Begegnungen28_Fleischer
Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 28:137–152.
TAMÁS FLEISCHER
The Trans-European Corridors
Piecemeal Extension of the Existing ones, or the Development of a Pan-European Network?
In the series of conferences entitled “Lectures on the Balkans” a very similar idea cropped up in several topics, though it was not particularly emphasized anywhere. Apparently our climatic and military, as well as social and territorial political situation is equally characterised by the desire of having an image of Hungary that would increasingly approximate countries located further north and west of us, while we could see that we are increasingly sliding towards the south and east on the basis of the trends outlined (or at least we are being classified as belonging there on the Pan-European map). Such a classification may have factual basis, but the attitude that the earlier maps of Western Europe have not been replaced in Brussels may also contribute to it, and the newly acceding countries are only ’attached’ to its edge.
One may experience a similar patchwork at the planning of the transport corridors, and the present paper would primarily discuss this issue.
Projecting the two most important lessons concerning the Balkan region one may state that:
1. In an inter-regional context it is the effect of networks determined elsewhere that is becoming dominant on this territory, as contrasted to planning based on the assertion of internal contexts.
2. Due to making the possibility of financing individual projects exclusive only the formerly evolved structures and elements of the network can be strengthened by corrections, and the chance of creating new structures vanes.
The structure of this paper is the following. After having defined the region we are talking about there would be a brief summary of how this area fits into the European territorial policy. Next the build of the European transport networks, structuring the region is presented. Three, four and five-letter acronyms such as TEN, PEN, PETRA, TINA, TIRS, REBIS would indicate that networks are involved here (but we are not going to speak about the AGR, AGC, AGTC, TEM and TER networks also existing in the region). It is a prominent issue of discussion whether these networks and their methods of design applied so far are suitable to create a uniform European transport network or not.
The Balkans and Its Environment
It has become an almost compulsory starting point to indicate where the borders of the Balkans can be located from the angle of the given topic. Strictly speaking the entire region constitutes a single peninsula south of the line drawn between Trieste and the estuary of the Dnieper. A narrower delimitation by natural geography indicates only the region south of the basins of the Rivers Sava and Danube as the Balkans; whereas a political classification often considers even the Romanian territories as belonging here. As far as our topic, the transport corridors and the European contacts are concerned, it is fully justified to study as broad an area as possible.
On Figure 1 taken from tourist use it is also worth pointing out that the recently often heard slogan saying that “we are the gateway to the Balkans” is true with restrictions at the most: we are one of the gateways of the Balkans. Another important land gate of the region is Slovenia from the direction of Western Europe. There are entrances also from Ukraine, Greece and Turkey, not speaking about the several possibilities of marine approach. Another lesson is offered from this fact: Hungary with its gateway role can primarily target the northern zone of the region.1
The point where the dominant image of the Balkans was outlined from changed significantly during the course of history: the Classical Greek perspective was different, and maps of the 18th century show something else, where only Hungary and Turkey could be mentioned in the region.
Our contemporary image of the Balkans is also inevitably influenced by the perspective currently determining it. The European regional concepts name the south-eastern part of Europe as one of the “Interreg cooperation Area”. As it is shown by Figure 2, the majority of the cooperation Area are characterised by co-operation that has emerged along a characteristic inland sea or coastline, such as around the Baltic Sea, the North Sea, in the region of the English Channel, at the Atlantic coasts of Europe, or in the western basin of the Mediterranean (Figure 2).2 Though there is an example also for land-based co-operation (such as the region of the Alps), yet it is conspicuous that already the name of the area under survey, the “Central European, Adriatic, Danubian and South-East European Co-operation Space” (CADSES) bears on itself the traces of the residue principle and of being swept together by an external perspective; namely that here a typically non-co-operating space was delimited as a unit out of comfort, due to considerations of economizing, or because of inattention. Therefore the question surely emerges whether it would not be logical here too, similarly to the West European examples, to delimit co-operation spaces separately for the Adriatic, another for the Aegean Sea (or one comprising the eastern basin of the Mediterranean), and another one for the Black Sea? And then there still would remain a zone not covered by the ones listed here, which is linked by the Danube, including countries the majority of which have no sea (Bavaria, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania).
If the CADSES space and the Balkans within it are divided into several co-operating areas, even then it is necessary to have networks of European scale to establish connections among those regions (Figure 3). Before turning to the level of continental transport it is worth referring to an analysis where the Balkan region is viewed from inside and structured by units.
In the analyses of Papadaskalopoulos and his associates (2005) the core of the region is made of a triangle constituted by Belgrade, Bucharest and Thessaloniki, with the fourth big city, Sofia located in its centre (Figure 4). The influence of the core extends to the areas (grey on the map) neighbouring that zone, while part of the countries involved is in a developmental shadow (dark zone). The highly optimistic approach presented assumes that the poles of the region turn towards one another and build a common macro-structure. This does not seem to be justified in the short run, because the capital cities in the region regard the establishment of separate contacts towards the West as their priority. This is pointed out also by the protracted Romanian–Bulgarian disputes on the location of the Danube bridge3, or the corridors built parallel on both sides of the Serbian– Romanian border4.
The Evolution of European Corridors
The guiding principle at the development of the railway networks from the 19th century onwards as well as of the main highway networks was to create an internal connecting system in each country as well as access to the sea ports ensuring a significant part of exports and imports as soon as possible. Any other form of international connections in a larger space was only accidental and emerged much later. As a result even in the western part of Europe the creation of a uniform system of international corridors of continental (or more exactly of Union) scale was the task of the 1980s. (See the slogan of the first Union transport policy of 1992: “a single network for the single market”.)
Though at the time of the introduction of the 1975 route numbering system, replacing the earlier European road designation by radiuses with London as their centre and presented in Figure 5, nobody spoke about corridors, yet this system, indicating the east-west directions with numbers ending in ’0’, and the north-south directions with two-digit numbers ending in ’5’ can be regarded as the point from where thinking in terms of Pan-European corridors emerged a decade later.
The process crystallised into overlapping infrastructural corridors called as Trans-European Networks (TEN) by the time of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. Within TEN the overlapping systems of energy (TEN-E), telecommunications (TEN-C) and transport (TEN-T) networks of Union scale can be distinguished. At that time the Union meant 12 countries, but they were already thinking about the networks in terms of an expected enlargement to include 16 countries in 1995. (Ultimately it became the EU–15 because Norway withdrew.) Gradually there has been less talk about the networks themselves, and the selected 14 projects came primarily into the focus of attention from 1996 onward. With some leap forward it should be noted that the number of selected projects was increased to thirty on 29 April 2004 (one day before the admission of ten newly acceding countries).
Meanwhile the system of Trans-European corridors has been severely criticised – “it is a process governed by regional interests, the solutions are expensive”5 –, but these voices were suppressed by the noise of lobbying: partly to be admitted among the projects on Union level, and even more to use the state of belonging to a corridor as an argument on national level for the priority of building the different segments of the track, to obtain priority for them within a country, and to the acquisition of Cohesion, or at least national support.
The Expansion of the TEN: the system of Pan-European Corridors
By the time the ideas formulated in the 1980s became Union documents in the 1990s, the map of Europe changed. In 1989 the Berlin Wall collapsed, the Iron Curtain disappeared, and it became obvious that one should think in terms of a Europe larger than ever before. The acceptance and approval of the TEN-concepts had been progressing on its Union track, but parallel to it a process of negotiations called “Pan-European transport conference” was launched in 1991, in the course of which it was in three steps (1991: Prague, 1994: Crete, 1997: Helsinki) that delegates of the respective ministries accepted the plans of the so-called “Helsinki corridors”, or “Pan-European corridors”, in other words, the eastern extension of the TEN.
What does that eastern extension of the TEN mean?
Let us have the scheme in Figure 6 indicate the TEN-T network.
The eastern extension of the TEN can be seen the network presented in Figure 7, for this would be the assertion of all the principles on the basis of which the TEN-network had been created but now in a larger area.
This, however, did not happen during the process. No doubt the improvement of East-West relations seemed to be the most urgent issue in the West as well as in the East in the euphoria of the 1990s. This effort overshadowed even thinking in perspective.
Instead of the eastern expansion of the TEN-network priority was accorded to the extension of the east-west corridors of the TEN, and with some exaggeration exclusivity (Figure 8).
More exactly the extension of the east-west corridors did not remain so pure as shown by Figure 8, because of the eastern enlargement of Europe, and also because people wanted to go north from Italy within the Union, and south from Germany, but it began to resemble Figure 9 rather, which may already be called a network.
In the actual Pan-European network there are no north-south corridors with the exception of corridor 9 (linking Finland and Greece), there are only ones going east from the Union, then turning to the north or to the south (Figure 10). Though from the pieces of the latter ones the north-south connection can be established, visibly it is more accidental than planned. At any rate, whatever has emerged is far away from the basic idea which intended to develop a grid network.6
It should be noted because it affects the Balkan region, that four Pan-European transport Areas were also delineated besides the ten corridors in Helsinki under the name PETRA (Pan-European Transport Areas). They are basins of marine navigation. The Black Sea is one of the PETRA areas (BS-PETRA). Its main development priority is the strengthening of the port of Constanţa. The region under survey is also involved in another PETRA area, the Adriatic–Ionian one. This approach strengthens the formerly indicated idea from the side of transport that logically the co-operating areas in regional development could be precisely these basins of marine navigation.
The Extension of the Pan-European Corridors: the TINA Network
The development of the Pan-European network linked to the east-west elements of the TEN resulted in the realisation after the first happiness waned that the Pan-European corridors are by far not able to cover those demands for inter-regional and supra-national transport connections that emerge in the area as a result of enlargement. For instance, east of Bratislava not a single Pan-European corridor crosses the east-west borderline between Slovakia and Hungary which is more than six hundred km long. Because of these problems the so-called TINA process (Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment) was launched from 1995 on, at the time of a series of the Pan-European conferences. In this framework the transport experts of the EU-15 give professional advice to the high-level transport administration of the 11 potentially acceding countries (the EU-10s with the exception of Malta, and considering Romania and Bulgaria) how to assess their transport infrastructural needs. The 1999 closing report slipped from advice to the declaration of further corridors, and defined elements of network of first and second priority. The first priority corridors – to the glory of the methodological knowledge transferred – were unanimously accepted, or at least voted for “without visible opposition”: they should be identical with the Helsinki corridors evolved by that time (we have seen how).7 It is impossible to know what secondary priority means, at any rate, the countries have recommended further corridors within that category.
Up to the completion of the closing paper of 1999 Hungary had two segments of corridor increasing the density of the missing north-south contacts as TINA elements, namely the route coming to Budapest from the north and the domestic segment of the Košice–Oradea connection (Figure 11). The latter one also means a connection to the Balkans, in this context domestic plans were drawn up to conduct the Warsaw–Bucharest railway link this way, and to have this route accepted as an alternative of the Pan-European corridor No. 9.8 It was also in 2000 when Hungary tried to add two other corridors to the secondary TINA corridors earlier proposed (Figure 11). This experiment was not successful because the process was closed down, but it does not hinder the domestic authorities in indicating the respective segments as TINA-elements in their documents.
