Monday, May 20, 2024

A looming power shortage in Iceland could have dire economic consequences

By Elías Thorsson - May 20, 2024

The Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant in the east of Iceland is the biggest power plant in the country and its construction

Internationally Iceland is known for its abundant green energy and for being a leader in hydro- and geothermal power technology, but concerns over environmental impacts has led to almost two decades of stagnation and a failure to increase energy production and expand capacity.

“I think more and more people in Iceland are realizing that those who don’t want to utilize natural resources, leave nature completely untouched and not affect ecological systems at all, are in fact preaching a decrease in living standards. We need to grow the economy, because the population is growing, but in the past five years nenothing has been done in regards to increasing energy production,” says energy consultant and economist Þórður Gunnarsson.

Gunnarsson currently works as an advisor for Iceland’s Ministry of finance and economic affairs and sits on the board of Reykjavík Energy.

The twentieth century was a period of vast economic growth in Iceland, which was driven by three main catalysts; the U.S. military’s need for infrastructure and labor, the mechanization of the fishing fleet and a rapid development of energy production.

Electricity production in Iceland began in earnest in 1965, when the National Power Company Landsvirkjun was founded and with the construction of the Búrfell Power Station in 1969. The installed capacity of power plants in Iceland was around 270 MW in 1970, but it was set to multiply almost tenfold by the year 2007. The strategic decision to harness the country’s energy resources, with the aim of producing and selling electricity to industrial enterprises, represented one of the most significant turning points in Icelandic economic history. Johannes Nordal, the former CEO of Landsvirkjun, claimed that the commissioning of the Búrfell Power Station essentially marked a new phase of settlement in the country.

The construction of Búrfellsvirkjun was among the most significant moments in Iceland’s economic history. (Hrafn Malmquist)

Since 2007, following the completion of the Fljótdalsstöð Power Station, the pace of increasing electricity production capacity in Iceland has significantly slowed down. Installed capacity increased by less than 15% between 2007 and 2023. The global financial crisis that began in 2008, hit Iceland especially hard. This had serious implications for the electricity market as Icelandic energy companies were heavily indebted, limiting their ability to invest.

“It is understandable that Landsvirkjun and Reykjavík Energy, which were struggling financially following the crash, stopped establishing new power plants in the immediate aftermath of the financial crash of 2008. But as the two companies recovered, there was increased pressure by the owners—the Icelandic government and the Capital Area municipalities—on the companies to pay out dividends,” explains Gunnarsson. “This was a marked difference from the last decades of the twentieth century when the policy was to invest revenue in new power plants to maintain a buffer for the future, to meet increased demand.”

The debate about balancing energy needs with protecting Iceland’s untouched nature is a longstanding one and during the mid twentieth century plans were even put in motion to dam the country’s most famous waterfall Gullfoss. It took popular protest, which included a local woman threatening to throw herself into the 32 meter high waterfall, to put an end to those plans.

The movement to protect Gullfoss undoubtedly inspired a similar mass movement half a century later with the construction of the Kárahnjúkar Hydropower Plant. The 690 MW plant would become the biggest of its kind in Iceland when it started operation in 2007 and would mainly supply power to the Alcoa Fjardaál aluminum smelter located in nearby Reyðarfjörður. The massive reservoir caused significant changes to local ecosystems and inundated large areas of highland wilderness. The debate over the ecological impact of Kárahnjúkar left a lasting impression on the popular psyche, which has gained added layers of complexity as Iceland seeks to fulfill its climate commitments.

“On the one hand, there is something we call environmental protection, and then there is nature, or ecological protection and these two concepts have a tendency to clash. When we are producing electricity with renewable methods such as hydro, then we need to sacrifice natural environment, by building dams, etc.,” says Gunnarsson. “The environmental groups who want us to become fossil fuel free, need to understand that if we want to achieve that goal, then we need to produce more electricity, which will always cause some sacrifice of nature.”

The plan is for Iceland to become carbon neutral in 2040, but according to Gunnarsson, based on the current progression of energy production, that goal is a “complete pipe dream.” Achieving full energy independence will require doubling electricity production in Iceland and it is doubtful that this will be achieved by that time, unless significant investments are made in energy production.

Large factories such as the aluminium smelter in Straumsvík are the biggest buyers of energy in Iceland. (Steinninn)

The small North Atlantic nation is almost completely dependent on imports for most of its products. To maintain its trade balance with the rest of the world it has three sources of foreign currency: seafood exports, tourism and large energy consumers, which traditionally are large factories, but increasingly are data centers.

Some environmentalists argue that the way to meet the looming energy shortage is not to increase the supply but to cut the demand, by halting sales to the largest consumers.

“Let’s say we just stop selling electricity to the large factories, which are the biggest users, are we willing to sacrifice the foreign currency these companies bring into the economy? Well, then that means that we need to be willing to sacrifice the living standards we’ve become accustomed to,” says Gunnarsson.

Gunnarsson also argues that Icelanders also need to look beyond their shores when weighing their energy production, as it plays a role in the global fight against climate change.

“We should also think about this from a global perspective. If we decided to stop selling our green energy to the aluminum smelters, the world isn’t just gonna stop consuming aluminum. The factory will just pack up and move to China where it will be powered by coal.”

“We won’t escape from this hole we have dug ourself into just like that. It’ll take years to fix and equally problematic is our lagging investment in our energy infrastructure. We are very limited in how much energy we can transport from one end of the country to the next, because our system is outdated,” says Gunnarsson.

