By Veton Surroi
In 1999, while the Albanian Minister of Foreign Affairs of the time, Paskal Milo, was noting the various speculations in Western European circles on the options for the status of Kosovo, three would emerge: an international protectorate, independence, and division.
Ten years later, as we sit down to analyse the situation in Kosovo, we find these three alternatives merged in the status Kosovo declared on 17th February 2008. Kosovo is simultaneously an independent state, an international protectorate and a de facto divided state. This is a cohabitation of three states that should be exclusive of each other. As such though, in their mutually exclusive natures, they still cohabitated for a year. And as soon as a basic one-year evaluation of the existence of the Republic of Kosovo is conducted, the conclusion will be that this is an interim state of affairs that cannot continue for long and that requires a solution of its own.
The essential conclusion should, in fact, be that the crucial challenge for Kosovo is to overcome this state of three mutually exclusive options. And when, one by one, they transform into challenges, the questions for Kosovo are: how can the country become more independent, leave the protectorate and unite territorially?
The question is in fact that of one year ago: How can Kosovo become an independent state? The conditions are now different.
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The challenge of independence as addressed in the question how the country can become more independent sounds like a play on words, as states either are or are not independent. However, seen in its conditioned form (an independence equal to that of Kosovo’s neighbours for instance), there are two issues for which the present formula for Kosovo’s independence requires more work and attention.
First, there is the issue of the international legitimacy of the country. The international arena was divided over the status of Kosovo at the moment of the declaration and this was reflected in the quality of the international legitimacy of Kosovo. In this respect, the country is almost in the same situation (barring recognition during the fall by the two neighbours, Montenegro and Macedonia) that it was in the 100 days after the declaration. Furthermore, just like in the first 100 days, the efforts for recognition and membership in international organisations are led by the countries that sponsored the independence of Kosovo, in the absence of an authentic Kosovo identity to do this. In the context of international relations and not only, Kosovo’s ruling elite still does not behave as an independent state.
Second, there is the issue of state functionality. The institutional deficit, a problem identified since the liberation of Kosovo, became even more obvious in the independent state. One year after independence, the country is filling vacancies with names that are mostly attached to a party. The institutional deficit, the absence of a state that functions through civil servants, clearly produces the visible rise in corruption.
The functionality of the state is being clearly damaged in the regress the country is experiencing in terms of democratic rule and consensus building.
Room for free media is being tightened by governmental interventions, be it through blackmail or rewards for loyalty. It is still not clear whether the Democratic Party of Kosovo’s secret service is transitioning to the state, and if yes, how so. The Assembly of Kosovo, with its structural weaknesses and through the corruption of parts of the opposition, has become an archiving body for governmental decisions. Internal party debate is prohibited within one of the coalition partners, The Democratic League of Kosovo, by the power monopoly, including the international one.
This regression in democracy is being accompanied by a loss of sense for consensus, necessary for major issues. During this one year of independence, instead of preserving the consensus achieved during the final status talks, or of building on it while maintaining the balance between the ruling parties and those in opposition, a form of imposition of the will of the majority has been enacted. In a consolidated democracy and a functional state, such a form might very well be legitimate, but in a state that is still to learn its first steps the lack of consensus clearly weakens the state.
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The challenge of the protectorate, as presented in the question “how to leave the protectorate?” has a simple and a complicated answer. The simple one is that Kosovo will no longer be a protectorate when it becomes able to defend and rule itself without the physical assistance of the United States and Europe.
The complicated one is that the protectorate has found gaps where its intervention is needed in the three basic pillars of state functionality. So, NATO’s military defence is needed against potential military aggression from Serbia. The protectorate is necessary to at least maintain the current status quo in terms of the perception that we are dealing with a unified territory. And the protectorate is necessary to fill the huge gaps in the rule of law.
Complicatedness does not rest only on the description of these tasks, but on the overall definition of the mission. A year ago, the Protectorate was to be transformed into an authority that supervises the implementation of the Ahtisaari Plan. During a year of independence, however, the Protectorate has become entangled in an internal debate to define its own new role. This debate will continue. The result so far defines the protectorate as a transition from the Ahtisaari Plan to a new status.
This new status has two components. The first one is Serbia. The new status aimed at by the Protectorate must be a product of a “technical agreement” between Kosovo and Serbia.
The second component is the European Union. Even though it has the biggest share in the Protectorate, the EU does not have a unified stand towards Kosovo’s independence as 5 out of 27 members have not recognised the independent state. Finding itself between this position and the almost unified approach with respect to the need to accelerate Serbia’s EU integration, the EU itself wishes to postpone the “technical agreement” between Belgrade and Prishtina so that a new definition of the Protectorate that is not entirely reliant on the Ahtisaari Plan can be reached.
It is in this meeting point between the EU and Serbia that one finds, to a great degree, the answer to the question “how can Kosovo be territorially unified?”
It is true, if there had been effective governance in Prishtina during these years much could have been improved in relations with the Serbs in Kosovo, in particular those in the North. Nevertheless, any leadership in Kosovo, even a much better one than this, would have a difficult time to eliminate the essential element of today’s division, and that is the instrumentalisation of Kosovo Serbs by Belgrade. Today, this form of instrumentalisation has to do with a strong blackmailing card of Belgarde vis-ஶis the European Union, in particular towards the Union’s most ambitious mission to date, that in Kosovo. With little investment, and the preservation of the current situation in the North, Belgrade can devaluate EU’s foreign policy, in particular in proving the incapability of the EU to formulate an effective policy approach for Kosovo.
From this perspective, this year, a state of territorial unity of Kosovo can be formed to a great degree by tying it to the acceleration of Serbia’s accession in the EU.
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The challenges of the cohabitation of the three options may well remain in the game for some time, together with their paralysing effects. Even though a preliminary institutional analysis is missing in this area, Kosovo will face this summer yet another challenge, a more positive one compared to the mess created these past twelve months. Once the Durr쳭Kuk쳠road becomes operational, the current economic and political balance will change to historical dimensions. Through quick access to Durr쳬 Kosovo may find itself part of a much larger market than so far, of an initially Albanian one but not limited to it. With a proximity to Italy similar to that of Albania, Kosovo creates neighbourly relations with Italy and “EU neighbourhood” is no longer exclusively attributed to Greece. Breaking out of the current geographical position means breaking out of the current situation of economic restraints from any of the neighbours from which goods have come in so far. And in less than five years, the question of the territorial unity of Kosovo may adopt another dimension – the creation of good neighbourly relations between Kosovo and Serbia making Nish a Balkans’ junction point where the Kuk쳠road joins the Bulgarian one to the Black Sea.
But it remains to be seen whether the road will do one more thing: whether by opening up the country it will also open up the minds to face all the challenges that await this poor country.
Speech held Feb.21 at the 4th Albanian Institute for International Studies Security Conference titled “Desecuritization and Resecuritization of Western Balkan Inter/Intrastate relations.”