The Extension of the TINA Network: the TIRS
The systems of TEN, as it was seen, and PEN (Pan-European corridors) extending it to the east and TINA supplementing the latter one with density were fixed by 1999. As a next step TIRS (Transport Infrastructure Regional Study in the Balkans), the process of studying the infrastructural network of the Balkans began. The study initially covering seven countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, and subsequently eight states after the separation of Serbia and Montenegro) was completed by 2002. The documentation states that as far as Bulgaria and Romania are concerned the basic network is identical with the corridors earlier defined by the TINA process, and for the other countries the European Investment Bank had made a survey (Western Balkans Transport Infrastructure Inventory). The survey named 223 potential projects and categorised them by the possibility of financing. From then onwards it is the order thus obtained which would decide the chances of a project for being accepted in the TIRS process.
In addition several maps were attached to the TIRS documentation (such as the one on Figure 12), which partly records points of assessing the situation (like the exhaustion of the highway capacities), but it also confirms the networks of sub-branches planned for 2015. To this extent the projects are not without moorings but are linked to networks. The network linkages, however, are only indirectly asserted because of the dominance of the financing criteria. This set of considerations for choice is also reflected in the 90-page closing document.9
A Reconsideration of the TIRS Process – REBIS
REBIS (Regional Balkans Infrastructure Study) does not want to expand but aims to narrow further choices, and it would even make a revision in progress concerning the network of the countries concerned. These are the TIRS countries not covered by the TINA process (i.e. five countries in 2003: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Macedonia). Obviously the project list of the TIRS was made too ample, for the 223 projects (and later on 153) have even made the possibility of arranging them in order of precedence uncertain and unauthentic. The aim of the new process is to look for and select projects and put them into an order of precedence that can be financed on the territory of the countries mentioned above. Altogether twenty projects were selected by the survey (or rather by a restarted assessment project) for which detailed preliminary feasibility studies were also made. This time, however, it was preceded by a rather detailed and profound network survey (which continues to regard the formerly indicated Pan-European corridors as fixed ones).
The final document10 defines the so-called core transport infrastructural network of the area (which in depth approximately corresponds to the Pan-European+TINA networks of the former territories of enlargement), and also allocates costs to its realisation up to 2015.
Figure 13 shows the REBIS area and the core highway network proposed to be built up to 2015. The cost of construction at an acceptable quality is estimated to be 4 billion Euros, where private capital involvement may be less expected. The building of a similar acceptable railway network would cost 12 billion Euros even if some of its characteristics are reduced (Figure 14). For the short term, up to 2009 the REBIS-study contains the implementation of a 3.8 billion Euro programme for the entire transport network.
*
The European Union evolved an overlapping Trans-European Network on the basis of the transport network of its 12 (15) member states in the late 1980s, next, in 1992, it was fixed (TEN) in the transport policy and Treaty on European Union. Since that time the entire network has been pushed into the background in the documentations, and there is mostly talk about the building of 14 projects (1996), (and 30 projects (2004) after the expansion of the list).
The PEN (Pan-European Network) tried to cover the eastern part of Europe by extending the east-west corridors of the TEN (1994, 1997).
The TINA process valid for the territory of the acceding countries of the eastern enlargement retained the PEN network, but it made the inclusion of secondary corridors and increasing the density of corridors (1995–1999) possible.
The TIRS process involving the seven Balkan countries regarded the PEN and TINA corridors as starting points, and extended the latter ones towards five more countries (2002).
The REBIS has once again surveyed the latter five countries and though it did not revise the results of earlier processes, reconsidered each of the elements of the TIRS supplementary networks involving the five countries and made recommendations for the comprehensive transport networks of the REBIS region (2003).
The project-oriented approach dominates in the entire process, including the changes of the TEN-network of the EU-15 from the early 1990s on, and the network is almost exclusively influenced by the financing possibilities of the major projects.
The revision of the TEN network failed to consider the actual function and continental structure of an overlapping network in the context of the enlarged Europe. As a consequence advices extending over the areas of enlargement do not help recognise the need for thinking in the framework of the functional role of the overlapping network. Instead the former structures are preserved (strengthened) that have developed within the national borders, or are further fragmented because of new borders11 and there is no way for the emergence of a structure of European scale even in places where the networks are currently being built.
As a consequence, and because of the radial piecemeal mending of the TEN-structure initially formed, the developing network further strengthens the dominance of more developed areas instead of an open grid network that would promote equalisation on European scale.
1
Bakács András–Novák Tamás–Somai Miklós–Túry Gábor: Rendszerváltás a gazdaságban. (System Change in the Economy) MTA Társadalomkutató Központ–MTA Világgazdasági Kutatóintézet, Bp., 2006. 187.
2
Zonneveld, Wil: Expansive Spatial Planning: The New European Transnational Spatial Visions. European Planning Studies, 2005. Vol. 13. No. 1. 137–155.
3
Erdősi Ferenc dr.: A szintetikus államalakulatok létrejöttének és szétesésének vasúthálózati problémái Európa keleti felében. (II. rész.) (Railway Network Problems of the Emergence and Disintegration of Synthetic State Formation in the Eastern Part of Europe.) (Part II.) Közlekedéstudományi Szemle, 2006. Vol. 56. No. 3. 94–103.
4
Howkins T. J.: Changing Hegemonies and New External Pressures: South East European Railway Networks in Transition. Journal of Transport Geography, 2005. Vol. 13. No. 2. 87–197.; Erdősi F.: i. m.
5
Turro, Mateu: Going Trans-European: Planning and Financing Transport Networks for Europe. Elsevier, 1999.
6
It is worth noting that the Union documents have not gone beyond the unilateral effort described here to the most recent times, which is reflected by a description in a White Paper published in 2004. White Paper on Services of General Interest. COM(2004) 374 final. Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, 12. 5. 2004. 3. 3. White Paper on Services of General Interest. COM(2004) 374 final. Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, 12. 5. 2004. 3. 3. “…the Commission’s policy in the area of Trans-European Networks is improving access to transport, energy and communications networks in the more remote area and will assist in linking the new Member States with the infrastructure of the Fifteen…” (Italics by author)
7
Transport Infrastructure Needs Assessment (TINA) Final Report. Vienna, Phare EC DG IA – EC DG VII – TINA Secretariat Vienna, October, 1999.
8
Köller László: A Krakkó–Kassa–Miskolc–Nagyvárad útirány vizsgálata a vasúti forgalomban. (The Study of the Kraców–Košice–Miskolc–Oradea Route in Railway Traffic.) Közlekedéstudományi Szemle, 2000. Vol. 50. No. 12. 448–454.
9
Transport Infrastructure Regional Study (TIRS) in the Balkans.Final Report. Prepared by Louis Berger SA March 2002. ECMT – Agence Française de Développement (AFD). http://www.cemt.org/topics/tirs/TIRSfinal.pdf.
10
Regional Balkans Infrastructure Study.Transport Final Study. July, 2003. European Commission, 2000 Cards Programme. http://www.seerecon.org/infrastructure/sectors/ transport/documents/REBIS/.
11
Erdősi Ferenc dr.: A szintetikus államalakulatok létrejöttének és szétesésének vasúthálózati problémái Európa keleti felében. (I. rész.) (Railway Network Problems of the Emergence and Disintegration of Synthetic State Formation in the Eastern Part of Europe.) (Part I.) Közlekedéstudományi Szemle, 2006. Vol. 56. No. 2. 42–52.
Begegnungen28_Erdosi
Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 28:115–127.
FERENC ERDŐSI
The Role of Politics in the Transport of the Balkans
Historical Antecedents
A series of historical events prove that transport (from decisions related to the building of the infrastructure to the shape of traffic) is among the branches most influenced by politics. It is the history of the Balkans which seems to be the most hectic among the major European regions, for the area has been the scene of many conflicting interests. The interest-based major political factors essentially form three groups, such as:
– The political/military forces of foreign powers outside the Balkans;
– The Pan-Slav movement of the Balkans (’regional’);
– Efforts towards a nation state.
The interest of the third factor of the three is ethnic-based separation (segmentation) in the region, both in the shaping of country territories as well as of the transport network, whereas the first two are interested in union, in creating big territorial units and contiguous networks within them. This does not exclude the authority from striving for division based on the principle of divide and rule within the ’empire’.
Foreign powers participated in the building of the transport network on the Balkans to different extent and in various manners:
– In the 19th century the influence of Germany and Britain was only indirectly asserted as a sort of ’suggestion’ in the creation and partial financing of the Trans-Balkan railway lines towards the Middle East.
– In the 19th and early 20th century the temporary occupants either had no role at all in the development of the railway/road network (Russia), or they proved to be secondary actors only (the narrow gauge railway lines built by the army of the Monarchy in Bosnia-Herzegovina); and only local changes were done mostly in the interest of ensuring military supplies during the first and second world wars.
– As contrasted to the former ones, the Ottoman Empire, settling down on the Balkans for several centuries had a significant and direct role.
The growing activity of the South Slav and Romanian political forces with the co-operation of the Entente resulted in the creation of the synthetic states of medium power by the South Slavs and the Romanians after World War I. The Serb-Croat-Slovene Kingdom/Yugoslavia set for itself two basic aims in network development: to ensure international transit and to strengthen cohesion within the state composed of a large variety of regions1.
I have given detailed information on the network developments in Yugoslavia and Romania in the decades of the inter-war period and after 1944–1945 which were strongly influenced by macro-politics, as well as about the damages caused by the South Slav civil war and the 1999 NATO air strikes in transport, and their lasting consequences (manifest in the distortion of the modal split) in the February and March 2006 issues of Közlekedéstudományi Szemle (Review of Transport Science) in my article published in two parts under the title Problems of the Development and Disintegration of the Railway Network of the Synthetic State Formations in the Eastern Part of Europe2 (in Hungarian), and this time I am not going to repeat what was written there, I would only supplement it with the following.
Though formal political relations were settled among the newly independent Balkan countries on the basis of the December 1995 Dayton Accord, mistrust and suspicion brands relationships, including transport relationships between the neighbouring countries. At a large number of railway lines cut by country borders, there is still no transit traffic, and the stumps degraded to be branch lines are becoming impossible to operate, hence traffic is terminated on them one after the other. Moreover, even the removal of the track has occurred. The Italian SFOR engineering corps has restored the largely destroyed railway line in the Una valley which had been a significant cargo transport line among the eastern regions of Croatia before the war, but no transit traffic was re-launched along it, because several of its short segments loop over the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Hence it is not only Croatia but also its neighbour which is divested of the profits of the use of this railway with a great past.
Political Considerations in the Latest Infrastructural Developments of Croatia
The Croatian ’miracle’ of motorway construction and its political aspects
The development of the transport network has priority over every other task of the state in Croatia. It is partly in the interest of the highly valuable transit potential of the country (and meeting its international obligations), and partly to develop contacts among its regions into a well functioning national system for strengthening internal cohesion, and with a view to moderating differences among regions (difficult to endure for the population of backward ones), and also for regional development.3
It is a sign of distinguished governmental attention oriented to road construction that eight of the 15 projects announced in the latter half of the 1990s in the scope of the state programme for infrastructural development are for road transport (five of them are of motorway construction), one is for inland navigation and two are for railway transport.