According to Statistics Iceland, individuals with permanent residence in Iceland could become a million by the year 2100, Gunnarsson claims per capita GDP could double during the same period. Which implies an annual economic growth rate of around one percent on average, compared to the significantly higher average of 3.3% over the past 40 years.

“Energy is the foundation that the economy is built on, take the U.S. for instance. It has a healthy stable growth, because they are large producers of energy, while Germany is currently struggling because they bet on access to cheap Russian gas which they have no wlost.. We in Iceland have always had more energy than we’ve needed, but underinvestment and increased regulatory obstacles has changed that reality and put Iceland in a tough spot for the time being when it comes to energy supply,,” says Gunnarsson.

Hershey, Nestle Shareholders Push for Paying Cocoa Farmers More

Photographer: ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images

May 20, 2024
Clara Hudson
Reporter

Related Stories
Hershey Shareholders Reject Call For Cocoa Farmer Wage Report
May 6, 2024

Shareholders of The Hershey Company, Nestle and a handful of other large chocolate companies on Monday urged the businesses to use their influence in the cocoa market to improve wages and working conditions for farmers in West Africa.

The investors said companies need to make sure cocoa farmers earn enough so that they can in turn pay their workers a living income that will lift them out of poverty and so that they can stop relying on child labor.

“We’re calling on chocolate companies to use their purchasing power, through price interventions, to ensure cocoa farmers receive more money for their cocoa,” said Aaron Acosta, program director at Investor Advocates for Social Justice. Acosta’s group was one of 69 that signed a letter to the chocolate-makers.

The letter also went to Mondelēz International, Ferrero International, Mars and Lindt & Sprüngli. While Mars and Ferrero are privately held, the investors said they included them on the letter as “important actors” in the chocolate industry.

“Though we recognize the chocolate industry is just one of the relevant stakeholders who must take immediate and effective action, we believe the industry can and should play a decisive role in eradicating child labor in the West African cocoa supply chain, due to its leverage and influence,” the letter stated. “Investors have had a longstanding engagement with chocolate companies over the past few decades, but little progress has been made,” the letter added.

The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The shareholder effort comes after investor support for pay equity proposals, typically focused on US workforces, has slowed. Last year’s proxy season saw an average of 31% support for pay equity bids, down from 42% the year before.

Shareholders and consumers are showing an “increased expectation” for companies to respect human rights throughout their business and be transparent about their efforts, the letter said. This extends to fair treatment of workers in companies’ supply chains. Cocoa farmers, most of which are in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, are often paid far below the World Bank’s poverty threshold of $2.15 per day, the letter stated.

Most Hershey investors earlier this month voted against a proposal asking the candy company to examine how it pays cocoa farmers in West Africa. The bid came a few months after a consumer sued Hershey over its assertion that it has “achieved 100 percent certified and sustainable cocoa.” The lawsuit alleged that Hershey only has 68% sourcing visibility “by cocoa volume,” and therefore it can’t make any promises about tracking the rest.

In its latest proxy statement, Hershey said it already produced a third-party living income report focused on West Africa in 2021, which it supplemented in 2023. Hershey said it will conduct another assessment in 2024 “to measure efficacy and progress.”

The chocolate companies’ websites tout their social and environmental efforts. Hershey says it’s “invested heavily in developing targeted programs to build a responsible, sustainable cocoa supply chain, with a particular focus on communities in West Africa.” Lindt says its cocoa sustainability program aims “to contribute to creating decent and resilient livelihoods for cocoa farmers and their families and to encourage more sustainable farming practices.”

Mondelēz notes a 2030 goal of increasing the number of farming households reaching a living income as well as enhancing child protection systems and enabling access to education. Nestle is “working with farmers, communities and local and international organizations to develop and implement solutions to the challenges facing cocoa-farming communities,” the company says.

Mars is aiming to create “a cocoa sector where human rights are respected, the environment is protected and everyone, especially cocoa farmers, has the opportunity to thrive,” according to its website. And Ferrero’s cocoa beans “are physically traceable to farms, which helps us support local farmers and communities in a targeted way,” the business says.

Issifu Issaka, a cocoa farmer and president of the Sefwi Bekwai Cocoa Farmers Cooperative Union, said in a statement that current efforts do not go far enough. “Chocolate companies can and should be paying higher premiums to ensure cocoa farmers are paid a higher price for their cocoa,” Issaka said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Clara Hudson in Washington at chudson@bloombergindustry.com

Assassination Attempt Prompts Soul-Searching in Slovakia

Last week's shooting of Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, is the product of a long intensification of political conflict. But beneath Slovakia’s overheated politics is a fundamental hollowness — and an impasse in the neoliberal order built in the 2000s.

Slovakia's prime minister Robert Fico at the European Council summit at the EU headquarters in Brussels, on April 18, 2024. (Kenzo Ribouillard / AFP via Getty Images)

BYJAKUB BOKES
05.20.2024
JACOBIN

How does a political community delineate the boundaries of legitimate political debate? For the twentieth-century German jurist Carl Schmitt, politics was defined by the distinction between friend and enemy. Conceptions of the common good — and conflicts about these conceptions — were, for Schmitt, so at odds that no rational dialogue could resolve them. These were existential questions that could only be resolved by force and, if necessary, violence.

