Dear representatives of the European Union,
The citizens of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia were recently presented with the EU Strategy for the so-called Western Balkans. In the words of the drafters this presents “a historic window of opportunity to firmly and unequivocally bind their future to the European Union”. While we welcome engagement that would help us to restore democracies in our countries and provide real influence and power to the citizens of this region, we wish to express our concerns with the Strategy itself as it offers nothing but a favourable climate for private businesses, securitization and militarization of our borders and countries, and a cheap sellout of our natural resources.
Much like the unfortunate direction most of the countries in the region took in the 90-ies (conflicts war and destruction), this development is neither inevitable or natural – it is an ideologically driven process of economic, political, and social transformation of our societies, and we have a generational responsibility not to be silent about it.
We understand that for the long period now you have been dealing and negotiating with our political elites – the so-called elected representatives of the citizens and peoples in the region. In your dealing with them you have been led to believe that the vision in the Strategy is indeed a commonly shared vision among the citizens of the region. However, these “representatives” (the tycoons and oligarchs, the construction mafia, the warprofiteers, and war-mongers) have long ago lost their touch with the constituencies and have never had anything but their personal, short-term profit as a guiding star. The political, economic and social well-being of this region and people who live in it has never been on their agenda. Despite the tangible proof of that, visible for decades, the European Union has continuously and unequivocally chosen to work with them as long as the economic interests of the EU were not put at risk.
Our countries indeed find themselves in a situation referred to by the Strategy as “a generational choice”, but we believe that the generational choice we stand in front is not simply about joining the European Union or not. It is a choice whether this region will entirely succumb to the neoliberal ideology that has been destroying our region for almost three decades now. The Strategy itself understands the progress of this region entirely through a false dichotomy between functional and healthy economy and social and economic rights of the people. What the Strategy tells us is that economic progress can only happen if the markets are deregulated and liberated from state-imposed restrictions, such as taxes, that ultimately fund whatever little of social rights are left in our countries. A Strategy that blindly looks at the deregulation of the market, privatization and privileging of foreign investments over socioeconomic development, justice and equality – all the things we consider to be decisive for the well-being of our societies – is not a Strategy we consider “a historic window of opportunity”!
Considering that bigger part of the region has gone through violent conflicts, resulting in destruction of not only the infrastructure but the societal fabric as well, addressing the consequences of those conflicts should be a top priority to the European Union. And indeed, the Strategy identifies Reconciliation, good neighbourly relations and regional cooperation as one of its flagship initiatives but fails to demonstrate that the EU understands reconciliation as an aim in itself. Instead, the Strategy subjugates it to the creation of “economic opportunities”. In other words, “reconciliation” is for the Strategy a means to an end – a market economy that is not burdened by the past but liberated by the profit. For us on the other hand, reconciliation is not a matter of “achievement” but rather a result of cumulative efforts to address social, political, and economic consequences of the war. In those efforts, economic and social justice, reinforced by comprehensive and gender sensitive reparations program for the harms suffered, as part of the overall economic recovery of our countries, take a central space. Right to quality and affordable healthcare, decent employment, social assistance, housing, education, clean water, and so forth, are all preconditions for just and equal societies and must therefore be a major preoccupation in the countries of the region. By privileging profit-making over right to economic and social justice the Strategy contributes to destabilization of this region and undermines any ongoing processes of peace.
The current state of our countries indeed demands structural reforms: political, economic and social. We believe there is a broad societal consensus on that. At the same time, contrary to what the political elites are telling you, there is no consensus on how those changes are to be delivered. This is no different than the lack of consensus on the direction and future of the EU, as seen in the ongoing debates within the EU and its member states. The reforms that are so happily and unquestionably proposed and enforced in our countries, are in fact the very reforms that are being questioned within the EU countries themselves. As it stands now, the impoverished, disenfranchised and disempowered citizens of our countries, many of whom are still dealing with the consequences of the war, are faced with irreversible, neoliberal postconflict restructuring to detriment of their human rights, in particular social and economic rights. Rather than reducing the fundamental parts of the public sector it would be more equitable to conduct budget trade-offs through comparing the impact of reducing budget deficits with the impact of strengthening investments in human capacities and societal needs on economic growth, poverty reduction and gender equality.
Contrary to the Strategy’s underlining that the membership in the EU is “a choice” – the fact is that it has been a long time since this region has had a real choice and long time ago since the citizens (and not the political elites) have had a voice to express that choice!
So, we would like to take this opportunity to present to you OUR choices:
• Instead of judging the health of our economies and societies through market competitiveness our choice is to judge it through its successes or failures to provide adequate, decent and sustainable livelihoods for its citizens.
• Instead of putting blind trust into small and mid-sized enterprises as a solution to growing unemployment and deterioration of our economic and social rights our choice are unionized decent jobs with decent pay, fair and equal treatment at work and access to social protection.
• Instead of focusing on vocational trainings which insists on training people to remain in low-paid positions, and doubling the money for Erasmus+ that will only lead to more of our brightest students leaving the region and never looking back, our choice is a quality education, equally accessible and affordable to all. Instead of being forced to continuously crowd-fund for the sick who cannot afford the adequate health care within the country, our choice is a quality health system, equally accessible and affordable to all. This requires increased investments in the public sector and more money put into the educational and health infrastructure so that our youth have an impetus to stay.
• Instead of building freeways that will be of greater use to corporations and free market economy than to the ordinary citizens who, while paying off the debts for the freeways’ construction, will not be able to afford to use them, our choice is construction of a quality infrastructure and roads inside the countries that will enable everyone to access and enjoy their socio-economic rights (e.g. functional roads and transportation for people who live in remote areas to enable them to reach the medical facilities, educational and other institutions). Our choice is tax politics that will lay the ground for redistribution of wealth inside the countries and pull our societies out of the debt bondage we rapidly are falling into.
• A region that has suffered immensely during the 90-ies, and continues to suffer from the consequences of those wars, should not be forced into forgetting our own experiences of forced displacement and seeking refuge through securitization of our immigration policies, militarization of our borders and an increase in numbers of restrictive measure, all to come to the defense of the fortress-Europe. Our choice are societies built on solidarity, within and across the borders!
• Instead of purely focusing on energy gains from tapping into the Balkan natural resources and irrevocably destroying the most important hotspot for European biodiversity, as well as depleting our vital resources such as water, our choice is to build societies that are ecologically and environmentally sustainable, and whose natural resources and treasures are used as a potential for a sustainable socio-economic development that will be available to our future generations.
These are our choices. This is how we see our societies thrive. We do not relinquish our responsibility to work for such a future. If, however, the European Union keeps using the accession process to make our countries serve the economic and geopolitical interests of the EU core, we shall hold the European Union as responsible for the destruction of our societies as the national corrupt political elites with whom EU officials shake hands. European Union that advances economic interests of only the elite of the core of Europe, at the detriment of EU nationals and others, has little to offer to both those already inside and those still outside.
February 2018
Complete letter with signatories: Open-Letter-EU