Had Croatia been satisfied with the speed characteristic of the early 1990s, namely by an annual achievement of 15 km, it would have needed three quarters of a century to accomplish the entire planned network. Therefore development was accelerated several times via government resolution. The Croatian leadership has recognised that the country had two eminent sources of income; the touristic potential of its extraordinary sea coast, and income from transit traffic through its ports. An indispensable precondition to the utilisation of these opportunities is rapid access to the sea coast. To this end, the transport regime focused on the completion of the full length of the motorway from the Hungarian border down to Split and Fiume, but work was also continued along the motorways linking Zagreb with Maribor (and hence with Graz), as well as the one linking Fiume to Trieste through the southern part of Slovenia, strengthening the international network. The building of motorways in Istria, a region popular among tourists, joining in Pula was also continued. From the late 1990s to 2005 Croatia developed its motorway network with a speed unprecedented in the whole of Eastern Europe compared to the size of the country as well as its economic potential (not mentioning the extremely difficult terrain). In 1990 Croatia had a motorway of 269 km, in 2001, the total length was 430 km, in 2005, already 930 km, and recently its growth has been 25 to 28% per annum.)4
The degree of completion of the different motorways in 2005 reflects the priorities defined by transport policy. Adjustment to the PEN corridors is not entirely close. Consistency can be experienced only in the building of the motorway of Fiume belonging to the Vb corridor. The highly prioritised motorway linking Karlovac-Split-Dubrovnik is not part of the Helsinki corridors, but the north-south oriented motorway linking Beli Manastir-Osijek-Svilaj and the Pali Prolog-Polče one near the sea coast (altogether 102 km) has not even been begun, though in 2003 the Croatian government promised the Hungarian government to build it as soon as possible. The building of a ’wing’ expressly serving domestic linkages and connecting the capital with Sisek, one of the largest industrial and logistics centres, is also yet to come (Figure 1). Only 6 km has been built of the 98-km A6 motorway linking the Split one with Fiume (along the Kvarner Bay) and going towards the southern region of Slovenia.
There is a 2.36-fold difference between the specific investment costs of the different motorways (calculated per unit of length). The cost is the lowest in Istria, and the highest in difficult (high) mountainous terrain, or forced through with the help of structures, conducted through the Karst Mountain and the Velebit, leading to the Dalmatian sea coast, cut into the steep coast along the Kvarner Bay, and the motorways built on the terrain of the middle mountain range leading from Zagreb to Macelj (Maribor). The cost of construction is also influenced by other factors (technical norms, business bargains, the mode and arrangement of financing).5
Already in 2005, Croatia had a motorway network centred at the capital which:
– allows for rapid progress domestically between Zagreb and the other parts of the country, further on between the western, southern, central and northern parts (Istria, Dalmatia, Slavonia, etc.);
– It is in ’live’ contact with the neighbouring countries, with Serbia towards Belgrade, with Slovenia towards Ljubljana and Koper/ Trieste;
– It has potential contacts towards Hungary at Muracsány (the motorway built up to the border is waiting for the M7 at Goričan from Letenye to join it) and with northern Slovenia (the A2 completed up to Krapina would reach the border if the 28 km distance was built).
Naturally there is no motorway connection with Bosnia-Herzegovina, where systematic motorway construction has not begun. There are, however, possibilities to join from the direction of Bosnia at several points of the motorway along the southern edge of Slavonia, running parallel to the River Sava.
The question arises in professional circles whether the almost explosive development of the motorway network of Croatia is a success story or it is an uneconomical investment. Based on facts given above technically it is clearly a success story. Its paradox is that if the Croats listened to the advisors of international organisations such as the International Road Federation and the World Bank, today they would have to be satisfied with a network shorter by several hundred km. In the autumn of 2003 the IRF expressed its concern for the indebtedness expected from the ambitious investments into motorways. According to its warnings motorways should be built in the future only where the size of traffic clearly justifies it (unfounded long-term plans have no real economic basis); Croatia would only be able to reap the full benefit of motorway investments if the border-crossing points were capable of performing their task well.
Besides criticism linked to anxiety the IFR clearly acknowledged the extraordinary effect of motorway construction on economic development. In its view motorway building was the most important factor in the ’forward leap’ of the Croatian economy in 2000.6
According to the calculations of the World Bank the Croatian motorway network was built six times as fast as the West European one, and our southern neighbour spent 2% of its GDP on it. (The countries of Eastern Europe spent 1.3–1.6% of their GDP in the average on transport, while only 0.1–0.7% on the development of the speedway network.) The experts were of the view that this proportion was prodigiously large compared to the level of economic development as well as the real transport needs of the country. They did not take into consideration that a comparison to Western Europe was not fair, for there the road network is practically complete, and only supplementary construction work is in progress.
Losing World Bank support, and not expecting the PHARE fund or other EU assistance, nor the financial aid of supranational organisations, the Croat government built the motorway to the Hungarian border by 2004 and to Split by 2005, because it expected effects generating traffic and developing the region; furthermore, it encouraged Hungary to speed up the M7 joining its network. Both considerations and arguments reflect long-term, but also pragmatic thinking.
It is without doubt that there was no alternative for Croatia but to build the motorway to promote the flourishing of the Dalmatian holiday zone. Ever since access to Northern and Central Dalmatia has improved by leaps, the value of real estates has greatly increased, and the number of visitors has grown by 15 to 30% in the sea coast ’gold mine’ of Croatia.
Foreign political and regional development aspects of drawing the line of the Zagreb-Split motorway
In the 1990s a political decision was made about the most prestigious road construction plan of the country, the tracing of the Zagreb-Split motorway. A choice had to be made out of several variants of traces. The route reaching the Central Dalmatian sea coast seemed to be the most favourable because it was the shortest (and in a sense the most economical), moving from Zagreb to east and southeast up to Sisek, from then on going south and crossing the Bosnian border and progressing via Bihač on the territory of the neighbouring country for a distance of about 40 km, which would have gone further in the Una valley and crossed the Croatian border once again (Figure 1). This variant was rejected due to national security considerations, saying that this ’main artery’ of strategic importance could be broken off any time by the anti-Croat Bosnian Muslims, whose main stronghold happens to be that very Bihač. A decision was made that the track of the motorway should be determined remaining within Croatia.
Two kinds of ideas had to be confronted to each other: one argued for a track relatively close to the Bosnian-Herzegovinian border and relatively far from the sea coast through the mountains, saying that if the motorway towards Knin is branched off from the Zagreb-Fiume line at Karlovac it can be the shortest way of reaching Split. But the frightening cost of overcoming the high mountainous terrain and the sparse population of the region and the few towns to be linked were all against this variant.
The other professional group argued for the advantages of a track near the sea coast. Their main argument was that it would ensure linkages to the network for such significant coastal cities as Zadar and Šibenik, not speaking about the interests of Dalmatian tourism. Finally the government approved of this variant.7
A further advantage of the second track is that it constitutes part of the ’Adriatic’ motorway planned for a long time between Zuta Lokva to Fiume-Dubrovnik, and also of the Peri-Balkans ’Adriatic-Ionian’ motorway (AIH) most recently advocated by the EU which would run from Trieste near the Dalmatian Montenegrin and Albanian sea coast, and then skirt the western mountainous rim of Greece to Igumentitsa. A segment of 590 km of this system of motorways touching six countries would be in Croatia. The EU even proposed Community assistance for it out of the Southeast European Stability Package approved for the economic reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe.8
Political reasons of building the Danube-Sava canal
Prior to the civil war most of the industrial estates requiring Slavonian transport inside Croatia were working at the water-rich River Sava, utilising the opportunity for cheap water transport. The routes of distance navigation continued through Belgrade on the Danube towards the Black Sea as well as (in the opposite direction) towards the Carpathian Basin and Western Europe.
Though the events of war (mines in the water, wreckages of bridges) paralysed navigation on the Sava each year and even industrial production dropped drastically, Croatia announced the programme of a dynamic development of inland transport by water already at the time of reconstruction. Accordingly the share of inland water transport was to grow from 3 to 15% maximum within fifteen years. (Today only a few Atlantic countries may pride themselves with such a high proportion.) For this purpose the main steps to be taken would include:
– To get the Sava declared as an international water route (it is a border river at length, therefore Bosnia-Herzegovina also has a right to use it);
– To build barrages from Brčko to Sisek (the end point of navigation) to ensure the necessary quantity of water;9
– Building the Danube-Sava canal in Srijem, which is already included in the AGB/ECE/TTC multilateral agreement (under No. E 80–08), listing it among the inland waterways of international significance.
The Croat government passed a resolution already in the late 1990s on building a 61.5 km canal linking the Danube and the Sava, overcoming the difficulties in the western part of Srijem by two barrages, and made suitable for 1850 ton boats, which would shorten the distance on the river towards the main markets of Austria and Germany by 417 km (48 hours in time), and by 58 km towards the east (Figure 2). In other words, it was exclusively the economic consideration promoting foreign trade which was mentioned for the justification of the planned canal. In fact political considerations have at least an equal weight. Namely, the Croats are worried about navigation on the segment of the Danube in the Vojvodina, where authorities may harass, but at least inspect the boats in transit. Though the EU regards the utilisation of rivers desirable on the basis of conciliated, common plans as particular resources (as waterways, for water supply and for other purposes), because of the relations between the two countries which cannot be called friend this day, the Croats for the time being do not see great chances of it. This is why they have chosen a technical solution that would largely eliminate dependence on Serbia for river navigation. The fault with the canal between Vukovar and Šamac is that it is not purely on Croat territory, but links common segments of the river (the Danube between Croatia and Serbia, and the Sava between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina). Therefore even in the case of possible border skirmishes and occasional armed provocations the use of the canal alone cannot guarantee free navigation without restrictions.
The plan to link the Sava-Kulpa water system with the sea and making the River Kulpa navigable in the framework of this project is even more daring than the Danube-Sava canal. As a result, a waterway for transport would be created exclusively on Croat territory, independent of foreign lands, leading to their own sea ports.10 Though the plans of several locks designed in the 18th and 19th centuries and leading towards the Adriatic were not given up even by the EU, there is no real chance for its realisation for it would have to be conducted through a watershed more than 700 m above the sea level. The required cost of this grandiose plan is so huge that about 400 km motorway could be built out of it. Losses of its operation can be forecast because of the expected modest traffic and the high cost of maintaining and operating the locks.
The effect of political changes on air transport
Air transport has been articulated into much smaller units (tiny and small airways companies) in the Yugoslav successor states than earlier, which have been able to offer far more limited services in terms of destination, and are forced to face even graver problems related to economies of scale than the big companies in a globalising branch of rapid concentration. In Romania and Bulgaria, some smaller airways companies were founded (mostly specialising in charter services) yet it is still the ’national’ companies (Tarom, Balkan) looking back to a past of more than half a century that lead in the market. Their privatisation has begun but the share of the state in ownership is usually much above that of the other owners.
At the same time there has been significant progress in the quality, technical level and capacity of the stock of planes. The Soviet-made aircraft were partly or totally replaced by more modern Western ones.
An increasing number of Croatian and Slovenian areas in the country have been included in air traffic by partly converting former military airfields and by building new public airports.
All in all, the infrastructural and service offers of air transport have improved a great deal. The exceptions are Serbia-Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the aftermath of the civil war is still visible.
Changes in the political conditions and opening towards the market economy have rearranged the demand structure of air transport. In state socialism demand for international travel was strongly restricted by the limitations permitting travel abroad; therefore, there were more foreign passengers than domestic ones. From the 1990s onwards demand for travel has no administrative obstacle, but the high cost of air tickets compared to incomes and the strong differentiation that has taken place in the incomes of potential passengers have a joint (negative) effect on the structure of demand.
During the state socialist period extensive domestic air travel networks were maintained with a high proportion of state subsidy which to some extent counter-balanced the poor interregional rail and road transport,11 but which today serve only a few cities in Romania, Bulgaria and Croatia.
