web counter
LEXO PA REKLAMA!

SHKARKO APP

App Store
Google Play

E fundit!

x

What happens if the West continues with its wrong approach to Kosovo?

2023-09-12 20:09:00, Blog George Fruscione

What happens if the West continues with its wrong approach to Kosovo?

The Balkans experienced another hot summer, especially in Kosovo and Serbia. After the violence that was seen at the end of May and after the tensions on the border, calm has returned. This is until the next episode, which will make the rest of Europe fear the outbreak of a new war in the Balkans.

A hypothesis, which, however, must be ruled out for various reasons: the lack of resources and military budgets, but above all because of the lack of political expediency. Belgrade and Prishtina have a mutual political advantage in the constant threat of a war scenario.

Fear of the old enemy helps to strengthen both leaderships more than any kind of agreement or negotiation. But the Ohrid Agreement has never been taken seriously by either party. Without an official signature, the text was verbally accepted at the end of February in Brussels.

Then on March 18, it was integrated into the annex of the agreement reached in the Macedonian city. Based on the agreement that normalized relations between the two Germanys in 1972, the pact consists of 11 articles, and leads the parties to a mutual recognition of independence, but without ever openly mentioning it.

Moreover, while Pristina pledges to create a self-governing body for Kosovo Serbs, Belgrade renounces boycotting Kosovo's candidacies in international bodies.

These commitments have not been respected to date.

If in Pristina there is still no consensus, nor real political commitment for a statute that defines and regulates the functioning of the municipality of Serbian municipalities, in Belgrade it seems that there is no intention to stop the diplomatic campaign against Kosovo's membership in international organizations.

In fact, just one month after the Ohrid Agreement, Serbia voted against Pristina's admission to the Council of Europe (CoE). Unfortunately, a real commitment to its implementation is also missing from EU member countries, also because of 5 member countries that do not recognize Kosovo.

Together with Serbia, Spain and 3 other EU countries - Cyprus, Romania and Hungary - voted against Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe. But what surprises the most is not so much the fact that many EU countries are not changing their policy towards Kosovo's sovereignty, but the joint approach of the European Commission and the United States.

After the violence against the KFOR troops at the end of May, when the visit of the Albanian mayors to the 4 municipalities of the north of Kosovo, caused the severe reaction of the Serbs, both Brussels and Washington imposed sanctions on the Kosovo government, which was deemed guilty of provocation. that led to the escalation of the situation, with an action without consulting international partners.

Initially, Kosovo was excluded from the "Defender Europe 23" military exercises led by the USA. The EU then froze its funding until Prishtina committed to de-escalation. But there were no sanctions against Serbia, not even when the Serbian police arrested 3 Kosovar policemen, 2 weeks after the unrest in the north in the border area between the 2 countries.

So, a very unbalanced approach, which affects Albin Kurti's government in Pristina, and which indirectly favors the agenda of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. This opinion is also shared by more than 50 European, British and American MPs, who at the beginning of August sent a letter to the EU, USA and Great Britain, inviting them to change their strategy on the issue of Kosovo.

Because the dangers of such an approach are twofold. First, it leaves in abeyance the diplomatic commitment that began with the Franco-German initiative of the time, and that was later translated into the Ohrid Agreement.

Second, it turns a blind eye to Serbia's behavior in the region, where Belgrade is not stopping political interventions aimed at building a so-called "Serbian world", a hybrid variant between an updated version of the nationalist program of "Greater Serbia" and politics of Moscow to its neighbors called "Russkiy Mir" (Russian World).

As for the first risk, the Ohrid Agreement set itself two long-term geopolitical objectives: avoiding hotbeds of tension between the two countries, and removing Serbia from the Russian orbit, bringing it closer to the Western camp. While it is utopian to hope that Belgrade will impose sanctions against Moscow, it is at least hoped that Serbia will end its ten-year swing between Russia and the European Union.

But more specifically, if Serbia stops obstructing Kosovo's access to the UN and other organizations, the political alliance with Russia will be meaningless. Meanwhile, as for the second risk, leaving the field free for the regional agenda of Vu?i?'s Serbia - whose governments have always enjoyed the support of key Western chancelleries and institutions, contributing to the so-called "stabilitocracy" - means over all undermining the process of dialogue and normalization of relations so much desired between Belgrade and Pristina.

Consequently, this will further endanger the political stability of the entire Balkan region. Therefore, a diplomatic imbalance from the West on the Kosovo issue would give further legitimacy to a Serbian policy that is authoritarian at home and destabilizing in neighboring countries.

Although Russian influence in Serbia can hardly be translated into active military support, this does not exclude the possibility that Belgrade will not continue to import its political model from Moscow, consisting of internal autocracy and aggressiveness in the region. A model, which will probably not produce wars in the Balkans, but will keep alive a secret and continuous tension on the already fragile ethno-political balance./ "ISPI" - Adapted from CNA





Lajmet e fundit nga