Show of Unity in Bid to Shore Up Volatile Balkans

For the second time this century, Europe’s major powers and the United States are launching a comprehensive plan to bring stability to one of the Old World’s most volatile regions--the Balkans.

The first attempt, made by President Wilson and European leaders amid the ashes of World War I, resulted in the creation of Yugoslavia, a state whose gradual disintegration has ignited three wars in the last decade. As the third of these conflicts--NATO’s air war to end “ethnic cleansing” in Kosovo--continues for a second month, the West’s richest nations hope their new blueprint will work better.

Variously referred to as a “Marshall Plan for Southeastern Europe” or the “Balkans Stability Pact,” the plan is viewed on both sides of the Atlantic as the start of a long-term solution for ending the cycle of war and ethnic violence that, with brief pauses, has gripped the region for centuries.

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said the Balkans are “the last piece of Europe” that must be rebuilt and revitalized, as Western Europe was after World War II by the Marshall Plan. NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the alliance is determined to bring the region, now “the bleeding wound of Europe,” into the continent’s mainstream.

But no aid will go to Yugoslavia so long as President Slobodan Milosevic is in power, officials said.

Advanced at this weekend’s North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Washington, the reconstruction plan was conceived last month during the opening days of the war in Yugoslavia. It is a product of independent--but almost simultaneous--brainstorming by Albright and her German counterpart, Joschka Fischer.

According to officials in both governments, Albright and Fischer arrived at the same basic conclusion: The only way to bring an end to the turmoil in the Balkans will be an across-the-board effort to lift the region economically, stabilize it with new security measures and strengthen its fragile democratic institutions.

“Fighting a war forces you to rethink,” said a senior U.S. official, who declined to be identified. “As we looked back, we could see the United States had been pulled into the region bit by bit over the last nine years without a comprehensive strategy for the region as a whole. The approach was fragmented. In parallel to the discussion here, the Germans were coming to the same conclusion.”

Fischer won preliminary approval for the idea April 8 from his continental colleagues at a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Luxembourg. On Sunday, NATO leaders discussed it for the first time with the heads of the seven “front-line” states in the Kosovo war--Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia and Romania.

“The Stability Pact will bring all of these countries in,” Fischer said. “Everyone here [at the summit] agrees a lasting solution is required.”

No NATO leader at the summit was prepared to put a price tag on the concept, saying it would be too early to do so. But any comprehensive plan to lift the entire region is certain to require tens of billions of dollars. More than $5 billion in reconstruction aid has been poured into Bosnia-Herzegovina alone since the war there ended 3 1/2 years ago.

German officials said the first formal meeting to sketch a working framework for the new plan will be May 27 in Bonn. In addition to representatives from the European Union and NATO, members of the International Monetary Fund, the European Bank for Reconstruction and other international institutions are expected to participate.

According to those familiar with the concept, the envisioned Marshall Plan for southeastern Europe would consist of three specific “baskets”:

* A security component designed to increase cooperation between NATO and individual countries within the alliance’s partnership program, to build new institutions for peaceful resolution of conflicts, and to generate closer ties between the military branches of nations in the region. NATO would play the central role in this regard.

* An economic component focusing on economic development and regional integration, both within the Balkans and between the Balkan countries and the more affluent parts of Europe to the north and west. The European Union would take on the bulk of this responsibility, according to officials familiar with the idea.

* A democracy-building component that would strengthen the protection of human rights, build institutions central to functioning democracies and encourage people-to-people programs between countries in the region. This responsibility would be taken on primarily by the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe, a Vienna-based group that includes the United States and Canada.

Among the Balkan states, which find themselves suddenly united in abhorrence of the “ethnic cleansing” underway in Kosovo, reaction to the idea has been enthusiastic.

“I believe a kind of Marshall Plan will be an investment not just for the region, but for Europe and the world,” Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov told The Times.

Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou, whose country stands to gain greatly from a major Balkans development initiative, also welcomed the plan.

“This region has lurched from crisis to crisis for years,” he said. “Crisis produces not just dangers, but also opportunities, and with this we’re trying to focus on the day after [the war ends].”

The crisis in Kosovo has led NATO to upgrade its collective view of the front-line states in the Balkans. On Sunday, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana praised their solidarity against Milosevic as “nothing short of heroic.” The alliance temporarily extended to these countries one of the chief benefits of NATO membership--a guarantee that if any of them was attacked by Yugoslav forces, the alliance would respond.

“Bulgaria has given its full support to NATO operations,” Stoyanov said. “This effectively turned us into an ally of the alliance, and that should make our membership more urgent. I regard membership,” he added, “not just as a source of military security, but also economic security, as a factor that encourages investment.”