It is revealed by the changes of passenger and cargo traffic which can be monitored since 1990–1991 that air transport has become a successful branch in Croatia and partly even in Slovenia early in this century. Promising results have been achieved by Bulgaria and Romania, and even by Macedonia in reorganisation, but the air transport sector has a very poor output in the other countries. The greatest fallback in this field took place in Serbia.
The networking of air traffic, the servicing of areas and accessibility by potential passengers by ground infrastructure is determined by the quantitative and qualitative supply of airports. The public airports were formerly owned by the national airways companies; in the 1990s, they were transferred in many places to autonomous, but state-owned airport operating and servicing companies. The initial steps towards their partial and full privatisation have been taken.
The stock of public airports of the former state socialist Balkan countries is numerically the richest in Romania. Croatia hardly lags behind Romania in this respect, but the other smaller states have only 2–6 functioning public airports, although all of them have solid runways. This is a favourable potential for transport with more modern passenger flights. Specific data, however, calculated per unit of population or territory are more expressive of the actual condition of supply. Accordingly the number of (public) airports per one million inhabitants as well as per ten thousand km2 is outstandingly the largest in Croatia, which is expressly due to the regional airports built in Dalmatia and Istria in the interest of international tourism in a country only as big as the Great Hungarian Plain, but a horizontally extremely segmented one. The second place of Slovenia may be related to its belonging to the ’Alpine cultural sphere’, to its general level of development. Otherwise there is no close correlation between the economic/cultural development of the various countries and the density of public airports. For instance, Macedonia is the third if the number of airports is projected to territory, and Bosnia-Herzegovina is the third if that number is related to the number of inhabitants. The last place of Albania in every respect is a foreseeable one (Table 1).
In Romania the geographic distribution of airports is quite even; therefore, from 80% of the territory of the country one of them may be accessed within a distance of 100 km. The overwhelming majority of the 17 public airports continue to offer regular domestic (though low intensity) services, and one or two of peripheral location (Timişoara, Constanţa) is even the target destination of international flights. Though a number of airports have international status, currently they are unable to generate foreign traffic. The average length of runways is almost 2500 m. Among them the airports of Bucharest, Constanţa and Timişoara are outstanding with their runways of approximately 3500 metres or more, capable of receiving giant American or Soviet planes. Even the shortest runways are almost two thousand metres; thus, Baia Mare, Cluj, Iaşi, Oradea and Suceava are also capable of receiving ’regional flights’ (usually turboprop ones) of 60 to 80 passengers (and in a more favourable case medium category jets of 100 to 120 seats).
The Basic Issues of the Future Transport in the Balkans
There are few macro regions on our continent comparable to the Balkans where the inhabitants are filled with national sentiment to that extent, and where thinking within an ethnic framework is so strongly asserted daily in every field of life, and as a result, the intentions to assert national interests are largely manifest in economic and infrastructural policy. Currently it is not yet known which governing party will be in office at the time of EU accession in the different countries, but it is surely going to strongly defend the interests of its country in the face of other Balkan countries as well as the EU. Therefore, one of the major issues is whether the Pan-European interests represented by the Union would be able to overwrite and harmonise the national interests which are mostly counter-productive from the perspective of the Union and also of becoming united and at times even of intra-operability at the development of magistral (trans-Balkan) networks.
Another significant question is whether the disjointed territorial (local, regional and national) interests of rather violently manifested ethnic basis could be harmonised among the regions, and also when the regional and small area networks are to be developed in the Balkans with its ethnically mixed population, where the ethnic composition of the inhabitants often changes by village, microregion, or at least by region.
The role of China in supplying industrial products (and increasingly of some agricultural ones) to Europe, as part of the globalisation process, has been continuously growing along the Suez Canal which has become navigable by ever bigger ships due to its enlargement (15 thousand TEU containers), which leads to a sizeable reduction of specific transport costs. The main distribution centres of the Chinese dumping goods are the Atlantic ports (in Hamburg the proportion of Chinese goods unloaded was 41% in 2005 as against the 1.5% in the year 1980) for the time being. As the largest market of Chinese consumer goods is Southern and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean ports much closer to the Suez Canal would be more rational depots of their distribution. Up to the most recent times the South European and Balkan ports have been able to join this activity to a moderate extent (due to their equipment, the development of their logistics systems, the quality of their services, their reliability, etc.).
During the past one or two years the Mediterranean region has been trying to reduce its backwardness compared to the ’Range’ mega-port family of Western Europe. The new head of government of Italy, Romano Prodi expects the new boom of Italian economy from joining the logistics of Chinese foreign trade and hopes to replace stagnation by an upturn. No doubt South Italy could also profit from the reception and further handling of Chinese goods besides Greece (the island of Crete). In this respect the chances of the Adriatic and the Black Sea are quite contradictory:
– on the one hand the (mostly former socialist) countries closer to the coast of the inner seas can be physically approached along the cheaper sea and inland water (Danube) routes;
– on the other hand the equipment and quality of the services of their ports lag far behind even the Italian, Greek and Spanish ports; therefore, no breakthrough can be expected in this field, but it can be expected that they are going to take a growing share in the face of ports like La Valletta, Giaio Tauro, Tarragena or the ports of Crete. Particularly Constanţa, Burgas, Thessaloniki, Fiume and Koper may take up a bigger gateway role in the goods traffic between the Far East and the Balkans. Ultimately the future situation may be assessed that as contrasted to Southern Europe, the Balkans would be able to increase its competitiveness in the logistics business related to the Chinese/Far East goods dumping only moderately in the foreseeable future.
1
Erdősi F.: A Balkán közlekedésének főbb földrajzi jellemzői. (The Main Geographic Features of Transport in the Balkans.) Balkán Füzetek No. 3. PTE TTK FI K–MBTK Pécs, 2005.
2
Közlekedéstudományi Szemle, February 2006: 42–52; March 2006: 94–103.
3
Kalmeta, B.: Pan-European Traffic Corridor V. in the Republic of Croatia. Zagreb, January 2004. [Meeting of Transport Ministers of Transport of the Members of Quadrilateral.] Brdo pri Kranju, January 26. 2004.
4
Road policy in Croatia: advice from IRF. www.worldhighways.com.November/December, 2003. 26.
5
Motorways of Croatia. Zagreb, 2005.
6
Road policy… i. m.
7
Büschenfeld, H.: Wirtschaftliche transformation Prozesse in den Nachfolgestaaten Jugoslawiens. Europa Regional, 1999. 7. 23–38.; Transport Development Strategy of the Republic of Croatia. [Republic of Croatia, Ministry of Maritime Affairs, Transport and Communications.] Zagreb, 1999. November.
8
The Adriatic–Ionian Highway. – www.worldhighway.co [April 2004. 18.].
9
REBIS (Regional Balkans Infrastructure Study–Transport). European Commission, July 2003; Zagreb–Split Motorway Project. Zagreb, 2003.
10
REBIS op. cit.
11
Kneifel, J. I.: Fluggesellschaften und Luftverkehrssysteme der sozialistischen Staaten. Steinmeier, Nördlingen, 1980.
Begegnungen28_Czelnai
Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 28:25–32.
RUDOLF CZELNAI
The Climate of the Balkan Area
To know is nothing, to imagine: everything!
(Anatole France: The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard)
The topic of the climate of South-Eastern Europe is incredibly rich. One cannot know enough about it; moreover, knowledge in itself is insufficient. An attempt should be made to imagine the variegated climate of the region and everything that ensues from it. In the following I wish to indicate how complicated the climate of the Balkan area is, and also to touch upon the regional problems that may derive from a possible global climate change.
The Topography of the Balkan Area and the Major Features of its Climate
As anywhere else so in the Balkan area too the climate of a given place is determined primarily by the geographic location of that place and its position relating to the pattern of the “general circulation”1 of the atmosphere. In addition to that the topography and hydrography also play a role, which is particularly important in the Balkan area. The Balkan Mountain range (’Haemus’ in Classical Latin, ’Stara Planina’ in Bulgarian meaning the ’Old Mountains’) is a watershed between the catchment area of the Danube north of it and of the Maritsa to the south. Its highest peak, the Botev is 2376 m. The mountain range is crossed by altogether twenty passes; the two most important ones are the Šipka pass and the valley of the River Iskur. The name ’Balkan’ is of Turkish origin meaning wooded mountain. This name was attached to the entire region by the German geographer E. Zeune in 1808.
The borders of the region are not unambiguous. Today the geographic borders may be regarded as settled, but the political ones change only too frequently. During the period of the Cold War for instance, it was customary to classify every European satellite state of the Soviet Union under the Balkan area (including Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and Hungary) (at the same time Greece and the European part of Turkey were not listed under this category). Nowadays the situation in reversed. In tourist advertisements some countries that had been happy to be outside the Balkan area, present themselves as belonging to it. The beauty of landscape, its wilderness and untouched nature, the flora and fauna as well as the riches of heritage, etc., are major forces of attraction, and the region is being discovered also by lovers of winter sports.
Geographically the Balkan Peninsula is located between the Adriatic and the Black Seas. It is bordered by the line of the Rivers Sava and Danube, the Adriatic, the Ionian, the Cretan and the Thracian Seas as well as the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its total territory (together with the adjacent islands) is about 560 thousand km2. About one quarter of the territory (precisely 85 thousand km2) is more than one thousand metres above the sea level.
In a political sense Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Greece, Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Bulgaria and the European part of Turkey are part of the Balkan space. In the following the climate of the entire Balkan region would be discussed.
It holds true for the entire stretch from the Adriatic to the gates of the Black Sea that the jaggedness of the coastline is the most pronounced in the whole of Europe. The coastline is edged by a series of islands and peninsulas. Fertile and rich basins hide occasionally among the mostly barren and sparsely inhabited mountains, and almost each basin prides itself with a mesoclimate of its own.
The ’wall’ of the Dinari Alps running parallel to the south-western coastline of the peninsula is a separating line for transport, climate and water. The Pindos Mountain range branches off from it to the south, and the Rodope and Balkan Mountain ranges to the east and southeast. These big and contiguous mountain ranges sharply separate the inner regions of the Balkans from those along the seas. At the same time the internal (more northern) area is almost totally open towards the east. The dry and cold eastern winds freely penetrate it. The climate of Transylvania is milder and has more precipitation than the other parts of Romania, for the semicircle of the Carpathians blocks the way to the west of the cold and dry winds coming from the east, and does not let the humid western winds move forward towards the east and southeast.
The maps of average temperature and precipitation also reflect that it is the Mediterranean climate that dominates along the marine strip stretching south of the Dinari Alps and particularly on the territory of Greece, whereas the climate of the rest (bigger part) of the area resembles much more to the Central-East European climate. This duality is undoubtedly the most important characteristic of the Balkans climate.
In winter the internal regions of the Balkan area are very cold, and they are almost unbearably hot in summer. Usually pleasant Mediterranean climate dominates along the coastline, but the winters are colder and the summers are warmer, compared to the usual temperature in other regions of the Mediterranean.
Basically the climate of the major part of the region is adverse. This is particularly true of the two broad strips on both sides of the Lower Danube. This region was called ’Moesia’ in the Classical Age, stretching from the Sava estuary down to the Black Sea. The Romanian part of this stretch is the Romanian Plain between the Southern Carpathian Mountains and the Danube, called Oltenia and Muntenia. The other strip running parallel to the former one between the Lower Danube and the Balkan Mountain range belongs to Bulgaria and is called the Bulgarian plateau. The southern side of the Balkan Mountain is steep, but its northern one gently slopes in a broad strip towards the north. Therefore a big part of the Bulgarian plateau receives significantly less insulation than its geographic latitude would justify. The part of the Balkan range above 1600 m is covered by snow from October to May.
