CIVIL Media had an interesting conversation with Gudrun Steinacker, former German ambassador and vice president of the Southeast European Association and board member of the Euronatur Foundation, about green policies on a global level, but primarily in the Western Balkans, about ideas, initiatives and their implementation, as well as the actual situation on the ground despite the promises of political elites.
Xhabir Deralla: Ambassador Steinacker, you’re one of the most engaged and most hard-working ambassadors, retired ambassadors that I know, particularly in the area of the green issues in the Western Balkan countries. Your engagement in the green issues in the Western Balkans and beyond, but particularly in this region, is accompanied with a number of issues.
Could you tell us a little bit more about your main activities, main initiatives, and what are the challenges in that respect?
Gudrun Steinacker: First of all, thank you very much for the compliment, for inviting me to this talk. I wouldn’t say that I’m one of the most engaged. There are certainly others who are more engaged.
But indeed, I see my position as Vice President of the Southeast Europe Association and a board member in the Foundation EuroNatur, both German organizations, as a possibility to promote the issue of a sustainable and green development and of preserving the unique, really unique, biodiversity in the Western Balkans.
And my main project still is the Ulcinj Salina, salt pans in Ulcinj, in Montenegro, at the border with Albania, which were almost destroyed. The salt production is still destroyed. We hope to renew it. But it is with the effort of local and national activists in Montenegro, and some of them are my friends now, and the Foundation EuroNatur, we managed to protect the Salina formally, and we hope also to reestablish the salt production.
CIVIL Media: We hear the political elites in the Western Balkans and also across the world, but speaking of the Western Balkans, we hear the political elites having their speeches full of green ideas, green initiatives, green promises, and so on.
But very little of that is actually happening in the field, because after some time we see that after the deliberations are made, after the promises are delivered, actually the political elites get in very close ties with the business. And the business doesn’t really care about the environment. The business doesn’t really care about climate changes.
All they’re interested in is quick profit, and how to turn the profit and how to make their wealth better and bigger, and become more powerful in the society so they can make even more money. So is my assessment all right, I mean correct, or is it maybe even worse in some sense?
Steinacker: I think the attitude and the practical politics of the elites in the Western Balkans is only reflecting what is coming from Europe and other states. We know about China’s activities, which don’t take into consideration sustainable development.
The EU has a Green Deal, but I doubt that it is a Green Deal. It will be a deal. And they are very keen now to use the resources of the Western Balkans, whether it is water, small water, hydropower plants. We know that they are very damaging for the biodiversity, raw materials, forests. And as the Western Balkan states are quite corrupt, very little of this is exposed or very little is done against it. But the problem for me is really the complicity, including the complicity of the EU.
Also there is this gap between nice talks, sustainability, as I said, Green Deal, and then the reality on the ground. And I do not want to mention it here now, and I’m a former German diplomat, so I do not want to directly attack the German government, but I’m very critical of what they are doing here in the region in this respect. And they do very often the opposite of what they preach. And this is hypocritical, a huge hypocrisy, I would say.
CIVIL Media: Yes. Well, obviously, it’s very easy to see how the Green Deal becomes only a deal, which you implied in your response, and thank you very much for that.
Now, I’d like to quickly move to the political security and political situation in the Western Balkans. You know what is going on, you’re highly informed, and you know quite many details of the past, of the present. And you probably have your views on what the perspectives of the Western Balkans are. But can you assess quickly the political situation of probably the most delicate country in the Western Balkans, the Bosnia-Herzegovina situation?
Steinacker: I was in Bosnia only once this year, in May. Yes, and indeed, I had some talks, but mostly with German representatives, including the ambassador and the head of the Goethe-Institut, who do try to do a good job there, but it is almost impossible. I think many see Bosnia-Herzegovina as a kind of failed state because the three ethnic groups are blocking each other. And we know that the elites, everybody knows it about Dodik and Ozecovic, are deeply involved in not only corruption, it’s going far beyond corruption, and this has such a negative impact, discouraging impact on the society. But I see the same kind of pessimism and, yes, helplessness.
Despair, maybe despair. Also with ordinary people here in this country. But Bosnia is very special and it’s very dear to my heart because it was a unique place with a unique life of different ethnic, religious groups together. Whether they were ethnically so different, that is also a question. But it’s highly interesting and I did some research as a student there and got to love it, although it was during the Yugoslav times and Yugoslavia was not just what we would call a liberal democracy, but still many things were possible, many more than in other communist countries. And when it collapsed under the attack, first of Serbia and then also of Croatia, I was very, very sad.
And you find still wonderful people, also a very engaged society, a civil society, particularly also in the field of nature conservation, protection. And I am not in a position to really change anything there, but I can support also morally and perhaps also with small projects all these fantastic activists who are fighting despite all the realities on the ground. And I think this is the hope and the positive attitude we need.
Only that will change this country. I have no hope for the political and even not for most of the business elites. And there are some good intellectuals, but in particular wonderful younger and not so young people who really fight on a daily basis that their forests are not cut illegally, that there is no illegal mining, although there is, that they do not continue to construct small hydropower plants, that they preserve the unique nature there.
But all of the Western Balkans have unique nature. This is really a treasure which you have. And it is very important now in these times of climate change. We need this. We know that biodiversity is, besides the climate crisis, the other big crisis we are facing. And yes, and the best we can do is to support the people who fight for this unique treasure we have in the heart of Europe.
There is a campaign by three NGOs, Bankwatch, Riverwatch and Euronatur, just with regard to the water, Save the Blue Heart of Europe. And this campaign is ongoing and it’s still a fight and it will probably be a fight for a long time. But that is also to show to those citizens who are, who resignate, that it is worthwhile to fight.
And we find in Bosnia a fact that is very important. Many such activities, initiatives, which work across the border, they do not see whether it’s Republika Srpska or the Federation, if it’s about their common goal, they are together. And the international community is not seeing this.
They do not, and they do not support it sufficiently. And if companies’ interests are concerned, they even try to fight it. And that is something I think we have to make public. That is something you, your organization can do. With Green Civil you do it already and please continue to do so. That is very important, making public what’s actually happening on the ground, but also giving hope to the people that you can fight injustice, and save the nature.
CIVIL Media: And that people can do a lot of things that can change their future.
Steinacker: Yes, and that their daily life now and the future.
CIVIL Media: That despair is not a response.
Steinacker: No, it’s not a solution.
CIVIL Media: The action is the solution.
Steinacker: Hope and fight is the solution.
CIVIL Media: Dear Ambassador, I am very grateful for your time and for your contribution, your participation to the conference on defending democracy and human rights here in Skopje, and for your ongoing commitment for the well-being of the Western Balkans democracy and the green future as well. Thank you very much indeed.
Steinacker: Thank you very much for inviting me.
Interview: Xhabir Deralla
Camera and editing: Arian Mehmeti
Transcription: Natasha Cvetkovska