Schmitt’s claim, though radical, raises an important question for any liberal democracy. Where is the boundary between permissible (even if disagreeable) political opinion, and what is an existential fight for the definition of a political community?

These questions came in to view last week after an assassination attempt left Slovakia’s prime minister Robert Fico fighting for his life. Politicians across the spectrum united in unequivocally condemning the attack against Fico, who leads the left-wing nationalist Smer (Direction) party. But this seeming show of unity concealed much deeper problems at the heart of Slovakia’s political community which has, for more than three decades, struggled to constructively accommodate various forms of dissent against the post-socialist status quo.

The roots of this lie in the depoliticized “end of history” period during which Slovak democracy came of age after the state’s creation in 1993. Victorious after the Cold War, the new liberal elite filled the ranks of the media and (mostly foreign-funded) NGO sector and crowned itself the guardian of the new political order. But when this order came under strain following brutal neoliberal reforms, leading to Fico’s first election victory in 2006, liberals increasingly began to frame political conflicts in existential terms, as struggles between good and evil, rather than accepting them as a central feature of any democracy.

Today uniting a polarized country around a shared sense of nationhood will require a significant amount of soul-searching by all those who have contributed to the delegitimization of unfashionable political views — including those of the prime minister himself. In the coming months, Slovakia will have to not so much save democracy as learn to accept, for the first time, what it entails.
Pointing Fingers

Details of the attack that shook the world on May 15 became fairly clear soon after the event. Fico had been attending a cabinet meeting in the former coal mining town of Handlová, 112 miles from capital Bratislava, as part of his promise to bring government business closer to the people. In between meetings, the premier went to greet supporters outside the local House of Culture where the government was convening. This is when the attacker, a sevety-one-year-old amateur poet and former security guard with eclectic political views, approached Fico and shot him five times, hitting his leg, hand, and stomach. It was not long before information about the attacker’s strong opposition to the government’s recent policies surfaced, leading the police and interior ministry to confirm the attack as politically motivated.

The response was immediate. Fico’s allies blamed the attack on the mainstream media’s witch hunt against the prime minister. Liberal politicians and journalists initially showed an uncharacteristically high degree of self-awareness and refused to point fingers, even if some commentators began to demand the resignation of the interior minister and head of the Slovak intelligence agency (both allies of Fico) for the alleged operational failure of Fico’s security detail.

This restraint, however, soon gave way to liberal righteousness, with many prominent figures pointing to the combative response of Fico’s allies as evidence of their toxicity. What was needed was more “civility” in politics, they insisted, apparently oblivious to an obvious flaw in their argument — that the shooter’s Facebook profile revealed his recent support for the opposition Progressive Slovakia party, the paragon of faux liberal civility. In some social media circles, it was suggested that Fico’s team had exaggerated or even staged the assassination attempt in order to justify a clampdown on civil liberties.

International media, commentariat, and conspiracists all joined in on the hype around the attack, fitting the incident into their existing narratives without showing any interest in the country in which it had taken place. Mainstream media, from Sky News and the Guardian in the UK to Der Spiegel and Politico in continental Europe, came close to blaming Fico himself, attributing the “toxic” and “polarized” atmosphere that led to the attack to the Slovak prime minister’s “extreme positions.” Right-wing culture warriors led by Andrew Tate’s brother Tristan — a one-time resident of Slovakia — speculated that Fico’s opposition to NATO’s policy in Ukraine, as well as his rejection of the recent World Health Organization pandemic accord, made him a target for the “global elite.”
Question of Legitimacy

The attack on Fico came at a time of increasing liberal frustration in Slovakia. In October 2023, Fico returned to power after three years in opposition following a successful election campaign in which his party stood on a culturally conservative but economically left-wing nationalist platform. His grip on power was further strengthened by the results of April’s presidential election, won by Fico’s ally and coalition partner Peter Pellegrini.

Fico’s first months in power had been defined by a remarkable sense of purpose. The new government imposed a windfall tax on bank profits, retained most welfare entitlements while outlining a fiscal consolidation plan that was accepted by the financial markets, and initiated a dynamic trade-oriented foreign policy focused on central and east Asia. The Special Prosecutor’s Office, responsible for prosecuting high-level corruption cases and headed by a prominent opposition politician, was disbanded and its cases transferred to regional prosecutors.

Ostensibly, this was a response to the constitutional-rights violations committed by the office under the previous government, although the office had also notably been investigating several high-ranking members of Smer. Sentences for economic crimes were lowered, but so too were sentences for minor drug-related offences. In the last couple of months, the government had drawn up plans to restructure the public broadcaster RTVS in order to gain more control over the staff appointment process.

The opposition response was haphazard. Michal Šimečka, the young leader of the centrist Progressive Slovakia, the strongest opposition party, took on board the mainstream media’s thinly veiled criticism of his early political performance and shifted to a more aggressive political tone in an effort to neutralize Fico’s policy steamroller. But this mainly involved a series of public demonstrations and hysterical fearmongering about the existential danger of Fico to Slovakia, rather than an alternative political offer with which he could speak to the country as a whole and win its support.For large sections of the post-socialist liberal milieu, Fico became more than a political opponent — he was a public enemy, preventing the country from moving toward the future.

