Wading into the politics of the Balkans is perhaps unwise and I freely admit my all but total ignorance of the subject, but I will risk it.
Milanovic sounds like a great politician. If he has picked up populist themes, that is well and good. He is reaching out to people on the other side of politics. That is pragmatic and reasonable. …
Wading into the politics of the Balkans is perhaps unwise and I freely admit my all but total ignorance of the subject, but I will risk it.
Milanovic sounds like a great politician. If he has picked up populist themes, that is well and good. He is reaching out to people on the other side of politics. That is pragmatic and reasonable. Furthermore, in the long run Croatia will benefit by repairing relationships with Serbia. Sooner or later a rapprochement has to happen.
Foreign policy (or the national interest) cannot be defined solely by the past or by tribal memories. At the moment the wider region is at risk of being dragged into a bloodbath. The Western ambassadors in Belgrade apparently just delivered an ultimatum to Serbia demanding that they recognise the independence of Kossovo and Metohija. This is both a calculated affront to Russia (because it contrasts with NATO's position on Donetsk, Lugansk and the Crimea) and an attempt to open up a new conflict, perhaps to misdirect attention from the imminent collapse of Ukraine or to complicate things for Moscow.
Finally, Milanovic may well be coordinating his approach with Hungary or at least responding to Orban's example. Historic ties between the two countries run deep and Croatia, Hungary and Serbia have a common interest in maintaining their independence...and the great threat to that comes from Brussels and TurboAmerica, not Moscow. Even if you disagree with him, Milanovic speaks for many (I hope). The wider region needs alternatives to the stooges of empire (whichever empire it is).
I must read more about the Western ambassadors in Belgrade. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, that's pretty much unforgiveable while tensions run this high.
It strips away all pretence of Putin as sole aggressor- or would, if Westerners ever found out, or cared.
> The session was scheduled after Vucic on January 20 met representatives of the EU and US who, he claims, told him that if Serbia does not accept the proposal, its European Union integration process will be halted and investments blocked.
The EU’s special representative for Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, told media in Belgrade after the meeting that he and his EU and US colleagues felt “encouraged” by the meeting.
The enduring hatred is ridiculous, you're right. A person from Zagreb has more in common with a person in Belgrade than with many other Croats. There are areas in which they speak 'Croatian' in such a way that you can't understand them at all if you're not from the same area. Anyway, I doubt there will be any rapprochement between our two nations, unless we are united by a common external threats. Climate migrants, or maybe aliens. There's too much people stuck living in the past, teaching their children the same. All that could move on, do move on, but to the west.
I could be wrong, and Niccolo may need to correct me. but my understanding of the dual monarchy/empire of Austro-Hungary after 1847 and the Kossuth matter, was that Hungary de facto was 'in charge' of what we now call Slovenia and Croatia, maybe Bosnia, northern Serbia (Vojvodina, remember Monica Seles, incidentally stabbed by a German!), and appointed The Ban of Croatia?.
Slovenia (except for a tiny corner in the northeast) was always under the Austrians. Northern Croatia was under the Hungarians. Dalmatia and Istria were also under the Austrians.
Wading into the politics of the Balkans is perhaps unwise and I freely admit my all but total ignorance of the subject, but I will risk it.
Milanovic sounds like a great politician. If he has picked up populist themes, that is well and good. He is reaching out to people on the other side of politics. That is pragmatic and reasonable. Furthermore, in the long run Croatia will benefit by repairing relationships with Serbia. Sooner or later a rapprochement has to happen.
Foreign policy (or the national interest) cannot be defined solely by the past or by tribal memories. At the moment the wider region is at risk of being dragged into a bloodbath. The Western ambassadors in Belgrade apparently just delivered an ultimatum to Serbia demanding that they recognise the independence of Kossovo and Metohija. This is both a calculated affront to Russia (because it contrasts with NATO's position on Donetsk, Lugansk and the Crimea) and an attempt to open up a new conflict, perhaps to misdirect attention from the imminent collapse of Ukraine or to complicate things for Moscow.
Finally, Milanovic may well be coordinating his approach with Hungary or at least responding to Orban's example. Historic ties between the two countries run deep and Croatia, Hungary and Serbia have a common interest in maintaining their independence...and the great threat to that comes from Brussels and TurboAmerica, not Moscow. Even if you disagree with him, Milanovic speaks for many (I hope). The wider region needs alternatives to the stooges of empire (whichever empire it is).
I must read more about the Western ambassadors in Belgrade. At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, that's pretty much unforgiveable while tensions run this high.
It strips away all pretence of Putin as sole aggressor- or would, if Westerners ever found out, or cared.
I think this is it
https://balkaninsight.com/2023/02/02/serbian-parliamentarians-clash-in-tense-debate-on-kosovo/
> The session was scheduled after Vucic on January 20 met representatives of the EU and US who, he claims, told him that if Serbia does not accept the proposal, its European Union integration process will be halted and investments blocked.
The EU’s special representative for Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, told media in Belgrade after the meeting that he and his EU and US colleagues felt “encouraged” by the meeting.
Thanks
I found out about it in the article below, 6 paras down.
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/01/28/going-for-the-kill-in-kosovo/
Rather less measured than the other article from Balkan Insight.
I don't know much about Balkan politics but I recognise absolute scenes
The enduring hatred is ridiculous, you're right. A person from Zagreb has more in common with a person in Belgrade than with many other Croats. There are areas in which they speak 'Croatian' in such a way that you can't understand them at all if you're not from the same area. Anyway, I doubt there will be any rapprochement between our two nations, unless we are united by a common external threats. Climate migrants, or maybe aliens. There's too much people stuck living in the past, teaching their children the same. All that could move on, do move on, but to the west.
I could be wrong, and Niccolo may need to correct me. but my understanding of the dual monarchy/empire of Austro-Hungary after 1847 and the Kossuth matter, was that Hungary de facto was 'in charge' of what we now call Slovenia and Croatia, maybe Bosnia, northern Serbia (Vojvodina, remember Monica Seles, incidentally stabbed by a German!), and appointed The Ban of Croatia?.
Slovenia (except for a tiny corner in the northeast) was always under the Austrians. Northern Croatia was under the Hungarians. Dalmatia and Istria were also under the Austrians.