The mountains cut up the area into narrow valleys. Hence precipitation as well as temperature may significantly differ even within short distances. The rivers are short and of rapid flow in the valleys. They are insignificant in respect of navigation. A temperature inversion often develops over the valleys locked by mountains, resulting in stagnating air and sometimes even lingering smog. This is the situation, for instance, in the basin five hundred metres above sea level where Sofia is situated.
A decisive portion of precipitation is brought in by the westerly winds. This is why a narrow strip along the coastal side of the Dinari Alps is extremely wet. The annual precipitation is above two thousand mm, and approximates five thousand mm in some places, whereas precipitation remains significantly below two thousand mm along the inner side of the Dinari mountain range. Moving towards the east inside the Balkan region precipitation keeps on dropping. One may speak about four hundred mm at places along the Black Sea. The annual distribution of precipitation is characterised by the fact that there is more of it in summer in the inner continental regions, whereas there is more precipitation in the Mediterranean coastal strip in winter. In Belgrade precipitation is the biggest in June (64 mm) and the least in February (39 mm). The situation at Pula is just the reverse: precipitation is the biggest in November (112 mm), and the least in July (43 mm).
As usual in the moderate zone, the climate is determined by the routes of the migratory cyclones. The role of the Mediterranean cyclone track is decisive. In winter the polar front is located south of the Balkan Peninsula, but it moves northwards in summer. Precipitation is largely dependent on the topographic factors. For instance, annual precipitation may be even above five thousand mm in the mountains around the Kotor Bay. Slopes at higher altitudes may receive precipitation of more than two thousand and five hundred mm annually in many places. More significant anomalies occur in winter.
The northern boundary of the dominance of the Mediterranean climate is the Rodope Mountain range. The Thracian Plain (the valley of the Maritsa) between the ensemble of Rila, Pirin and Rodope and the Balkan Mountains is equally under continental as well as Mediterranean influence, but the continental impact is stronger. Here climate is more severe than on territories of Europe located at similar latitude. (The transitory character of the climate results in a higher degree of variability of temperature and precipitation. Hence, significant differences may occur from one year to another.)
With the exception of the southern marine zone the climate of the Balkans resembles that of the Central-East European region. In Sofia the winter mean temperature is 2.7 °C and the summer one is 20.2 °C. May and June are the wettest months in parts north of the Balkan Mountains. Annual precipitation is mostly between eight hundred and one thousand mm. In the south that is on the marine strip there is little precipitation in summer. The higher parts of the Rila Mountain range are relieved of snow only for one month in summer. Even in Constantinople there are 13 days in the average when the daily mean temperature is negative.
An Attempted Summary of Descriptive Findings: Climatic Zones
It is customary to define climate types in order to make the description of climatic conditions easier to understand, and to mark the borders of the climatic zones on maps on this basis. The climate of the Balkan region, however, is too variegated and mosaic-like to offer much of an insight.
One stand may be that only two main climate types (continental and Mediterranean) should be defined. They more or less correspond to the ’Cf’ and ’Cs’ types belonging to the ’warm-moderate’ climate zone of the Köppen climate classification system. The former one is characterised by a flat annual distribution of precipitation, the latter by dry summer and winter maximum of precipitation. Following this way has two advantages: the characteristic duality of the climate of the region may be stressed better, and partly when a profound and exact description of the colourful details is given, there is no need to collate it with the generalisations of the different climate zones delimited in a complex manner.
According to another approach it is worth distinguishing at least four climate types instead of two. This is supported by the argument that there are real Mediterranean areas as well as areas only reflecting Mediterranean influence in the Balkan region. A. Székely (1968), for instance, distinguishes four climatic zones within the Balkan area.2 They are the following: 1. Mediterranean, 2. Transitory Mediterranean, 3. Transitory continental and 4. Continental. He classifies a significant part of Greece, the strips along the Ionian and Aegean Seas under the first climatic zone. The central part of the Dinarids, Central Macedonia, as well as the mass of the Rila-Rodope Mountains and the valley of the Tundja River fall into the second zone in this classification. He classifies the Macedonian and Thracian basins, the Central Mountains of Bulgaria and the Eastern Balkans as transitory continental saying that there are still some definite Mediterranean characteristics identifiable, but it is the continental climate that dominates. Finally, he classifies the areas of the Inner Dinari Mountains and the Lower Danube basin under the continental climatic zone.
A Brief Detour: Thoughts about the Relationship between the Balkan Climate and History
The best known books on the relationship between climate and history were written by the British climatologist Professor Hubert Horace Lamb, and he is regarded as the one who has elevated this topic to a scientific rank. Unfortunately I have found only indirect references to the Balkan region, whereas he dwelt on the Classical Greek and Roman cultures with great detail. (Those who are more interested in this topic can draw useful information from that work even about the Balkan region.)
The relationship between the geographic conditions of the Balkan region and its history was dealt with by the late Leften Stavrianos, Professor of the San Diego University. I myself find this topic of particular interest. Here I wish to underline as an example the role the Balkan Mountain range has played as an obstacle in the way of transport during the course of history.
Today the Balkan Mountain range is not such a frightful obstacle to transport as it used to be, but in winter when it is covered by heavy snow, it is still difficult to negotiate it. In history, however, the situation was different. Therefore the custom evolved in Roman times, and later on in the Byzantine Empire that the legions fought against the barbarians for eight months in a year, but returned to their families for the winter. It was not required of them to spend the severest months on the territory with unfriendly climate north of the Balkan Mountains. (This tradition was later on observed by the Turks too.)
Let me refer to a case described by J. J. Norwich3 when this custom was disregarded by the emperor, causing the fatal end for him, his family and supporters. The event took place in 602 A.D. Emperor Mauricius who reigned from 582, ordered the legions for economical reasons to stay on for the winter wherever they were.
The order provoked riots in the Pannonian camps; the soldiers lifted a centurion, a certain Phokas on their shield, and marched to Byzantium under his leadership. In the city Phokas, a real monster, had himself crowned Emperor, and had his predecessor, his family and all his followers massacred. One may regard this tragedy as (at least partially) caused by the climatic conditions.
Isn’t it the case that the climate of the area has also contributed to its unlucky history? Isn’t it the reason why the big empires used this area only as a military springboard?
It is a recent phenomenon that the Balkans is being gradually revaluated. Presumably we are only at the beginning of this process. The future may largely depend on how the good recipe of adapting to the special climatic conditions of the region can be found, with special regard to the fact, that these conditions are presumably undergoing changes.
Possible Future Changes of the Climate of the Balkan Region
Usually I do not agree with oversimplified and hasty conclusions. Sometimes a proposition emerges in writings related to climate change that it can be envisioned that the currently known climatic zones are simply shifting towards higher latitudes. All this would take place the same way as the zones of vegetation, insects and illnesses would migrate constantly northwards.
In Britain, for instance, one could read for years in newspapers that sometime in the future the climate of Britain would be like the present one in Southern France as a result of global warming. On this basis some people even began to fantasise that the same red wines would be produced in Britain that make the region of Bordeaux rich.
The same optimistic thoughts have crossed the Channel and reached us, even suggesting that the climate of the Balkan region may be interesting for us because as a result of global warming our climate is going to be the same as the one currently dominating that area.
Two fundamental things, however, cannot be disregarded. The first one is that the mountains and the sea coasts would not begin to migrate under the impact of the growth of carbon dioxide concentration, but would remain in place. These important climate-forming factors would continue to impact their location. The other fundamental point is that the growth of the greenhouse effect would not directly lead to the warming of the layer near the surface, but it would primarily change the overall pattern of the general circulation of the atmosphere. This is not a trivial process, and it cannot be comprehended by a simple qualitative argumentation. The only way to get an insight into this process leads through the dynamic modelling of the general circulation of the atmosphere.
Nevertheless, we may have assumptions. This is not prognostication but raising certain possibilities. It may be mentioned, for example, that in case of further greenhouse warming the major belts of the general circulation may shift northwards, together with the dry zone of descending air. The outcome then may be that the summer deficit of precipitation typical of the Mediterranean zone may become characteristic even in the area further to the north. This is expressly bad news, because the Balkan Peninsula and most of the Central and East European area is prone to occasional severe droughts already at present.
References
Gábris Gy. (Ed.): Európa. Regionális természetföldrajzi atlasz. (Europe. Regional Map of Natural Geography). ELTE, Eötvös Kiadó, Budapest, 1998.
Kocsis K. (Ed.): Délkelet-Európa térképekben. (South-Eastern Europe on Maps). Kossuth Kiadó, MTA Földrajztudományi Kutatóintézet, Budapest, 2005.
Lamb, H. H.: Climate, Present, Past and Future. Methuen, London, 1972, 1977.
Lamb, H. H.: Climate and History in the Modern World. Methuen, London, 1982.
Mendöl T.: A Balkán földrajza (The Geography of the Balkans). Balkán Intézet, Budapest, 1948.
Norwich, J. J.: Byzantium: The Early Centuries. Viking, London, 1988.
Péczely Gy.: Éghajlattan (Climate Studies). Tankönyvkiadó, Budapest, 1979.
Sowards, S. W.: Moderne Geschichte des Balkans. Der Balkan im Zeitalter des Nationalismus. BoD, 2004.
Stavrianos, L.: The Balkans Since 1453. NY University Press, 1958.
Székely A.: Az ezerarcú Balkán-félsziget (The Thousand-faced Balkan Peninsula). In: Marosi S.–Sárfalvi B. (Eds.): Európa Vol. I. Gondolat Kiadó, Budapest, 1968.
1
By “general circulation” of the atmosphere the entire complex system of air flow over the Globe is to be understood, including the trade winds, and the tracks of cyclones and anticyclones, etc.
2
Székely, A.: Az ezerarcú Balkán-félsziget (The Thousand Faced Balkan Peninsula) In: Marosi, S.–Sárfalvi, B. (Eds.): Európa. Vol. I., Gondolat Kiadó, Budapest, 1968.
3
Norwich, J. J.: Byzantium: The Early Centuries. Viking, London, 1988.
Begegnungen28_Antal
Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 28:153–171.
ISTVÁN ANTAL
Road Transport of the Southeast European Region
Hungarian Linkages and Effects
When one wishes to obtain an overview of the road transport of a region, a country or a territory, the following questions emerge:
– How big is the territory of the region under survey? How big is its population and where are the country borders?
– What natural conditions and obstacles (rivers, mountains, and seas) are to be considered?
– Where are the territorial foci of industry and agriculture, and how are they served by transport (ports, logistics centres)?
– What is the present structure and condition of the road network, how is it supplied by speedways?
– How big is its supply with vehicles (passenger cars and lorries)?
– How significant is road traffic and tourism, and to what extent is the capacity of roads used?
– Where are the critical elements of the road network?
– What are its linkages with Hungary like?
When studying the Balkan region each of the questions listed above is particularly important. When this paper is being written Montenegro (Crna Gora) is becoming independent. It was formerly part of Yugoslavia and most recently of Serbia and Montenegro. The international recognition of the new state is in progress, and Serbia has already established diplomatic relations with Montenegro. Such a change influences a major part of the above list; it rearranges data, and encourages the reconsideration of the problem. The present writing contains the joint data of Serbia and Montenegro (in the following this would not be mentioned again), and this paper may be regarded as the summary of the situation evolved in a previous period, and a next writing of similar structure may discuss the changed situation in the future.