Take, for example, what happened on May 1, which marks both International Workers’ Day and the anniversary of Slovakia’s entry into the EU in 2004. While Fico spent the night on a shift at a car parts factory to promote new statutory bonuses for nightwork, Šimečka preached online about the benefits of EU membership. These benefits were now under threat, according to Šimečka, due to Fico’s opposition to military aid to Ukraine. For the opposition leader, Fico’s insistence on a negotiated end to the war was pulling the country away from its EU partners — and even into the orbit of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Framing legitimate political questions — such as the debate today around the EU’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — as existential conflicts about the country’s future has been part of the liberal playbook in Slovakia since the 1990s. It was arguably justified back then. Vladimír Mečiar took advantage of voters’ fears of market liberalization to seize power in 1992 and build an internationally isolated authoritarian regime with close links to organized crime. Under Mečiar, the secret service used to intimidate political opponents, at one point kidnapping the president’s son, and Slovakia began to lag significantly behind Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic in the process of European integration.

But after Mečiar was finally defeated in 1998, the postponed neoliberal reforms were eventually implemented, largely in preparation for what was now being presented as inevitable EU accession in 2004 and adoption of the euro five years later.

Once this process was completed, resulting in the transfer of a significant amount of government powers away from the state, it seemed that the purpose of the domestic post-socialist liberal project had become largely exhausted. To conceal this fact, the liberals found in Fico a new pariah who, despite having a political platform quite different from Mečiar, was now the one “pandering” to the concerns of rural Slovakia.

In so doing, he was holding the country back from full “transition” — a quintessentially post–Cold War notion, as Croatian philosopher Boris Buden has argued, according to which a formerly socialist European country like Slovakia would take up its rightful place among the “civilized” countries of the democratic West and shun its dark “Eastern” history of communism, if only it did what was expected of it by its new allies.

For large sections of the post-socialist liberal milieu, Fico became more than a political opponent — he was a public enemy, preventing the country from moving toward the future. An embattled and often isolated Fico responded by sharpening his rhetoric, increasingly attacking journalists, political opponents, and NGOs as the years passed. When journalist Ján Kuciak was murdered in 2018, this was widely seen to be a result of the toxic political environment tolerated by Fico, who was then forced to resign.

But Pellegrini’s emphatic victory in April’s presidential election confirmed that, after three years of center-right rule marked by incompetence, infighting, and falling living standards, the liberal political offer was once again not resonating with large parts of the electorate. This brought liberal rhetoric to fever pitch, turning large cities, traditionally opposed to Smer, into hostile environments for anyone publicly declaring their unwillingness to get behind the opposition without reservation. When Smer MP Erik Kaliňák was verbally abused on the streets of Bratislava days after the presidential election, Fico expressed concern that the “frustration fanned by the liberal media” will soon result in the murder of a government politician. Few took his warning seriously then.
Return to Politics?

Ten years ago, the Czech constitutional law scholar Jan Komárek argued that the accession of former socialist states to the EU contributed to the difficulties these states faced in building a “democratic culture.” The reason for this, according to Komárek, was that EU accession criteria turned parliaments of post-socialist states into “approximation machines,” transposing large volumes of EU legislation into national law, while “the political process was not expected to generate its own solutions to problems.”

This was part of a much bigger story, often captured by the “end of history” thesis, in which the new unipolar world led by the United States dramatically circumscribed the range of acceptable political choices. Much of liberal frustration in Eastern Europe today is — self-consciously or not — based on a mistaken assumption about the role liberal democracy was supposed to play after the defeat of Soviet communism. For many Slovak liberals, the revolution of 1989 was meant to entrench a free-market economy and a pro-Western geopolitical orientation, just as the socialist regime had entrenched the opposite.The more policies were imposed from abroad, the more Slovak national politics withered from within.

To a large extent, this is what happened. But the more policies were imposed from abroad, the more Slovak national politics withered from within. Legitimacy was sought from international partners and foreign NGOs, rather than from domestic deliberation about the national interest. Hence, when Fico began to oppose NATO’s Ukraine strategy in 2022, the opposition’s biggest complaint was that he was undermining Slovakia’s “international reputation.”

The intuitive response of politicians and commentators after the assassination attempt on Fico was to urge unity. While this makes sense in the short-term, in the long-term, the opposite will be needed. Slovakia has to become more political, and embrace what political theorist Chantal Mouffe called “agonistic pluralism” — a conception of politics in which the political “other” is not an “enemy to be destroyed” but an “adversary”; someone “with whose ideas we are going to struggle but whose right to defend those ideas we will not put into question.” As Pellegrini put it lucidly following the shooting, “Slovakia needs to create the conditions for dialogue and democratic political competition.”

What does this mean in practice? Instead of constant fearmongering, liberals would do well to develop a positive vision for the country based, among other things, on an attractive economic and social program. Slovakia’s foreign policy and geopolitical orientation needs to be scrutinized and debated. Reasonable disagreement about the appropriate response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has to be accommodated, without those with reservations about NATO’s approach to the war being labeled “Russian agents.”

But Smer must change, too. If it wants to profile itself as a sovereigntist party, it has to start articulating the concrete ways in which Slovakia’s sovereignty has been hollowed out since 1989, instead of inventing its own foreign agent bogeymen. The outgoing liberal president, Zuzana Čaputová, for example, has over the course of her presidency been routinely described by Fico and his allies as “serving American interests.” The culture war, another method of keeping the political community permanently divided, which has been fanned mostly by Smer and its national-conservative partners, must be reined in.

