Why Did Europe Confront America in the Balkans?

The European Union is creating unnecessary conflicts with U.S. foreign policy in the Balkans. Last month, for the first time, Europe and the United States failed to agree on the next international envoy to Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This comes on the heels of the Trump administration signaling last year that it was ready to end 30 years of heavy-handed international intervention and transfer sovereign authority to the country’s elected leaders. Europe pushed back.

Max Primorac from the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at the Heritage Foundation inquired into the nature of this sudden standoff. His article appeared in The National Interest journal.

As the author writes, when it came time to vote for the new envoy, European diplomats rejected the Italian candidate backed by the United States in favor of a French official who prefers the status quo. It was a clear snub to Washington.

Disagreement over Bosnia’s future has also spilled over into EU efforts to undo a major U.S. gas pipeline project in the country. It is intended to displace regional dependence on Russian gas, which is itself an EU strategic imperative. No matter, the EU ambassador to Sarajevo warned Bosnia’s leaders that the project jeopardized its prospect for EU membership and EUR 1 billion in aid.

EU efforts to scuttle U.S. Bosnia policy, while self-defeating, can be considered fair game. But targeting investment projects close to an incumbent U.S. president is reckless.

In Serbia Jared Kushner, U.S. Special Envoy and President Trump’s son-in-law, planned to build a high-end hotel in Belgrade on the site of the ruined Yugoslav General Staff building bombed by NATO back in 1999. The project would help Serbs look beyond their war losses and focus on economic renewal. Normally, Europe is quick to support reconciliation initiatives among former warring peoples. Not this time.

Instead, European institutions coordinated to kill the project, forcing Kushner to withdraw. Brussels’ gang-up had begun earlier, when the European Parliament issued a resolution expressing ‘grave concern’ over the Serbian government’s removal of the building’s protected status as a cultural monument.

Then, Brussels-based Europa Nostra NGO, primarily funded by the EU, issued its ‘firm opposition’ to ‘paving the way for the construction of… the Trump Tower Belgrade.’ A month later, the EU-funded Serbian Public Prosecutor’s Office sought jail time for the minister of culture for ‘abuse of office’ by supporting the project.

A similar playbook is underway in Albania, where Kushner leads another luxury real estate project, this one on an uninhabited island that hosts a communist-era military base. Again, EU-funded NGO-led protests are labeling the project ‘incompatible with EU membership’.

The EU announced its ‘concerns to the minister of environment about the potential shortcomings of this project’. On cue, Albania’s special anti-corruption prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into the project.

For European officials to target US investors contradicts Europe’s harping on its ‘values’ for political reasons. Such lawfare sends a chill through international investors, who must now consider the political risks of investing in Europe.

All this puts the question squarely: who is the enemy of today’s Europe? Is it only Russia – or has Trump also been listed among its main enemies?

It is quite evident that continued sabotage of U.S. engagement in the Balkans, for no other reason than dislike of President Trump, will only further strain the alliance, perhaps to its breaking point. Or is it what Europe is suicidally after?

Original publication: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/how-the-us-europe-rift-got-balkanized