On Map 1 the countries of the region are presented with their population (given in thousand persons). These are particularly important figures because subsequently specific indicators will often appear and the data given here are used for them (source: Eurostat). The countries were classified into five groups by the number of their inhabitants. The almost 72 million inhabitants of Turkey are uniquely numerous, and in case of its planned Union membership only Germany would be bigger (calculated with the present population statistics), which would also ensure significant influence for that country in an enlarged Union. This is one of the reasons why the member countries of the European Union prescribe a well-considered accession process for Turkey as a precondition of membership. Romania with its almost 22 million inhabitants is the second most populous country of the region. The population of four countries including Hungary is between 5 and 11 million, followed by four countries of 2 to 5 million inhabitants. Finally, the population of Slovenia is under 2 million.
Map 2 shows public roads of the countries of the region maintained by the state. It is interesting to note that some countries (including Hungary) keep a relatively lengthy network under state control, whereas other countries (Romania, Bulgaria, Greece) have relatively little network length in state management. The unambiguous assessment is somewhat disturbed by the fact that there are roads maintained by local governments in these countries, too, the operation and financing of which hardly differ from those under state control.
The length of speedways (Map 3) is somewhat more unambiguous than that of the state public roads. It should be kept in mind, however, that the different countries do not build motorways according to the same ’standard’, and do not interpret the meaning of motorways and motor roads the same way as Hungary does. We have found 2x2 lane roads that were broadened locally by rebuilding the old 2x1 lane road, thus there is no parallel road of mixed traffic, and the slow and animal- drawn vehicles cannot be prohibited from its use, whereas it figures as a motor road on the maps (and in statistics) though the respective traffic sign of the motor road is not put there. Such types of roads are being built for instance, in Romania. Slovenia and Croatia follow different principles. In addition to the praiseworthy motorways they build motor roads that follow a separate track, the sign of motor road is affixed but the track is a 2x1 lane one, and it is not easier or less dangerous to overtake on mountainous roads than in a road of mixed traffic, no hard shoulder is built (and if at all, it is only 1 m wide), but the road junctions are at separate levels. The construction corresponds almost completely to that of the ’semi-motorway’ we built earlier, but the flyovers are not built in full width there, the massive earthwork was not done, therefore if it has to be broadened into a motorway later on, it will mean significant additional cost as well as large-scale disturbance of the traffic.
Map 4 shows the specific density of speedways of the countries under survey. Slovenia and Croatia are prominent with their good supply of speedways; they are followed by Hungary, Greece and Macedonia. The supply of speedways is conspicuously low in Romania and Albania, the plans for the southern and north Transylvanian motorways, if built, would greatly improve the transport situation of Romania. The marine motorway coming from the direction of Croatia and traversing Montenegro would reach Albania and progress further towards Greece. There is no speedway in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
It is important to know how big the stock of vehicles is that would like to use the roads. This can be best presented as a specific supply data as it is shown on Map 5. The supply with passenger cars (passenger cars/one thousand inhabitants) is particularly high in Slovenia, though it should be noted that this is true only in comparison to the countries of the region under survey, because in the more developed countries of Europe indicators above 500 cars/thousand inhabitants can be found. The indicators of Greece, Bulgaria, Croatia and Hungary are medium ones; Romania and Turkey have reached a low level of supply. Some countries do not publish their data, some years (or decades?) ago these data were not entirely public in our country either.
The supply with lorries (lorry/thousand passengers) is more important than that of the passenger cars from the angle of the use and deterioration of the roads. The respective figures are given on Map 6. It is surprising that the supply with lorries is relatively low in Slovenia and Croatia, these countries do not perform large international cargo transport. At the same time the high supply of lorries is remarkable in Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey (and to a lesser extent even in Romania). It is known about these countries that they offer significant international road transport services. Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey (and Croatia) are candidate countries of the European Union. When they become members their lorries would appear in far greater numbers on the Hungarian road network. If this takes place without preparations our road network, which is not of a very good quality would be exposed to a further process of deterioration.
Map 7 shows the traffic on the European roads. Its dimension is the average daily traffic per day. The centres of the West European development regions can be clearly seen, but the vicinity of the big cities (Paris, Madrid, Moscow, and even Vienna and Budapest) can also be observed. It may be noted that there is far less traffic in the Balkans than in the West European countries. A definite shift of traffic, however, can be observed towards the east, which is justified by the growing traffic load on the international highways of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia. In fact, the historical steps of expanding the European road network also mean the inclusion of the Central and East European countries into ’Western’ trade, reflected in an adequate road network. The eastern terminal points of the road network in Europe are at the north-western borders of China. Consequently, we have to prepare for rapidly growing cargo traffic at the eastern and southern borders of Hungary in the form of traffic coming from the Balkans and Ukraine, and regarding Hungary only partially as its target country but rather as transit country towards the west and northwest.
Public road tourism is an important component of a country’s road traffic. It should be added that public roads play a leading role in the distribution of the total of tourism by vehicle, in Hungary this is between 90 to 92%. Therefore, when one speaks about tourism it is practically about public road tourism. In order to call a foreigner ’tourist’ he/she has to meet two preconditions simultaneously: he/she has to arrive in the country with tourism as the purpose of his/her visit (and cannot be an employee there), and should spend at least 24 hours of his/her visit in the country. Settlers (not transitory), for instance, and those on excursions are excluded. The latter group does not spend 24 hours in the country of visit; therefore it cannot be regarded as a tourist unit. This is important to know, for two kinds of statistics are usually published. One gives the number of those who cross the borders (border statistics), and the other one is statistics of accommodation (hotel statistics) stating the number of tourists, for the tourists have to use some kind of accommodation during 24 hours and spend money in other ways, too, in the country they visit. Hungary has a very large visitor (border) turnover which is mostly due to its Central European (transit) location, to visits of relatives of Hungarians living beyond the borders of the country (visiting relatives as well as shopping equally qualify as tourism), border crossers commuting to the other country to work in both directions (see: Sopron, Győr–Vámosszabadi, Komárom, Esztergom, Balassagyarmat). The disadvantage of the location, size and little tourist attraction (no sea coast and its architectural heritage are also limited) is that most people just travel through the country, or return to their country of origin after a brief, one-day visit. Therefore tourist traffic is relatively low, and, consequently, foreigners spend little here.
On Map 8 the number of tourists was indicated in the Balkan region. Let us see Hungary first as a basis of comparison. The number of foreigners entering the country is around 35 million each year. This offers a very eminent position in the list of countries; we are at about the 10th– 15th place, only countries of classical tourist attraction (France, Italy, etc.) precede us. Only a small part of these visitors, however, are tourists: about 3 million people (Map 8), which is less than 10%. Romania and Bulgaria have similar tourist potential in the region. The great tourist powers of the region are Croatia, Turkey and Greece.
With Maps 5, 6 and 7 we tried to orient attention to the forecasted process which is manifest in the form of the significant vehicle transport expected from the countries of the Balkan region. This process has already begun. Maps 9 and 10 present the traffic of foreign vehicles in Hungary. The dimension of the size of traffic is the average traffic/day; therefore this traffic can be directly compared to the data of the domestic traffic counts. Map 9 gives the total traffic, whereas Map 10 indicates lorry traffic. It can be clearly seen on Map 9 that only Transdanubia (Lake Balaton) has actual tourist traffic besides Budapest. The traffic flows crossing the country can be seen; they mostly show a northwest-southeast direction. This is even more manifest on the map of lorry traffic. This illustration shows the traces of an almost exclusively transit traffic. Border crossing points of the largest traffic are: Hegyeshalom– Rajka–Vámosszabadi–Sopron, and Ártánd–Gyula–Nagylak–Röszke. These maps present the traffic of 2004, therefore it cannot be sensed as yet that a north-south tourist (cargo) traffic corridor has developed through Hungary which uses primarily the roads Nos. 15–86, using the border crossing points at Rajka (and partly Vámosszabadi)–Rédics.
Part of this traffic goes towards Italy, and another part towards the sea ports in Istria (Trieste, Pula, Rijeka and partly Koper). This is a critical point of the road network of the Balkan region. All of these ports can be well approached by railway and recently also by road. Trieste and Koper can be reached from Slovenia on a speedway, the largest part of the motor road between Pula and Koper (2x1 lane) is completed, and when this article was written the segment between Umag and Koper as well as the one avoiding Pula were missing. The Rijeka–Pula segment was completed with the exception of the segment mentioned above, and the Rijeka–Trieste segment on the Croat side is ready up to the Slovene border.
What is missing from this north-south route is the speedway connection not yet built in Hungary. The M70 motor road was built from Letenye to Tornyiszentmiklós in Hungary, but its continuation on the Slovene side is missing. A single short segment (of about 10 km) was built from Muraszombat towards Maribor. The opening of the segment between Muraszombat and Tornyiszentmiklós is planned for the period after 2010. It would be desirable to bring it to an earlier date in the interest of the undisturbed flow of traffic.
The Balkan region contains several other critical segments of roads. Such an issue is the building of bridges over the Danube between Romania and Bulgaria, the north-south connection in Bulgaria, the Greek-Bulgarian-Turkish connection, the planned Croat-Albanian-Greek motorway; the question of further crossing points at the Bosphorus, and problems awaiting solution could be listed at length.
One has to deal with the question of connections and linkages in Hungary, too. Previously this issue has been touched upon in relation to Maps 11–12. It was mentioned that the M70 motor road was built towards Slovenia. In order to discuss our connections with the other Southeast European countries Map 13 should be viewed.
On Map 13 the speedway road network emerging in 2015 is visible. It is prescribed by a government decree (Govt. Decree No. 2044/2003. [III.14.]), and subsequently it was confirmed by an Act (Act CXXVIII. of 2003). A speedway linkage would be developed in two places towards Croatia. The track leading to the border crossing point is completed at Letenye, but the Mura-bridge is missing on both sides. Its construction has begun. The other linkage point on the Hungarian side is the M6– M56 speedway, and on the Croat side it will be the motor road branching off from the Zagreb–Belgrade speedway at Donji Andrijevci and touching Osijek, the border linkage point of which has been approved by the two parties involved at Kislippó, Ivándárda–Branjin Vrh. The M5 motorway leads towards Serbia, its border linkage has been completed, and its continued route on the Serbian side is also ensured by the speedway along Horgoš, Subotica, Novi Sad and Belgrade. Three speedways are linked in the direction of Romania.
The M43 motorway reaches the border in the region of Nagylak– Csanádpalota, and the south Transylvanian motorway would join it (Map 14). Its planning and the preparations for construction are in progress, though presumably its building will not begin with the completion of segments near the border. No continuation of the M44 motor road leading out to Gyula is planned in Romania. Map 15 was designed by the Romanian road authority of Bihar County for the approval of the border crossing point, which was accepted by both parties involved in the region of Nagykereki. The north Transylvanian motorway would join in here (Map 15). These speedways correspond to the road network of Europe deemed desirable by the European Union which was mentioned earlier under the Helsinki and TINA corridors, and today they are parts of the TEN road network (European roads).
Begegnungen27_Tabajdi
Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 27:65–77.
