FLASH
Shkruar nga Prof.dr. Skënder Asani
The Balkans today are like a bridge over an abyss, supported by three pillars: Dayton, the constitutional order of Kosovo, and the Ohrid Agreement. If one is broken, the bridge falls, and with it the architecture of peace. This is the last moment to choose between indifference that brings tragedy and action that protects stability. History does not forgive those who do not learn: the shadow of the '90s is knocking on our doors again.
The Balkans are once again entering a dangerous season, where the shadow of the past is trying to cover the present and future of the region. Through well-coordinated strategies, hegemonic projects, which once led to bloody disintegration in the former Yugoslavia, are being revived under the guise of the so-called “Serbian world”. From the paramilitary attack in Banjska, Kosovo, to the daily secessionist rhetoric in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to the sophisticated efforts to relativize the Ohrid Agreement in North Macedonia, a clear line of action is emerging: the opening of parallel crises to undermine the foundations of multiethnic states and destroy the architecture of Balkan stability.
The history of the 1990s is a living warning. Back then, delays in reaction, indifference and lack of international resolve were paid for with blood, genocide and biblical displacement of populations. Wars were not stopped by moral appeal, but only after the consequences had reached irreparable dimensions. Only after Dayton (1995), NATO's intervention in Kosovo (1999) and the Ohrid Agreement (2001) did the Balkans rise on three new, fragile but necessary pillars, on which the new peace order was established. Today, these three pillars are under synchronized attacks. Bosnia is threatened by rhetoric that prepares the ground for partition, Kosovo is faced with attempts to destabilize and delegitimize sovereignty, while in North Macedonia, the Ohrid Agreement is being challenged at its very core.
Belgrade’s latest rhetoric, presented as a warning of the “risk of war”, hides a sophisticated strategy to divert attention from internal crises and manipulate the regional political climate. After the obvious failures in Bosnia and Banjska, the focus has shifted towards North Macedonia, where the instrumentalization of internal divisions and anti-Albanian policies have become a means to eliminate the Albanian political entity that stems from the Ohrid Agreement. The success or failure of this project, according to the intensity of the investment of the master of the Serbian world and the manipulative rhetoric of the Macedonian prime minister, will directly depend on the outcome of the October local elections, which for Belgrade’s calculations have become a test for the future configuration of political balances in the region. This strategy, based on the narrative of fear and interethnic tensions, aims to carry the crisis towards Kosovo, Bosnia and beyond, creating ground for controlled destabilization that produces chaos and political dependence.
In this context, the Balkans should not be seen as a peripheral crisis, confined to the margins of the continent. It is an integral part of a global geopolitical picture. Russian aggression in Ukraine challenges the international order and the principle of sovereignty; the conflicts raging in the Middle East are consuming the attention of the great powers. It is precisely at this moment that strategic distraction, the project of the “Serbian world” seeks to advance. It is no coincidence that destabilizing scenarios in Kosovo, Bosnia and Macedonia are developing in parallel, following the same patterns: the use of paramilitaries, the attack on international agreements and the promotion of violent nationalist narratives.
The Ohrid Agreement is not an ordinary political document, but a fundamental contract on which peace was rebuilt, interethnic equality was guaranteed and the constitutional order of North Macedonia was restored. Any attempt to relativize or undo it is not an internal issue, but an attack on the architecture of Balkan stability. If this agreement falls apart, the consequences will not be limited to Skopje: they will spread like a domino effect throughout the region, risking that borders, identities and sovereignties will once again be contested with the language of violence.
This warning is preventive and strategic: only a unifying unity of Albanian subjects, stable, coherent and visionary, can neutralize these trends and prevent the realization of the announced projects. Only through this unity can the stability, peace and political equilibrium of the region be protected, the sovereignty and collective rights of the Albanian community be guaranteed, turning into complete failure any external attempt at fragmentation and destabilization. This is a preventive signal to those who believe that divisions and discord can produce control because history has proven that only the Albanian strategic unity is the one that determines the equilibrium of peace and limits any project that endangers the political architecture of the region.
The commonality of these three points of tension is clear: the constitutional order and the international agreements that built peace are at stake. If one of these pillars collapses - Dayton in Bosnia, Kosovo's sovereignty or the Ohrid Agreement - the entire bridge on which peace in the Balkans rests will collapse. And once the bridge falls, it collapses not just for one country, but for the entire region.
Therefore, this is not just an academic appeal, but an urgent call for preventive and coordinated action. The Balkans must not be allowed to become a hotbed of crisis once again, absorbing the energies of international diplomacy and consuming the blood of its peoples. Protecting the Ohrid Agreement, preserving the constitutional order of Kosovo, and guaranteeing the integrity of Bosnia are not local issues, but strategic interests of the European and international order. If these foundations collapse, Europe will face not only a regional crisis, but a new scourge of global geopolitics, where the forces of destabilization will have gained ground over peace.
The Balkans today are like a bridge over an abyss, supported by three pillars: Dayton, the constitutional order of Kosovo, and the Ohrid Agreement. If one is broken, the bridge falls, and with it the architecture of peace. This is the last moment to choose between indifference that brings tragedy and action that protects stability. History does not forgive those who do not learn: the shadow of the 1990s is knocking on our doors again. And this time, the response can be neither delayed nor half-hearted. The international factor must understand that any tolerance of destabilizing rhetoric is an investment in crisis, while the Albanian factor must read this moment as the historic task of strategic unity. Without this unity, any architecture of peace will remain fragile; with this unity, any external project for destabilization is destined to fail.
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