Democracy requires a defined political community held together by bonds that transcend different conceptions of the common good. It often requires submitting to collective political choices that one may find uncomfortable or even highly objectionable. But there simply is no political community and no democracy without this kind of acceptance. Those in Slovakia who want to live in a democratic society need to accept that not every disagreeable political opinion is a threat to the political community. Refusal to respect such opinion, however, really is.

CONTRIBUTOR
Jakub Bokes is a writer and doctoral researcher based at the London School of Economics.

Xi’s Visit and a New Poll: The Geopolitical Contest for the Western Balkans

by Sead Turčalo
May 20, 2024

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent stop in Serbia as part of his first European visit in five years was a potent reminder of the shifting geopolitical allegiances in the Western Balkans and the historical undercurrents that continue to shape this tumultuous region. New poll results also illustrate the variations in views of China across the region and the competing interests the United States and European Union face in seeking to integrate the Western Balkans into the EU and NATO.

Xi’s visit was laden with symbolism and strategic calculations. As the second stop on his European tour, after France and before Hungary, it reasserted China’s growing influence in a region historically dominated by fluctuating European and American interests. In that sense, the story is not just about China’s or Russia’s rise but about the West’s inconsistent engagement, which has left a vacuum that leaders in Beijing and Moscow – who reaffirmed their alliance in a two-day meeting in Beijing just last week — are all too eager to fill.

Xi and his Serbian counterpart, President Aleksandar Vučić, used the occasion to reassert their strategic alliance and their mutual political support, reflecting their similar authoritarian tendencies and territorial ambitions, even as Serbia ostensibly seeks European Union membership. Contrary to the European Union’s posture – and that of most of Europe — Vučić repeated his endorsement of China’s claim on Taiwan, while Xi voiced China’s support for Serbia’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” common phrasing that China often applies selectively and that in this case suggested backing for Serbia’s claims on Kosovo.

His visit also, not coincidentally, occurred on the 25th anniversary of NATO’s 1999 bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, an incident the alliance contends was a tragic error in the heat of the effort to stop a military assault by Serbia’s Slobodan Milošević against Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians. But while Xi referred to the incident in an op-ed in a Serbian news outlet, he chose not to visit the site, apparently in an effort to not overly inflame the United States or its NATO allies.

But Xi recalled his visit eight years ago when Serbia became China’s “first comprehensive strategic partner” in Central and Eastern Europe. He signaled that the partnership deepened with this visit, declaring that Serbia would also be the first to “build a community of destiny with China.”

The welcoming ceremony before a crowd in front of the presidential palace in Belgrade underscored Serbia’s role as a pivotal ally for China in Eastern Europe, set against a backdrop of significant commercial and infrastructure cooperation that has unfolded in recent years. In addition to mines and factories that China already owns in Serbia, the two countries signed 29 agreements covering areas from high technology to infrastructure, demonstrating the depth of the partnership and the broad scope of future collaborative projects.

Some in Serbian academic circles also had expressed hope that Xi’s visit might help weaken support for a draft resolution being considered in the United Nations General Assembly to commemorate the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide by Bosnian Serb forces, backed by Serbia, against Bosniaks (Muslims) in eastern Bosnia. Those opposing the proposed resolution deny that the atrocities that killed more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys constituted genocide, arguing that such a label would be a stain on all Serbs, even though the resolution doesn’t specifically identify the perpetrators and multiple international courts have ruled the massacres a genocide. But while the two leaders didn’t make public reference to the draft, which is led by Germany and Rwanda, Xi’s visit could very well have sent signals to some General Assembly member States about which side they should back if and when it comes to an already delayed vote.

Signaling Alternative Alliance Options

Overall, Xi’s visit helps Vučić signal to the EU that he has alternatives for alliances, options that speak to Serbia’s traditional ties and cultural leanings towards Eastern powers, especially Russia but also China. It is a path starkly different from Serbia’s neighbors, who are largely looking westward, aligning far more firmly with the EU and NATO.

A new survey by the International Republican Institute (IRI) illustrates the geopolitical tensions and competition across the region. A notable 46 percent of respondents in Serbia consider Russia to be the country’s “most important ally.” That no doubt reflects deep ties and mutual interests, particularly in countering what they perceive as Western hostility toward Serbs and false notions that the West aims to abolish the majority Serb entity Republika Srpska in neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s disinformation amplified regularly by the Kremlin. Far behind Russia as an ally, China nevertheless ranks second in the poll as the most important ally for 14 percent of respondents.

These allegiances match significant distrust toward the West, particularly the United States, based in part on memories of NATO’s intervention during the 1999 Kosovo War that either linger or are newly inflamed on a regular basis by vocal hardliners across mostly state-aligned news outlets and social media. For example, the IRI poll shows that 36 percent of respondents in Serbia view the United States as “the most important threat” for the country, followed at a distance by Albania and Kosovo. Russia and China don’t even register in the top five.

Conversely, Kosovo and Albania are increasingly leaning towards the West, viewing it as a protector and a promoter of their statehood and economic development. In the poll, Kosovo especially shows strong pro-American sentiment, with 71 percent viewing the United States “highly” favorably and 80 percent identifying it as the country’s most important ally. That likely reflects a gratitude rooted in ongoing U.S. support for its independence, despite the pressure the U.S. is exerting, along with the EU, on Kosovo’s leaders to reach an accommodation with Serbia to gain Serbia’s recognition, even as Vučić has said in no uncertain terms he has no plans to do so.