CSABA TABAJDI
The Western Balkans and the European Union Today
Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Ferenc Glatz has accomplished what the political elite had not been able to achieve in years gone by: irrespective of governments he established the Centre for Balkan Studies. In the European Parliament in Brussels the general view is that Hungary and the Hungarian political elite are objectively and without bias acquainted with the Western Balkan region. Expertise about the Balkans is not just anticipated but expected from Hungary. Currently Hungary – compared to the other Member States, expect Austria – still has an enormous comparative advantage in this respect but with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria it could be decreased. Time is pressing Hungary in every respect, regarding bilateral relations as well as taking up roles within the European Union. Unfortunately the Hungarian political elite have not recognised that in Hungary’s direct neighbourhood, in Serbia-Montenegro such status issues have been waiting for a positive solution which would determine the region’s stability and ensure Hungarian–Serbian relations. Such a solution could also have a dramatic effect on the fate and future of the Hungarians in Vojvodina. Among others this was the reason why I had undertaken the function of co-rapporteur which means that I have to harmonise the various opinions among the European Socialists and to coordinate the work of other parties’ authorised persons in an issue where the European Union does not express a point of view.
The Balkans and Central Europe
Not long ago an excellent article by Béla Kádár1 was published in the Hungarian newspaper Népszabadság where he formulated the essence of this matter: Hungary could have an important mediating role to play between South-Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans, which was earlier played by Austria with regard to Central Europe. Hungary has to be prepared for this role in every respect. As far as the intellectual preparation is concerned the Centre for Balkan Studies has a role that cannot be substituted by anything.
Béla Kádár calculated that an operating capital of 2.5 thousand million dollars2 has flown into the region. Of course he did not restrict this figure to the ’Western Balkans’ of the EU terminology but referred to the wider historical region considered by historians as South-Eastern Europe. In EU parlance Romania and Bulgaria are no longer part of the Western Balkans for they are considered almost as Member States.3
Croatia is classified as part of the Western Balkans in the EU, though historians regard it as belonging rather to Central Europe than to South-Eastern Europe or the Balkans in many respects. Slovenia, until not so long ago, understandably did not want to acknowledge that it had anything to do with this region. Slovenian diplomacy and Slovenian politics in general, with the exception of economic expansion, has kept a low profile in taking up a role in the region. Slovenia behaves as if it had never been part of a formation called Yugoslavia. Recently there has been some change as demonstrated by the opinion expressed by the Slovenian President Janez Drnovšek concerning the status of Kosovo.4 The Slovenian members of the European Parliament are becoming increasingly active in issues related to the Western Balkans, which in many cases provokes the jealousy of the representatives of the older Member States. Existing and well functioning positions have been ’endangered’.
The Initiating Role
Why must Hungary take up an initiating role in the Western Balkan region? A number of reasons could be mentioned in addition to those that have been quoted from Béla Kádár. The initiator’s role is necessary because the Member States have not understood adequately this region nor did they understand the region’s specified problems such as the issue of minorities. This is why Hungary has to take a prominent role in the solution of the status question and other issues, too, for the situation of this region affects most directly the security of our country.
It is well-known that the European Union does not have a system for protecting minorities. Minority protection is not part of the acquis communautaire. The expression ’national minority’ does not even figure in any official document of legal validity. There are guidelines prohibiting discrimination but that is by far not enough. The EU does not have an operating system for protecting minorities, no standards, no norms, and it has no proper monitoring system either, whilst the Council of Europe has two multilateral agreements of international validity, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities5 and the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages6. The EU has a certain role of control up to the date of accession that is most evident in the annual reports. They had a rather positive effect on the situation of minorities in the ten countries that have acceded recently and in a certain sense on the situation of minorities in Romania and Bulgaria, as well. After these Member States become part of the EU there are fewer opportunities for monitoring and control, as shown by the example of Slovakia and probably in the case of Romania, too.
This is the reason why Hungary has to play an initiating role, it must help resolve the minority issues by forwarding ideas, recommendations and experience. The European Union employs a dual, or even a multiple standard. After the Albanians started an armed revolt and essentially a veritable civil war in Macedonia, which had been repercussioned in France, where the existence of national minorities is not acknowledged in any form and in the Quai d’Orsay concepts of territorial and administrative autonomies were feverishly elaborated. The Albanians fighting in Macedonia were given a remarkably broad autonomy, whereas the autonomy of the Land of the Szeklers is a topic that is not even on the agenda of any organisation of the European Union; to such an extent that recently the Romanian lobby has succeeded in removing the concept of ’self-governance’ from the report of the European Parliament. They did not guess that they were going to get the worst of it for upon a liberal recommendation the expression of cultural autonomy was included in the text, which is historically unprecedented because the word ’autonomy’ only appeared for the first time in a document of the European Union and in any Union document for that matter in relation to Romania, even if it was ’only’ concerning cultural autonomy.
Let us take another example: Kosovo versus Vojvodina. Milošević had taken away the status of autonomy from both. The independence of Kosovo is approaching even if not finalised, is recognised by the United States of America and Great Britain who have already assured their support to Kosovo’s independence, while in the case of Vojvodina autonomy cannot even be suggested. Hard struggles have to be fought so that the autonomy of Vojvodina may come once again into existence as an acquired minority right.
Through these examples I intended to indicate that the practice of the European Union, including the European Parliament is not consistent, and it does not acknowledge the lack of a unified system of norms. Therefore the Hungarian political and intellectual elite have an enormous responsibility in the steps they take and what solutions they suggest particularly in the case of Kosovo, but also concerning the less complicated case of Montenegro.
The EU and the Enlargements
Apart form the role of Hungary, I would hereby like to briefly describe the relationship between the European Union and the Western Balkan region. An ambiguous openness characterises the attitude of the EU, whilst we can observe a protracted immaturity and insufficient preparedness for the EU in the Western Balkans.
At the Thessalonica summit of 2003 the EU opened up toward the Western Balkans. The countries of the region with a population of 20 million – according to EU terminology, excluding Romania and Bulgaria – i.e. Croatia7, Serbia-Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania have been waiting for EU membership. The European Union, however, is not in the condition to admit these countries. It is not a secret to anyone – and it is the greatest dilemma – that in order to achieve consolidation and stabilisation in these countries there is only one efficient tool8: the Union and the possibility of accession to it. The political elite of the Western Balkans have also realised that there has been a closing process, an ’enlargement fatigue’ or expansion exhaustion in the EU. Therefore the realistic date of the accession of these states is doubtful: will it be in 2010, 2014 or 2015? It is not predictable as yet for the entire process is influenced by the issue of the accession of Turkey. There are a lot of problems, which results in the EU being ill-equipped for the task at hand. It is not prepared at economic level, as demonstrated by the fact that it was unable to properly finance the accession of the ten new Member States; the EU saved 2.5 thousand million Euros on the 2004 enlargement. During the bargaining about the financial elements of 2007–2013 it could be seen that the net payers were not willing to finance more. The entire EU is proceeding towards re-nationalisation, or, in other words, the global race with the USA, Japan, India and China is envisaged less in a framework of the EU. Planning is increasingly shifting to national dimensions. There are no funds for such measures as the Lisbon Strategy, the joint development of R&D, without which the EU as a whole cannot be competitive in the global race. The new Member States are heavily hit by the fact that only the free movement of capital and goods have been realised of the four freedoms but neither the free movement of services nor that of labour has been allowed. In issues that could make the European Union dynamic, like the freedom of services and the free flow of labour, most of the old Member States show a tendency of national introversion and have not moved towards Community solutions. The EU shows crisis phenomena, but the correct wording would be that the EU is in a deep economic, political and identity crisis. Identity crisis means that the EU does not advance towards a closer community but toward re-nationalisation and to the direction of national introspection.
The European Union has not been able to digest the latest enlargement by ten countries because it was not prepared for it. The ten new Member States were far more prepared for the EU accession than the fifteen old Member States. The fifteen states had not prepared their public and it was reflected in the results of the Dutch and French referendum on the European draft constitution. The general public of the fifteen countries is entirely under-informed as it can regularly be experienced even in the European Parliament. The ten new Member States can really consider themselves as veritable minorities in the EU.
On the part of the European Union, verbally there is openness for the integration of the Western Balkan region but at the same time prior to the accession of Croatia we have to wrestle with problems9. The EU can manage 27 countries but it is incapable of handling further enlargement. Therefore the institutional reform is necessary by all means. It is to be noted that the integration of Croatia would not require serious means and funds. It is ever more frequently heard in the corridors of the European Union institutions as well as in the plenary meetings of the European Parliament from leading personalities that Croatia is already more prepared than either Romania or Bulgaria. For us it is not surprising, for, as Hungarians we are eminently familiar with the realities of Croatia as well as of Romania and Bulgaria. In Brussels, however, those who know less about the region have just started to realise that Croatia is in fact more mature and ready for integration than Romania and Bulgaria.
Integration Maturity
From an institutional point of view the Western Balkans have been brought closer to the European Union during the last six months. In October 2005 the European Council has made a decision about initiating the accession negotiations with Croatia and in December the European Council gave the candidate for membership status to Macedonia10. In November 2005 negotiations about the Stability Pact and on an Association Treaty were initiated simultaneously with Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia. This process was started with Albania in 2003, but that state is the most backward in many respects in the entire region. The assessment of Albania is the most negative in the European decision-making organisations because its political elite constantly makes promises of reforms, but realises hardly any of them. Almost everywhere in the Western Balkans the indicators of poverty and unemployment are very stark. Unemployment is a great problem in the countries of the region with the exception of Croatia but in Macedonia and Bosnia the unemployment rate reaches 40% and in Serbia 30%. About 30 to 40% of the population lives under the poverty line. This is an enormous problem and it is even more painful to the middle and older generation. As far as the obverse of the coin is concerned, these countries, again with the exception of Croatia, have not reached a satisfactory level of integration maturity.
There is another country considered by the EU as an example and that is Macedonia. Among others because there the minority conflicts between Albanians and Macedonians could be solved in a relatively sophisticated manner. It is true that a lot of people do not consider historical trends that show that within thirty years Albanians will become the majority also in Macedonia due to their demographic conditions. My experience is that the European decision makers do not sense the entire Albanian issue in its own weight and depth.
Once there was an Atlantis. Currently the Western Balkans is the Atlantis of the European continent. Just consider where Yugoslavia has come from?! The younger generation most likely does not even know what the freedom of speech and freedom of the press had meant in Yugoslavia to the previous generations. They had passports valid all over the world! Today, however, they are locked out of the outside world by compulsory visas. Fortunately, the European Union has started to realise that it is a serious source of tension that 70% of the youngsters in Serbia have never crossed the border. Earlier the freedom of travelling, getting acquainted with the world were considered to be the great opportunities in Yugoslavia. In fact the situation of the Hungarians in Vojvodina, in Subotica clarified the problem to us. It is not enough that in Yugoslavia under Tito there had been an exemplary minority policy compared to the actual one where they had to and still have to experience the great Serbian nationalism of Milošević, but in addition they have ’slipped low’ economically and in almost all other fields compared to the life they had in Yugoslavia in the 1970s in comparison with other countries of the region. It is not accidental that nationalism has gained such great scope in Serbia and in the Western Balkans. The Westerners handle it in a simplified way. They do not see that if Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union broke up there would be not only the building of a state taking place but also the building of a nation. Even in the case of Slovenia which has never been an independent state during its history for it had always been included in some other country’s framework. Also the Baltic countries were independent only for a rather short period between the two world wars. Within these new states there has been nation-building in progress. It is not the same task as it was after 1990–1991, when the Soviet army left Hungary and Poland where a national, sovereign foreign policy and independent national institutions had to be re-established. It did not have the same weight and difficulty as in those countries where the nation itself has to be built. However, that does not mean that their nationalism should be handled more leniently! It is worth analysing the Slovenian-Croatian relationship from the side of Slovenia. The elements of nation-building also play a role here. It would also be useful to develop a subtler picture in respect of nation-building and nationalism. Hungarian learning and politics can be of a great help here in pinpointing the significant differences among nationalisms. The main difference lies in what the particular country’s political system is like, how far the political elite are capable and willing to use nationalism as a tool in order to legitimise themselves. There is an enormous difference in this sense, too, for instance between Slovenia and Serbia.
