A balance sheet on the Kosovo war one year on, exposes its positive achievements and inconsistencies as well as the unresolved issues to which it gave rise. Conceived as a humanitarian intervention, it was carried out without express United Nations approval but widely supported as a means of protecting Kosovars from a Serbian campaign of ethnic cleansing. As usual in war, the outcome contained much that was unanticipated by political leaders and generals alike.
NATO's air attacks were originally intended to last only about a week but ended up going on for 78 days. The most dramatic outcome of the war was the flight of one million people from Kosovo to neighbouring states in fear of vicious attacks by Serb paramilitaries. They have now returned home. But 250,000 Serbs have fled from Kosovo in fear of revenge attacks. The man who provoked the war, Slobodan Milosevic, remains in power, still probing the weak points of Western sanctions, resisting attempts to remove him and by no means reconciled to the loss of Kosovo. Its political future remains quite uncertain between autonomy and independence. 38,000 UN-mandated troops under NATO command do their best to oversee reconstruction, resettlement and political normalisation. It will be a long haul.
The most ambitious approach to the conflict was taken by the European Union to include the region in European integration through a Stability Pact. It will channel aid and reconstruction as well as offering the hope of involving the Balkan region in the continent's future. EU leaders in Lisbon last night discussed a report from Mr Javier Solana and Mr Chris Patten criticising poor co-ordination between many international organisations, slow decision-making and the failure to mobilise sufficient funding to match the ambitious undertakings made.
The war has in fact stimulated what has become one of the most rapid policy evolutions in the EU's history - the creation of the rapid reaction force of 60,000 troops and a new political and military apparatus, using NATO resources but under the control of participating EU member-states. So much effort has been invested in these two major initiatives that they cannot be allowed to fail without major loss of credibility. The EU enlargement process is now recognised to apply to the Balkan region over the long term. But in the immediate future, Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia remain deeply affected by the war and inadequately compensated for its effects on their economies - most notably through the continued blocking of the Danube, the region's great waterway.
Combining short-term management with a longterm transformation of the region's political systems, remains a major challenge. Unless these commitments are delivered upon, the progressive vision of an inclusive Europe will be sadly eroded.