CIAO DATE: 05/2008
January 2004
Austrian National Defence Academy
At a moment when the international community is dealing – struggling, actually – with new security challenges, some of which are internal disputes between members of two of the most powerful (and successful) military and economic organisations in history, NATO and the EU, it is worth remembering that some things do evolve in a positive direction.
The Dubrovnik workshop on the issue of economic security in South East Europe provides testimony that persistent engagement is paying off. Croatia, especially, is on its way to being welcomed in the European Union. Certainly, many analysts in the workshop reflected wistfully on comparisons of economic performance from pre-war levels. Such an analysis is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it shows in an objective manner that there is far more public good reaped from integrative policies which foster and multiply trade opportunities. Indeed, the comparison with pre-war levels offers the chance to calculate just where Croatia might be had there been no war.
At least some of the elite of Croatian society are realising that it is far better for everyone to have disagreements and trade than to sabotage decades of good commercial relations for the sake of ethnic purity. As many are now discovering, the drive towards ethnic purity is usually riddled with craters and shell holes, some of which inflicted by the armed forces of concerned members of the international community. Most of all, there is the looming understanding that the isolation brought by ethnic purity, if one is consistent with such policies, will not put bread and butter on the table. To some, it might look like an appealing discourse, but exclusion of the different element of one’s society can only bring condemnation from without, and one of the most useful tools of the international community remain trade sanctions.
Resource link: Through Economy to Democracy and Security? An Integrated Approach to Stability in South East Europe - 7th Workshop of the Study Group "Regional Stability in South East Europe" [PDF] - 1.1M