More on EU Foreign Policy.

What is a ‘foreign policy’? Let’s assume that, crudely speaking, it is something like this:

What Country A (maybe in partnership with countries B, C etc) does to get another country to do things it otherwise might not do on its own, either because that outcome is in Country A’s interests or for some wider interest.

Suppose Country A wants Country B to do x. How to set about it?

The main option is simple persuasion, A talking to B as a sort of equal partner to bring B round to A’s point of view.

Since usually no country likes to be seen to be ‘persuaded’ (as it implies that it was too dopey to think of doing x without outside intervention), such discussions are best pursued discreetly. The more so if A is much bigger than B – B’s leaders will be sensitive to domestic accusations that they have been patronised or even rolled over and bullied.

If persuasion gets nowhere, A is back to that old diplomatic favourite "carrots and sticks" (or, as the Russians endearingly say, "biscuit and whip").

Using this approach A openly uses positive (Bribes) and negative Pain/Cost inducements to change B’s perception of the balance of B’s self-interest.

This is psychologically a totally different situation.

NB just how different:

  • Here A has given up pretending to be B’s equal partner.
  • B knows that A is pushing B explicitly towards a certain outcome.
  • Even if B thinks that outcome is maybe OK, B now has an incentive to inflict Pain/Cost on A or just be awkward, to raise the price A pays for getting B to move.

Plus:

  • Central to how this works out in practice are the underlying (and often unanalysed) assumptions each side has about the other’s state of mind and capacity to move, the credibility of the carrots/sticks proffered, and each side’s sheer determination/stubbornness.
  • Bluff and double-bluff come full into play.

The typical ‘carrot and stick’ situation is the donkey which won’t move. Offer it a bribe to move in the direction you want? Or whup its butt?

What if your carrot is too measly, or your stick too flimsy to hurt? What if unbeknown to you the donkey is too sick/tired to move?

Your tactics appear logical in themselves, but your tools are ineffective and/or being applied to a creature unable to respond to them.

But in this scenario one thing looks clear. If the donkey starts to move in the wrong direction, no carrot should be offered to try to get him back on track. This incentivises the donkey always to move in the wrong direction, not the right one.

All of which brings us to EU policy in the Balkans.

Yesterday the EU and Serbia signed a Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) with Serbia, a significant institutional step towards Serbia’s eventual full EU membership. This move has been made to boost the chances of the ‘pro-European’ tendency in Serbia’s forthcoming elections.

But there is some small print. The SAA will not be ratified or Serbia given advantages under it until Belgrade is deemed to be fully cooperating with the Hague Tribunal (ICTY) to help bring key war crimes suspects (viz Karadzic and Mladic) to justice.

The EU has had years to make this move since Milosevic fell. The best time to do it would have been in 2001 immediately after Milosevic was transferred to the Hague to international acclaim.

Making the EU play then would have helped generate a sense of Serbia’s irrestible momentum towards Western standards, enabling the Mladic and Karadzic problem to be managed in the context of shared growing success, rather than in what we see years later, namely unending ‘pressure’ and bad temper.

But the EU held back, hoping in effect that the mere prospect of Serbia joining the verdant European uplands would suffice to induce full ICTY cooperation.

Some EU governments including HMG took the hawkish view that having handed over Milosevic, Serbia should and could promptly finish the job and hand over Messrs K and M. If not, let the Serbs decay until they themselves grasped the need to ‘grow up’. (Note: some Serb ultra-democrats themselves take this view, insisting that only a crash into a hard wall of reality will bring the Serbian people finally to their senses about their true role in the great scheme of things).

That approach had the virue of being Tough and Clear. But was it Wise? After all these years are the Bosnia/Kosovo/Serbia problems (and all the EU funds poured into the area) really being handled as deftly and creatively as they might be?

Not clear, putting it politely. Oh, and K and M are still not arrested.

For now, will the EU’s SAA carrot succeed in getting Serbia to move purposefully in the direction the EU wants?

Serbia’s acting Prime Minister Kostunica is sneering at this latest development, saying that Serbia is not going to be bribed to hand over Kosovo for this. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov has said (not unreasonably) that a lot of issues in the region would have been easier had the EU move been made much earlier.

Better late than never?

Or has the EU given Serbia’s moderates a sizeable but in fact fairly hollow and patronising carrot?

Has this gesture been made not because Serbia is nervous – but because the EU is?

As (I think) Chris Patten used to say about this part of the world, "the worst outcome is that they pretend to move towards EU integration, and we pretend to believe them…"