Similarly, Albania’s overwhelming favorability towards the EU (92 percent would vote in favor of accession) and NATO (85 percent supporting its current full membership status) underscores a regional divergence that is as much about political and social worldviews as it is about economic opportunity. In contrast to the high favorability rating of the United States in Kosovo and Albania, only 4 percent of respondents in Serbia have a “highly favorable” view of the United States.

China’s Economic – and Strategic — Footprint

China’s expanding influence in the Western Balkans evokes a spectrum of responses among the public, based on the IRI poll, likely reflecting its expanding economic and strategic footprint in the region. Countries such as North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Albania display a palpable sense of optimism, with China viewed overall as “highly” or “somewhat” favorable by 56 percent, 53 percent, and 43 percent of respondents respectively. This may be due in significant part to anticipated, albeit unrealized, investments and infrastructure projects tied to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which are envisioned to bring economic and developmental benefits. In Bosnia, for instance, the favorable support for China may come largely from Republika Srpska, in part linked to a promised but elusive power plant known as Gacko 2. In these countries, the image of China as a pivotal economic ally appears to eclipse any geopolitical concerns linked to its ascent.

In Serbia, support for China is, of course, even more pronounced. It ranks at the top of the list of countries with highly favorable perceptions among respondents, at 88 percent, equaling the level of favorability towards Russia. While Serbia’s favorable view of Russia is largely shaped by historical, cultural, and ideological ties, China’s appeal is driven by economic factors and by its shared role with Russia as a global challenger to the West.

In recent years, Serbia has emerged as a focal point for Chinese investment in the Western Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe, establishing China as Serbia’s largest single foreign investor. By 2022, Chinese investments in Serbia matched the combined investments of all 27 EU member States. This dramatic increase began with limited investments in the early 2010s but surged with strategic acquisitions like the Smederevo Steel Mill in 2016 and significant bottom-up foreign direct investment projects such as the construction of the Linglong tire factory. Major investments by Chinese companies including Zijin Mining in Serbia’s mining sector and Minth Automotive in the automotive industry highlight the breadth of China’s economic footprint. Despite challenges related to environmental impacts and regulatory compliance, Chinese investments have significantly influenced Serbia’s industrial revival and economic landscape, underscoring the deepening “steel friendship,” as they call it, between the two nations.

In stark contrast to Serbia, Kosovars rated China markedly lower on favorability, with 79 percent of respondents viewing China either somewhat or highly unfavorably. This negative perception is likely shaped by multiple factors, including Kosovo’s strong pro-Western stance and the geopolitical dynamics, especially China aligning with Serbia by not recognizing Kosovo’s independence. Additionally, the global discourse on China’s “debt diplomacy” and concerns over the long-term ramifications of its economic engagements may resonate more acutely in Kosovo. This contrasting stance within the region underscores the complexities of China’s global relations and highlights the diverse responses to its rising influence in the Balkans, shaped by local geopolitical alignments, economic expectations, and broader international tensions.

Interestingly, the IRI poll gauged perceptions of the motives behind Chinese investments across the Western Balkan countries, and the variations again reflect their distinct socio-economic and geopolitical contexts. A significant portion of Serbians, 53 percent, view these investments as primarily economically advantageous, dovetailing with the Serbian government’s pronounced alignment with China. Conversely, in Kosovo and Bosnia, 45 percent and 51 percent, respectively, see these investments as either coming with “political expectations” or “primarily about influence and control of our country,” an outlook shaped by their politically sensitive environments and histories marked by foreign interventions.

A Reassessment Should Be In Order

As China deepens its strategic and economic footprint in the Western Balkans, Western policymakers must reassess their engagement strategies to counterbalance Beijing’s growing influence. Xi’s trip, particularly the symbolic timing around the NATO bombing anniversary, highlights China’s savvy in leveraging historical grievances for diplomatic gain. Serbia’s alignment with China and Russia, underscored by Vučić’s endorsement of China’s stance on Taiwan and reciprocal support for Serbia’s claims on Kosovo, indicates a deliberate pivot away from Western integration. This is evident in Serbia’s skepticism towards NATO in the IRI poll, with only 10 percent holding a positive view and just 3 percent considering full membership viable, as well as the 40 percent supporting EU membership, highlighting ambivalence towards Western alliances. This stance, coupled with significant Chinese investments and infrastructure projects, positions Serbia as a critical ally for China in Eastern Europe.

The varied perceptions of China in the Western Balkans, shaped by economic hopes and political anxieties, reflect an urgent need for the EU and the United States to present a cohesive, compelling vision that addresses both the economic aspirations and security concerns of the region. But accomplishing that also requires getting the politics right – the countries of the region need functional, effective governance unhindered by corruption before they can possibly meet those economic and security goals. Failure to do so risks further entrenching Eastern influence, complicating efforts to stabilize and integrate this strategically vital region into Western frameworks.

IMAGE: Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (R) walks with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a welcome ceremony in Belgrade, on May 8, 2024. (Photo by ELVIS BARUKCIC/AFP via Getty Images)

About the Author(s)

Sead Turčalo

Sead Turčalo (@sturcalo) is an associate professor in Security Studies and has been the Dean of the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Sarajevo since 2019.

Research Offshore Wind Before Taking Stance on the Issue

OPINION
By Tom Clemow / Renewable energy advocate
May 20, 2024

Have you wondered who has rights to where the offshore wind (OSW) turbine projects are being developed?

