Bloomberg
May 15, 2012
Two elections took place in the Balkans on May 6, and when historians look back, I think they’ll see a tipping point: The day Serbia ceded to Greece its place as the region’s most troublesome country.
In the late 1800s, Otto von Bismarck, famously said that the next war in Europe would begin because of some “damned foolish thing in the Balkans.” Of course, he was right. This year marks the centenary of the start of the Balkan Wars in 1912, pitting Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro against the Ottoman Empire. The conflict served as a prelude to World War I, triggered two years later when a Serb assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, in Sarajevo.
In a few years’ time, it may be conventional wisdom to say that the demise of the euro, or whatever else now lies ahead of Europe, was again sparked by some damned foolish thing in the Balkans. Only this time, war is unlikely and Serbia won’t be the culprit. That honor would go to mendacious Greek leaders, their statisticians and an election in which Greek voters put their country’s position in Europe at risk.
Serbia’s May 6 elections were also a milestone. In parliamentary and presidential votes, Serbs chose parties and candidates that, whatever their differences, overwhelmingly shared a vision of where the country should be heading: to European Union membership and continued economic reform.
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