CAS SEE Seminars with Guests: Florian Bieber

Professor of Southeast European History and Politics and Director of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair in the Europeanisation of Southeastern Europe. Coordinator of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group (BiEPAG). He studied Political Science and History at Trinity College (USA), the University of Vienna, and Central European University (Budapest).

He has worked for the European Centre for Minority Issues and taught at Kent University (UK). Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program at CEU. Visiting Fellow at the LSE and New York University, and has held the Luigi Einaudi Chair at Cornell University. Recent publications include Debating Nationalism (Bloomsbury 2020), The Rise of Authoritarianism in the Western Balkans (Palgrave 2020), and Negotiating Unity and Diversity in the European Union (Palgrave 2021, with Roland Bieber).

For over ten years, the EU has been leading a dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo with the goal to prevent conflict and integrate both in the EU. Yet, both countries remain far apart from resolving open questions. Serbia does not appear close to recognizing the independence of Kosovo.

In addition, tensions have been flaring up between the two. This has led to regular escalations over license plates, the status of Kosovo Serbs and other questions that threaten to escalate to violence. What explains the limited success of the EU in its mediation and why has the dialogue come to a standstill after the early successes with the Brussels Agreement 2013?

This lecture will explore the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia. We will also discuss why it has not yet led to the normalization of relations between the two countries. This will shed light not just on the relations between the two countries, but the larger geopolitical context, as well as EU leverage in the Western Balkans and the state of democracy in the region.