As an American, principally you do, because all are in federal waters. Like the national parks, no private party owns the coastal waters. Some private parties may own a lease to the coastal regions, such as oil resources, and also offshore wind development. These leases are granted by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). Here’s the frank truth on BOEM leases: coastal property owners don’t own their view and commercial fishermen own licenses to fish in an area, but they don’t own the area.

BOEM has more than a dozen federal and even more state laws that it must abide by to grant leases and approve offshore wind projects. These principally include the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA), and National Marine Fisheries (NMF) regulations. Several groups against offshore wind have filed lawsuits or appeals that claim BOEM and other federal or state departments did not follow appropriate practices for some of these laws.

The five turbines off Block Island in Rhode Island state waters constituted the first offshore wind farm in the United States and is an important research site. The turbines were a novelty and have been cited as a positive tourist attraction. That argument is misleading because the hundreds of turbines off the southern New England coast will not be a tourist magnet. There will be some negative effects on tourism but there are only estimates based on surveys. Offshore wind developers know this and have made offers for compensation to coastal communities, called “good neighbor agreements.” Nantucket signed the first one of these. Regardless, coastal property owners do not own the rights to an unobstructed horizon with nominally 900-foot turbines 12-35 miles offshore. The nearest ones will be readily visible on very clear days but not on typical hazy summer beach days. At 20-25 miles offshore, turbines will be noticeable on clear days but only if you look with care.

Some argue that there may be improved sport fishing around turbine bases, as observed around the Block Island turbines. However, claims that offshore wind will benefit fishing are misleading. The offshore wind developers and the commercial fishermen know there will be some loss of fishing area. That is why the developers have identified plans to compensate commercial fishermen for reduced access. There is an area south of Rhode Island named Cox’s Ledge which is a very productive commercial fishing area. The fishermen are claiming that wind turbines should not be built anywhere on the greater Cox’s Ledge area for several reasons that relate to their income source and fish species. BOEM excluded some areas of the Revolution Wind and South Fork projects to protect the most important fishing areas there. The key is that they have a licensed right to fish in a NOAA-defined area, but they do not have a comprehensive right to use all of that entire area and exclude offshore wind development.

Everyone should have a concern for the livelihood of commercial fishermen. Tourism is also a significant summer industry for coastal states. Everyone certainly should be concerned about the need to generate ever more electricity from renewable sources like wind to reduce dependence on fossil fuel combustion, which is warming and acidifying the ocean at a significant rate.

There are groups that oppose offshore wind development. They are primarily coastal property and business owners and also commercial fishermen. Both will have some negative impacts from OSW. There are more than a dozen Facebook groups that articulate many dozens of arguments why offshore wind is a not a good idea. There are some points made that should be discussed, such as fair considerations to the tourist industry and commercial fishermen. Much of the rest of information on these sites is misinformation or untruths, such as offshore wind will cause the extinction of the North Atlantic right whale. Good neighbor agreements for where the power could come ashore should also be discussed, but arguments that it should not come ashore anywhere is an obstruction to progress on the transition to renewables.

There is also silent opposition to renewable energy by the fossil fuel industry. You can be sure that their lobbying and dark money contributions are influencing the arguments against offshore wind. Know that fossil fuel companies are primarily concerned about their future profits and offshore wind will limit some. Indeed, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a fossil fuel advocacy group, has funded at least one federal lawsuit and a PR media campaign against offshore wind. Interestingly, maybe as a hedge and not as an environmental danger, fossil fuel companies have investments in some of the OSW development projects.

Considering ownership, the federal coastal waters belong to the nation, not to fishermen or coastal property owners. Moreover, we all also are owners of the consequences and costs of global warming and sea level rise resulting from fossil fuel combustion. While offshore wind development will have some limited negative effects on tourism and commercial fishing, the consequences of not rapidly moving off fossil fuels will have much greater effects as the globe approaches the 1.5-degree Celsius Paris Accord limit this year or surely in the next few. Despite its limited downsides, offshore wind has a high energy generation potential and it must be not be excluded in the urgent need for a transition to renewable energy sources.

It is essential to read about, think about, and support offshore wind development and other non-CO2 emitting power generation technologies. To read more about the merits and downsides, here are some sources. Don’t accept any single pro or con information source on what you should think about offshore wind.

Realoffshorewind.com. A nominally pro OSW site created by Brown and URI professors.

Offshore Wind Info on Facebook. Though I am biased for OSW, I try to present factual information from pro and con perspectives.

Sea Grant Offshore Wind Energy seagrantenergy.org. A site from URI School of Oceanography which tries to promote an unbiased perspective.

https://green-oceans.org/white-paper-1. This is a document by a determined coastal anti-OSW group that is well organized and well funded, with a federal and state lawsuit. Their arguments were critiqued in a report by a Brown University group.

https://www.climatedevlab.brown.edu/anti-offshorewindnetwork. You can decide and act on what you think is best for your future and maybe your grand kids or those to be.

Tom Clemow is a Little Compton, R.I., resident and advocate for renewable energy, including offshore wind.

The views expressed in this opinion piece do not reflect those of ecoRI News or its board of directors. ecoRI News publishes a diversity of opinions from the community. To submit an opinion piece, visit our opinion submission page, which includes guidelines and instructions for sending in your submission.

