"We are three countries that emerged from the former Yugoslavia - countries that are now in transition and must cooperate with each other, because our economies depend on each other"
About this Quote
A tidy sentence doing the hard work of history: Mesic frames post-Yugoslav reality as less a romantic breakup than a shared mortgage. By calling the new states "in transition", he borrows the soft, technocratic language of European integration to launder a far messier truth: these countries were violently disentangled, and the political temptation is to keep performing separation even when supply chains, labor markets, and infrastructure refuse to cooperate.
The phrase "must cooperate" is the tell. It pretends to be economic common sense, but it is also a moral demand smuggled in as pragmatism. Mesic is sidestepping the emotional minefield of nationalism by arguing from necessity: you can hate your neighbor, but you still need their port, their rail line, their consumers, their energy routes. Interdependence becomes the quiet antidote to the region's favorite political drug: grievance.
"Three countries" is strategic narrowing. The former Yugoslavia produced more than three successor states, but Mesic is likely invoking the most tightly knotted economic triangle in the northwestern Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, depending on the moment). It's a way of keeping the argument concrete while avoiding a grand, doomed call to reconstitute Yugoslavia. Cooperation, not reunion.
In the early 2000s, with EU accession as the horizon and war-crimes tribunals as the shadow, Mesic's intent reads as statecraft by reframing: shift the conversation from who suffered more to who can build more. Economic dependence isn't just a fact; it's leverage against the politics of permanent revenge.
The phrase "must cooperate" is the tell. It pretends to be economic common sense, but it is also a moral demand smuggled in as pragmatism. Mesic is sidestepping the emotional minefield of nationalism by arguing from necessity: you can hate your neighbor, but you still need their port, their rail line, their consumers, their energy routes. Interdependence becomes the quiet antidote to the region's favorite political drug: grievance.
"Three countries" is strategic narrowing. The former Yugoslavia produced more than three successor states, but Mesic is likely invoking the most tightly knotted economic triangle in the northwestern Balkans (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, depending on the moment). It's a way of keeping the argument concrete while avoiding a grand, doomed call to reconstitute Yugoslavia. Cooperation, not reunion.
In the early 2000s, with EU accession as the horizon and war-crimes tribunals as the shadow, Mesic's intent reads as statecraft by reframing: shift the conversation from who suffered more to who can build more. Economic dependence isn't just a fact; it's leverage against the politics of permanent revenge.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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