"I hope this is the first mission for the EU and the last for Macedonia." With this apt comment the Macedonian Prime Minister, Mr Branko Crvenkovski, welcomed the inauguration of the new 350-strong EUFOR peacekeeping force in his country yesterday.
This is indeed the EU's first such mission; taking over from NATO, it will be an exemplary operation in the development of EU policies to prevent conflict.
Unfortunately Ireland cannot participate in the operation because China vetoed the United Nations Security Council resolution endorsing it in 1999, on the grounds that the previous force had run its course and should not be renewed. The Government's "triple lock" policy adopted in the Seville Declaration on the Nice Treaty last year provided that any such participation must be expressly approved by the UN, the Government and the Dáil. The issue illustrates the difficulties arising from the current structure of the Security Council. Unless the Defence Act is to be changed again, Ireland can join such operations only if they are so approved.
If this is the last such mission for Macedonia it will copper-fasten what has been a highly constructive outcome of its conflict, which has involved relations with ex-Yugoslavia, other neighbouring states, NATO and the European Union. Macedonia was always thought to be the ultimate cauldron of the 1990s Balkan wars. Their direct impact was postponed into the first years of this century, when the Albanian minority in the west of the country, some 30 per cent of the two million population, was provoked into rebellion by the neighbouring Kosovo conflict and the NATO intervention there. It drew on resentments about ethnic prejudice and inequalities in the newly independent state.
Because of Macedonia's intimate relations with Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, containing a conflict there became a central priority for the EU's newly minted common foreign and security policy and a test case for its nascent military and peacekeeping roles. Macedonia has enabled NATO and the EU to work out their new relationship in practical as well as political terms. Agreement has now been reached on how EU peacekeeping forces can draw on NATO assets for this and future operations. This is a very small force, with troops from 27 countries under a French commander; but it will set the terms for a larger one in Bosnia next year, in which Ireland is expected to participate. Its work will be made much easier by the successful implementation of domestic reforms in Macedonia, which have convinced the Albanian minority it can be fairly treated.