This region is not only the powder keg of nationalist wars and the land of poverty where 30 to 40% of the population live under the poverty threshold but there is also a workforce of several millions of well trained and widely travelled people. This is a very significant factor. Also the older and middle aged generations have experienced Tito’s self-governance. In many respects that self-governance was decentralised and it was a model corresponding in several aspects to the current subsidiarity. In addition this region is also a market of 20 million people.
In one of his presentations university lecturer József Juhász mentioned that after the settlement of status problems it is not going to be more difficult for the EU to integrate the Western Balkan region of 20 million inhabitants than to integrate Romania and Bulgaria. In Romania the ratio of agricultural employees is 40% and poverty has very deep pockets there, particularly among the several million Roma. In fact the EU has no idea how big the burden is that it is taking on.
The Regional Approach
The European Union justly considers the Western Balkans as a sub-region but at the same time its policy unfortunately lacks a complex regional approach. Hungarian politics and learning could play a role in this, too. The EU has understood that for instance Bosnia-Herzegovina cannot be handled separately from Kosovo and not only because the Albanian minority is practically present everywhere. Once in the past Yugoslavia was a single, integrated market which had fallen apart. In many respects we, Hungarians lived through something similar after the Trianon Treaty, therefore we can sympathise more with the recent Trianon of the Serbs, even if it was caused by Milošević to the Serb nation. NATO bombings together with the loss of Kosovo may cause grave deformation and a lasting sense of grievance in the Serb national consciousness.
Two concrete facts show that the EU has shifted towards a regional approach. On the one hand the EU proposes the establishment of a free trade zone. Expert opinion is divided about how far it is feasible. Some see only a limited commercial liberalisation possible. Others think in terms of a structure like CEFTA, or even of the expansion of CEFTA. The logic behind the initiative would be that the EU should coerce these disintegrated countries to co-operate among themselves, in the interest of integration.
The other initiative is removing restrictions on free movement. If the Schengen visa system remains in force for the countries of this region it would mean a permanent source of tension. It would be a particularly great problem for Hungary. The Hungarian government has very rightly opposed the increase of the Schengen visa fees because it has a contrary effect to those EU endeavours that intend to release the region from its isolation.
The key to the stability of the entire region is the future of the neighbouring Serbia-Montenegro. Currently it happens to be the greatest security risk. In this sense Hungary is most concerned, at the same time the Greeks are becoming increasingly active and that means a serious challenge to us. If we fail to act, our comparative advantages will not be exploited and we will not be able to guide the ideas of the international settlement in a direction beneficial to Hungary. It is thought-provoking that there was not any Hungarian diplomat or Hungarian expert advisor around Martti Ahtisaari UN representative in Kosovo!
The Status of Kosovo
As far as the status issues and first of all the problem of Kosovo is concerned the Serbian political elite is fully aware of the loss of Kosovo. Keeping Kosovo within Serbia is impossible and meaningless for it would only be an ongoing burden to them. This is precisely known by the Serbian political elite. At the same time there is not enough courage either in the Serbian political elite or the political parties to state this for if anybody made any allowances, he may not be able to play a meaningful political role in Serbia for decades. Currently it is total stalemate. Serbian politics would provide the widest possible autonomy short of independence, but the Albanians in Kosovo can only be reconciled with independence.
Within the community of nations there are only two countries that unanimously did and still stand by the Albanians in Kosovo and they are the United States and Great Britain. The other members of the so-called contact group: France, Germany, Italy and Russia have begun to realise that the Security Council decision made in this case has been ill-conceived in many respects, namely, because it excluded the possibility of partitioning the region right from the outset. Serbia has lost Kosovo demographically as well as politically by all means. The question is whether the community of nations is able to and willing to provide some kind of compensation for the Serbs in exchange for declaring the independence of Kosovo, or the role of a victim will become permanent for the Serbs. No conflict settlement plan is acceptable where the Albanians are the winners and the Serbs are the losers. It is not possible just to reward one side and punish the other. Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to find a solution for the Serbs who could be best compensated by a Republika Srbska. The community of nations, however, cannot justly agree to it since it would cause the disintegration of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Recently I was greatly shocked by a discussion with Albert Rohan, the deputy to Ahtisaari. During this discussion, as a Hungarian, I felt as if a country has just been sliced up in front of me. Nobody thought that they wanted to create a unit which has never existed in international law. Nobody thought that in terms of the Paris and Versailles peace systems this would be the first such border modification where the internal and external borders would be changed simultaneously. During the disintegration of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union the external and internal borders of the republic that had been internationally acknowledged had remained the same everywhere. In the case of Kosovo the external as well as the internal borders would change. My unambiguous stand is that there is no other permanent solution but partition: the partition and exchange of the territories of Presovo-Nitrova and further exchanges of the population. Whoever believes that the Serbian minority permanently and peacefully could stay in Kosovo has not got the slightest idea about realities. With some slight exaggeration it can be said that the Romanian-Hungarian relations are those of affection and love compared to the Albanian-Serb ones. It is interesting to look at the example of Belgium where for 125 years the Walloons and the Flemish have been forced into a form of state which has not been accepted internally, although there is wealth, democracy and federalism. Yet if one of the headquarters of the European Union, Brussels was not on Flemish territory they would have got separated long ago. At the moment they cannot solve the split among others because of the seat of the EU there.
My opinion is that in the case of Kosovo an exchange of territory, a fair partition of Kosovo and the exchange of population could be the basis of a lasting settlement. Perhaps one hundred thousand Serbs could still continue to live there during the period of settlement, but they would flee the country in a couple of years. Characteristically this does not engage the attention of the community of nations but we, Hungarians should have great interest in the solution of this question. Serbs that run away will mainly settle in Vojvodina. It has become obvious by now that the violations of lawful rights in Vojvodina were mainly the consequences of the nationalist and anti-minority impatience of the people just settled in. The fate of Hungarians in Vojvodina could be sealed. An ill-conceived settlement in Kosovo could enhance a sense of permanent grievance and it could cause the Serbs to become hysterical in a sense that István Bibó described in his works. The Western ’stage managers’ may rightly say that all this was caused by Milošević, yet hurt Serbian national feeling would be continuously frustrated – I presume that it does not need further explanation to Hungarians – and would push the Serbs to a similar orbit as the Hungarians had been pushed to by the Treaty of Trianon for almost a century. Therefore Hungary has to represent a very resolute stand concerning this issue. It is inadmissible that a solution should be reached to the detriment of Serbs, that the Serbs may become radicalised and extremists would be strengthened having already represented the most powerful party for a long time as public opinion polls show. Under such circumstances the radicalisation of the Serb political elite would seriously imperil the only remaining significant minority, the Hungarians in Vojvodina. In addition there is already the question as to what the aim of the Serbian elite is with the violent acts against Hungarians in Vojvodina? Do they intend to chase them away from their native country? There is no irreconcilable confrontation between Hungary and Serbia; therefore political rationality would require the Serbian political elite to leave alone the Hungarians in Vojvodina since Hungary could help the most in restoring Serbia’s international prestige. I advised this to every Serbian politician but unfortunately Serbian politics have become ’autistic’. They do not require assistance any longer; its stand about the issue of Kosovo is so rigid, its alternative scenarios are missing to such an extent partly as a result of domestic political instability and partly of the divided nature of the political elite, that Serbia may get the worst of it not only because of the severity of the international community but also because of the behaviour of the Serbian political elite.
The stakes are very high regarding the fate of Kosovo. An ill-conceived settlement would permanently destabilise Serbia and the entire region. In all of this I see great danger. What could be its message? The Hungarians in Transylvania who have been fighting with peaceful means have not been able to achieve even territorial autonomy since the Treaty of Trianon and regarding cultural autonomy the Romanian political elite acts in an extremely hysterical manner. This also indicates the numerous tasks that are still to be done in international minority protection. Up to now we have been teaching the Council of Europe after 1990, should we now have to give seminars in minority matters to the European Union?! The great dilemma, however, is whether it is worth creating a new minority protection system in the EU, when there is already a good system for the protection of minorities in the Council of Europe? The problem is that the Council of Europe does not possess real international weight, whereas the European Union does, but it has no minority protection system. Could the two be connected? All of us know that rivalry between the institutions has always existed. As president of the Intergroup for Traditional Minorities, Constitutional Regions, and Regional Languages I have been working on to connect somehow the two institutions. The European Union actually needs to have a minority protection system.
If the EUFOR, the international forces would be withdrawn from Bosnia-Herzegovina presumably the state would survive but would not be self-propelled. Essentially, the two entities, the Bosnian-Croat and the Serb parts would live their own separate lives and there would not be as much of centralism as there has been in Serbia-Montenegro. The separation of Montenegro by the referendum can be considered as a fact. Then again the society of Montenegro is sharply divided. In addition the population of Montenegro has been over-represented in the state apparatus in Belgrade. The departure of these leaders could be a further source of tension. Montenegro might leave the federation but it will not cause such a great shock for the Serbs as the separation of Kosovo. If the loss of Kosovo is going to be close in time it could be a breeding ground again for Serb frustration and a policy of grievances.
The EU – as I mentioned earlier – regards Macedonia as an exemplary state because of the way it has solved the minority issues. Let me list some of Macedonia’s problems with its neighbours. Greece refuses to acknowledge the name of this state, Bulgaria challenges the existence of an autonomous Macedonian consciousness, and the Serb Orthodox clergy tries to obstruct the independence of the Macedonian Orthodox Church. The Kosovo-Albanian relations and the possible establishment of Great Albania threaten the existence of Macedonia. One of the greatest international challenges of the following decades is going to be to guarantee by an international agreement that Kosovo shall not unite with Albania.
I should mention a number of other aspects but I would rather highlight now the economic potentials. We have a lot to do at home as well as in Brussels in this field, and also in the field of bilateral relations. Bosnia-Herzegovina’s traditionally good relations with the Arab countries and with Arab investors, for instance, would be an enormous chance for Hungary. The extended commercial relations with Hungary could provide a break-away option for the Bosnians from the historically burdened foreign relations with Croatia and Serbia.
American capital has already appeared in Kosovo. The country has large reserves of mineral resources but capital inflow is obstructed by the unstable political situation. The state governance has been interwoven with organised crime and the safeguards of human rights are missing. Then again it is a positive sign that the economic-political elite have recognised that in order to assure the obtained possessions a strong state control is necessary.
We can conclude that Hungary is one of the most affected countries by the progresses of the West Balkans. The key of the stability in the whole region is the future of Serbia. This is the highest security risk at the same time. This is the biggest challenge not only for Hungary, but for Slovenia, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania as well. If we do not take the necessary measures, we will not be able to utilize our comparative advantage. It would be also desirable to increase our participation in the Western Balkans stabilization programs. Through this process, we could guide the development of Western Balkans and promote our national interests.
1
B. Kádár: Randevú a Balkánnal (Randevous with the Balkans), Népszabadság, 11 February 2006.