visa liberalization for the former Yugoslav successor states requires not only their cooperation with the EU but with each other as well, the notion of Yugosphere, a term coined by senior Balkan correspondent Tim Judah is worth recalling.
Judah’s recent lecture at the London School of Economics about the Yugosphere-phenomenon – stronger cooperation among the former Yugoslav countries politically, economically, militarily and otherwise – was a presentation of his pamphlet titled “Yugoslavia is Dead – Long Live the Yugosphere”. His idea of a Yugosphere is apparently based on notions such as Anglosphere or Francosphere, where established nation states with strong historic/cultural ties are doing actual or assumed business together. Yet he stresses that while the cooperation of the above-mentioned is a done deal, Yugosphere serves more of an umbrella that is yet to be consolidated.
He argues that what makes the re-emergence of Yugosphere so profound is the scale of cooperation economically, culturally, militarily or otherwise.
Judah referred to Serbian President Boris Tadić’s recent address before the United Nations General Assembly, where the Serbian President suggested that in order to be able to compete on the world market, former Yugoslav companies should join forces to bid on construction projects or specialised military-equipment contracts – a proposal that was welcomed by Croatian President Stipe Mesić as well.
“Long live the Yugosphere” includes a wealth of information to support the claim that economic cooperation among the former Yugoslav republics has been well underway in the past years: Bosnia’s first and second export markets are Croatia (17.2 %) and Serbia (14%), respectively, Kosovo’s trade is largely done with Macedonia or Serbia, and the small Slovenia was the sixth largest investor in Serbia between 2000 and 2007. Croatian, Serbian and Slovenian supermarket chains, such as Konzum or Mercator, are opening across the region, and the successor states are hiring workforce from each other’s neighbors.
It can also be added that in the „old” Yugoslavia for example many of Slovenia’s products were the symbols of high quality (furniture, printing, textile, shoe industry, electronics). Following the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Slovenia, whose production and tourism industry was designed to serve 22 million people lost its market in the neighboring republics and had to compete with even better products in the West.
Against this background it comes as no surprise that former Yugoslav partners are trying to re-establish their relationships and revive trade with each other. Enmities notwithstanding, pragmatic thinking is emerging in the region.
Judah streed that while Brussels has been pushing the West Balkan’s EU integration, it also encourages a sort of sub-sphere of regional cooperation of the ex-Yugoslavia, as a platform for strengthening ties. This happened in a similar fashion with the Benelux countries or the Nordic Council, whose members joined the European Community largely after they had consolidated their economic relationships.
The term Yugosphere may sound non-PC or discomforting to those whose beliefs were shaped by the 1990s’ nationalistic wars. Yet despite the still unresolved status of Kosovo or the strained relations between Slovenia and Croatia, Judah says that common history, language and culture bind these countries more than nationalist ideologues would like to believe.
This shows on the cultural front as well, where “turbofolk” singers and post-war musicians sell records and rock sold-out venues from Skopje to Ljubljana, and the Exit music festival draws an audience to Novi Sad from all over the region.
Considering that areas of external relations, border control, passport security and the fight against organised crime, corruption and illegal migration were among the conditions of granting visa-free travel to these countries, the emergence of a Yugosphere seems not only beneficial to citizens in the region of the former Yugoslavia, but for the sake of its own safety, to the European Union as a whole, too.
