In investigating the role of the European community, this paper seeks to understand the reasons behind Europe’s failure to oppose the Yugoslav wars of succession and its unbearable human costs. In particular, it examines why and how the European political community became a bystander to the bloodiest conflict that took place in Europe since the end of the Second World War. In studying the “Bulletin of the European Community”, this essay reveals the limits of the European policies and the incongruence of its institutional framework which ultimately impaired its ability to cope with the Yugoslav crisis.
The lack of political unity and military power weakened Europe’s ambitions to stop a localized conflict that quickly escalated into a humanitarian tragedy marked by ethnic cleansing and mass genocide. Nowadays, in an international context which is highly de-stabilized by the ongoing Syrian crisis and reminiscences of Cold War’s politics, what has Europe learned from its past?
