There's a link to the article from the LBO front page, <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html>.
Doug
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Summary
The war in Kosovo may become the final dreadful catharsis of the Balkan tragedy. The end of the second world war led to reconciliation and the institutions of the new European order (from Council of Europe to the EEC etc.). So now, after the latest Balkan war, definitive foundations for the inclusion of the region into the European civil order have to be conceived and negotiated. The design of these foundations should build on the fact that several states of the Balkan region or the former Yugoslavia are already on the road towards accession to the European Union. While many of the policies of the EU are or can be extended to neighbouring countries, the EU cannot simply open all its political institutions immediately to numerous more small states, especially those without tested experience in meeting European political norms.
Therefore a new political solution needs to be devised, to motivate the countries of the former Yugoslavia and Albania to converge on modern European norms, and to perceive, in relation to the EU, their own inclusion rather than exclusion. For this purpose new categories of EU membership are advocated, to which all states or regions of South-East Europe could aspire quite soon. The progressive inclusion of these states or regions in the policies and institutions of the EU is sketched out. The present EU enlargement negotiations would in no way be retarded, but elements of the "pre-accession" strategies would be extended to the former Yugoslavia and Albania so as to reduce the differentiation between them and the present accession candidates. The cost of a strategic initiative for these "5" states (Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, FYR Macedonia and FR Yugoslavia), on a similar scale to the cost of policies envisaged in Agenda 2000 for the accession candidates, would in normal circumstances be moderate (about 5 billion euro per annum), even supposing that all countries including FR Yugoslavia became eligible, since the region is small in economic terms. This would be well within the margin of available budgetary resources of the EU, following the European Council's Berlin agreement of Agenda 2000. However exceptional post-war reconstruction costs will raise the total bill substantially, calling for the combined resources of the international financial institutions as well as the EU.
NATO has been performing an indispensable task, deploying military force to try to stop the crimes against humanity. But as the military action ends the civilian order will have to be built up, and here the European Union must assume its responsibilities. Indeed the European Council adopted guidelines in this sense at its meeting on 14th April. The present paper offers a fresh set of ideas for a comprehensive strategic initiative by the EU, putting together economic, monetary, political, security and institutional components of a long-term system for post-war South-East Europe, which should see the region become fully integrated into the modern European order.