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Is a military alliance being formed in the Balkans?

Politiko 2025-03-20 13:57:45

Kosovo and two Western Balkan countries that are members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Albania and Croatia, signed a declaration this week to deepen cooperation in the field of defense and security.

Without giving specific details, the defense ministers of the three countries said they would increase the interoperability of their armies through education, training and joint exercises, as well as engage in combating hybrid threats, but also coordinate policies for Euro-Atlantic integration.

Serbia saw this as a step that “undermines regional stability” and as a threat to its “territorial integrity,” while Kosovo said the initiative should not be seen as a threat to anyone, but should also be accepted as a message that the three countries will be united in the face of any challenge or threat.

Security experts in Pristina and Belgrade do not see the declaration as a step towards the formation of a formal defense alliance, such as NATO.

For Ramadan Ilazi, head of research at the Kosovo Center for Security Studies (KCSS), the importance of the statement lies in the fact that it came at a time when the unpredictability of existing security alliances in the world has increased.

He sees the initiative as a step towards strengthening alternatives or strategic alliances, so that Kosovo can advance in terms of defense, as it still does not have a clear path to NATO membership.

“I am not optimistic that this alliance marks the beginning of the creation of a formal defense bloc, but more of a new group of states in Europe, which share the same concern or the same reading of the security situation in Southeast Europe,” Ilazi told Radio Free Europe.

Ilazi believes that NATO’s peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR, and the alliance itself, will be the umbrella for these cooperations, as he does not think that Albania and Croatia would act contrary to NATO’s interests in the region.

A NATO official told Radio Free Europe that Albania and Croatia are long-standing contributors to regional stability, including through the KFOR framework. Asked about the new initiative, the official said the alliance “is aware,” but that it is up to the signatories of the declaration to say more.

Despite not having the form of an international agreement, the initiative, with the political will of the parties, could lead to “soft political action,” according to Vuk Vuksanovic, a security expert at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy.

He told Radio Free Europe that the Balkan cooperation has been spurred in part by warnings of a possible reduction in “the United States’ commitment to NATO, if Europeans do not invest more in their defense.”

According to Vuksanovic, in an environment where NATO is not leaving, but “where it is weakening, it could happen that certain countries form informal groupings to cooperate.”

Kosovo, Albania and Croatia have warned that the initiative could be expanded to include new members, although they have not mentioned any names. However, Serbia has hinted that one of these countries could be Bulgaria. The Bulgarian government did not respond to RFE/RL’s request for comment.

Even if other countries are added, Ilazi does not think this group is moving towards creating a military alliance that embodies NATO principles, such as collective defense.

Belgrade demanded an explanation from Tirana and Zagreb regarding the goals of the initiative, saying that it “will not allow unilateral actions that could jeopardize our territorial integrity, the security of citizens and peace in the region”.

Kosovo’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Diaspora responded, saying that such behavior by Serbia represents a new violation of the Brussels Agreement, “which clearly stipulates that Serbia will not hinder Kosovo’s international relations”.

Meanwhile, Croatia said that the time has passed when Zagreb asked Belgrade for permission on how to act and with whom to cooperate.

For Vuksanović, Serbia most likely sees this initiative as “a political provocation on the part of Zagreb”.

According to him, the authorities in Belgrade could use this development to shift attention from the political situation in Serbia and the protests that have been taking place there for several months now.

Ilazi also thinks that Serbia's harsh reaction is simply due to the involvement of Croatia, which in the 1990s waged a war for independence from the former Yugoslavia.

However, he considers that the trilateral cooperation is driven by the same view that Russia exerts a malign influence in the region, and that autocratic regimes in the region pose a threat to the stability of the Balkans – accusations that have also been repeatedly made by the Kosovo authorities.

While he believes that Kosovo would benefit greatly from the experiences of the two NATO states, but also from various trainings, Ilazi expresses skepticism about the implementation of the initiative, recalling the low level of implementation of previous agreements between Pristina and Tirana./ REL