Categories

‘The High Seas’ tells of the many ways humans are laying claim to the ocean

Conservation goals often coexist alongside increased exploration and exploitation

One pressure on international waters is the search for new sources of fish to support aquaculture (a salmon farm in Norway is shown).
MARIUSLTU/GETTY IMAGES PLUS

By Carolyn Gramling

The High Seas
Olive Heffernan
Greystone Books, $32.95

The ocean is a rich, fertile and seemingly lawless frontier. It’s a watery wild west, irresistible to humans hoping to plunder its many riches.

That is the narrative throughout The High Seas: Greed, Power and the Battle for the Unclaimed Ocean, a fast-paced, thoroughly reported and deeply disquieting book by science journalist Olive Heffernan, also the founding chief editor of the journal Nature Climate Change.

The book begins by churning rapidly through the waves of history that brought us to today, including how we even define the high seas: all ocean waters more than 200 nautical miles from any country’s coastline. In many ways, the modern ocean grab was set in motion some 400 years ago. A bitter feud between Dutch and Portuguese traders culminated in a legal document called the Mare Liberum, or the “free seas,” which argues that the ocean is a vast global commons owned by no one.

Heffernan devotes a chapter each to different ways people are increasingly staking claims to international waters, an expansion called the Blue Acceleration. Some are hunting for new fishing grounds or prospecting for seafloor ores (SN: 5/4/20). Others are searching for new medicines in the DNA of deep-sea microbes, sponges or sea lilies. Still others are exploring how to boost the ocean’s carbon uptake to help slow climate change (SN: 4/26/24). Even the space industry wants a piece of the ocean — to create watery graveyards for defunct spacecraft.

The careening from one ocean ambition to another underscores one of the book’s biggest takeaways: We’ve established a precarious new type of ocean ecosystem, and it is going to be incredibly difficult — maybe impossible — to juggle all the priorities while also protecting ocean health and biodiversity.

Consider Trondheim, Norway, where Heffernan visits the SINTEF SeaLab. One of the world’s wealthiest oil states, Norway wants to move its economy away from oil and more toward aquaculture, partly by dramatically increasing the production of its coastal salmon farms. The ocean’s twilight zone, the murky waters that extend from about 100 meters to 1,000 meters below the surface, where sunlight no longer penetrates, could provide an immense untapped resource of feeder fish for those farmed salmon. By at least one estimate, Heffernan writes, the twilight zone contains as much as 95 percent of the ocean’s fish by weight.

But these twilight denizens are also key to the ocean’s ability to sequester atmospheric carbon (SN: 11/28/17). Crustaceans, fish and other creatures rise toward the surface to feed on carbon-bearing plankton at night, and then sink into the depths during the day — carrying that carbon into the deep.

Such conflicting desires to plunder and protect show up over and over again. Nations urging conservation in one arena may push for increasing exploration or exploitation in another, Heffernan writes. The European Union in 2021, for example, offered subsidies to its fishing fleet to range farther offshore, even as it committed to sustainable fishing. Nations keen to commit to protecting marine life and combating climate change may be the same countries that support deep-sea mining, which may be detrimental to life on the ocean floor.

The problem, Heffernan says, isn’t that the high seas are without any rules. Rather, there’s “a mishmash of organizations and bodies, each using their own rulebook.” Plus, she adds, “I now realize that many of those tasked with governing this space willfully ignore science and disregard expert advice.”

There are global efforts afoot to establish uniform, consistent regulations on ocean activities. In particular, Heffernan notes that in 2023, United Nations member states passed the High Seas Treaty, which would establish marine protected areas in international waters. If ratified, the treaty could be a big step toward conserving ocean biodiversity.

But be warned: This is not an uplifting book. By the final chapter — titled, somewhat unconvincingly, “Hope for the high seas” — it’s hard to know what anyone could actually do to help save the ocean. What The High Seas does, and powerfully, is convey the sheer scope and complexity of the Blue Acceleration. We’re at a crucial juncture, Heffernan writes: “We can continue going ever deeper and further offshore in our quest for new sources of wealth, or we can strike a more sustainable balance.”

Buy The High Seas from Bookshop.org. Science News is a Bookshop.org affiliate and will earn a commission on purchases made from links in this article.

A version of this article appears in the May 4, 2024 issue of Science News.

About Carolyn Gramling E-mail
X

Carolyn Gramling is the earth & climate writer. She has bachelor’s degrees in geology and European history and a Ph.D. in marine geochemistry from MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Russian propaganda links Kyiv, Washington to Raisi's helicopter crash death

May 20, 2024

Russian propagandists (Photo:NV collage)

Russian propagandists are attempting to spin a narrative alleging the involvement of Ukraine and the United States in the accident, following the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in the crash of a Mi-171 helicopter on May 19.

However, the guidelines suggest not overdoing it, limiting themselves to hints that allow the audience to draw the "right" conclusions.

For example, RT's Margarita Simonyan drew parallels between Raisi's death, the recent assassination attempt on pro-Kremlin Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, and the assassinations of U.S. President John F. Kennedy (1963) and Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme (1986).

"Sh*t happens. But it happens most reliably with careful professional preparation by the sh*tmasters," she wrote on social media.

The crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi

The crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was reported by the media on May 19.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Monday, May 20, 2024

A looming power shortage in Iceland could have dire economic consequences

Internationally Iceland is known for its abundant green energy and for being a leader in hydro- and geothermal power technology, but concerns over environmental impacts has led to almost two decades of stagnation and a failure to increase energy production and expand capacity.

The crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi

About Me