One year on from its unilateral declaration of independence, the issue of Kosovo’s status remains contested and contorted.
The EU continues to be beset by a lack of consensus over Kosovo, with Spain, Slovakia, Greece, Romania and Cyprus — each deeply aware of their own respective internal national self-determination quandaries — firmly withholding recognition.
Though the European Parliament recently passed a resolution urging a change of stance, each country quickly reiterated their previously stated opposition. Ignacio De Palacio Espana, Spain’s ambassador to Serbia, remarked that, “most UN members do not recognize Kosovo’s independence.”
It is highly unlikely that any of this group of five will retreat from this position any time soon.
The basis of Serbia’s diplomatic approach toward Kosovo remains the framework of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which emphasizes Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo, and the UN’s neutrality.
Future talks over technical matters will focus on implementation of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s six-point plan — which ultimately allowed for the deployment of the long-delayed EU rule of law, or Eulex, mission, but which was rejected by the government in Kosovo — not the Ahtisaari plan, which failed to secure UN Security Council approval. Furthermore, these discussions will take place between Serbia and UN officials, not between Serbia and the government in Pristina.
As Goran Bogdanovic, Serbia’s minister for Kosovo, insisted, Serbia will “talk to Pristina only about status”.
The recent establishment of the KSF, meanwhile, has created a new security dilemma — one that only further antagonizes relations between Kosovo Albanians and minority communities. Envisaged by the Ahtisaari plan and trained by NATO, the force will consist of 2,500 active recruits and 800 reservists. Though described by NATO as a “lightly armed formation”, initially tasked with dealing with crisis situations, civil protection and de-mining operations, Kosovo’s President Fatmir Sejdiu has expressed his hopes that it will provide the “foundations of a future army of Kosovo”. Claims that the force will take part in international peacekeeping operations only serve to reinforce this concern.
In response, Bogdanovic has called for the demilitarisization of Kosovo as the main precursor to security throughout the region — a view echoed by Serbia’s president, Boris Tadic, who described the formation of a KSF as “unacceptable”.
Simmering inter-ethnic tensions, combined with sporadic outbreaks of violence, in the north of Kosovo, particularly in the divided town of Mitrovica, underscore the extent of the challenges facing the recently deployed Eulex mission, which, along with KFOR, has been accused of not reacting quickly enough to protect Kosovo’s Serbs. The international community has an extremely poor record of protecting the rights of non-Albanian communities in Kosovo. Deepening socioeconomic problems, compounded by the global economic crisis, which has also impacted remittances and donor support, threaten to ignite more severe manifestations of this lingering discontent.
Serbia’s diplomatic course throughout 2009 will focus on deterring future recognitions and encouraging submissions to the ICJ from countries supporting the motion that Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence was not in line with international law. Though the ICJ’s ruling is nonbinding, a verdict in Serbia’s favor would reignite calls for further talks over Kosovo’s status.
