What Serbia Should Not Do

By Ilir Meta
One of the comments I received a few days ago, after I saluted the initiative undertaken by the European Commission on starting the visa liberalisation negotiations with Serbia, was: Ok, they removed the visas for Serbia, but why are they not doing the same for the Albanians? Without wanting to explore at any length the reasoning from an Albanian perspective, I decided that a more careful analysis of the perceptions of this act vis-a-vis Serbia would be just as important as the adoption of a political stance towards Serbia or our neighbours in general.
I recall a meeting I had years ago with the former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Sergei Ivanov, who could not hide his surprise when I told him that we had removed the visa regime with Montenegro (at the time part of the Serb-Montenegrin Federation) “What about Serbia?” – he asked, because what you have done is the same as if Russia were to remove the visa regime for California but not for the United States as a whole. We are ready to do that at any time, I replied as long as Serbia agrees to such a move.
Naturally all I have said so far does not concern so much the issue of visas, as it does a whole new philosophy regarding the relations with our neighbors in general and Serbia in particular. At the core of this new philosophy stands that new dimension in the development perspective of all our countries that is the process of European Union integration. It is this integration and its sistem of values that must serve as the point of reference for all our domestic policies, but especially for our foreign policy. Integration, coexistence, reciprocal respect, multiethnicity and especially our mutual dependency are the values which have to be implemented at all costs, as long as countries in the region hope to fulfill its aspirations to become a member of the EU.
But time is of the essence in this regard. If we dare to embrace these values, if we now understand that the progress of our region towards the EU is a common project of all our countries we will speed up our integration into the EU, but if someone laggs behind that will become a burden on all our region. A simmilar policy oriented towards integration stands at the core of the plan on the definition of Kosovo’s final status, by President Ahtisaari too. By now, as we near the final stages of its implementation there is ever growing international support for the status of Kosovo also because it is based upon this policy of integration.
Seen from this perspective, the independence of Kosovo must not be viwed as a “zero summ game” dilema by Serbia, but as a guarantee that this plan allows both parties come out as winners. It is the choice between these two perspectives that will determine Serbia’s history and not the preservation – or not – of her sovereignty over Kosovo. Serbia must at any cost chose integration, because the independence of Kosovo will ensure that everyone, including Serbia comes out a winner. Such a move would save Serbia once and for all from the archaic folklore that has held it hostage to its past, thus making its future insecure.
This historical decision in favor of integration and Europe does not leave room for mistakes. Such a decision does not allow for speculations that the independence of Kosovo can be stopped – a process that started in Rambouille when Milosevic refused the agreement and followed a long and pricipled evolution based on the three criteria: no return to the pre 1999 situation, no partition and no unification with other countries. The independence of Kosovo will not change regardless of the rhetoric or electoral demagogy coming out of Belgrade. There are courageous voices in Serb politics nowadays that accept this, such as Ceda Jovanovic, who is calling on politicians not to lie to the electorate by saying that there is a possibility of holding on to Kosovo. Kosovo, he correctly pointed out, was lost by Milosevic.
Serbia should also not hold on to the erroneous belief that Resolution 1244 of the Security Council supposedly guarantees her sovereignty over Kosovo, at a time when article 11, point “e” in this resolution referes to the Rambouille conference as far as the determination of status is concerned and that has at its core the respect for the will of the people of Kosovo. The Serb embargo against Kosovo would not serve as a instrument of presure, neither is it an economic instrument which could reverse the process of independence because the greates loser would be Serbia herself. She would lose a significant market which has been established as a result of the economic relations that existed in the former Yugoslavia, at a time when the vacuum created by the rising demand would quickly be filled by other neighbouring countries. The greatest loser would be Serbia.
The violent disintegration of Kosovo would not offer a solution either. The consequences ensuing from the population displacements, the renewed flow of refugees into Serbia at a time when there are many refugees yet to be integrated in that country from the times of the conflict in Croatia and Bosnia, would add to the suffering of the Serb people who would be the most affected victims of the extreme nationalism of its leaders.
In the meantime the possibilitiesy the Serbs have for living and integrating in Kosovo are considerable and potentialy better. The Ahtisaari plan ensures a system of positive discrimination of the Serbs and other minorities that does not have its equal in international practice. It guarantess the Serbs and other minorities a power assymetric to the size of the population. And this is indeed positive because the respect for the rigts of minorities is not so much a matter of percentages but an issue of standards and values that must also be respected by Serbia herself when it comes to the Albanian population of Presheva, Bujanoc and Medvegja.
Were Serbia to urge the Kosovo Serbs towards a confronation with the Albanians and the internationals she would not just bear responsibility for the incerase in their suffering, but she would also have to pay the political and economic consequences for this. But if Serbia does not engage in such an adventure then the new state of Kosovo and the international community would have a permanent obligation to ensure a better life for the Serbs of Kosovo as well as their security. An atempt at partition, a Kosovo without any Serbs would eliminate any prospect of the Serbs or Serbia exerting any influence on Kosovo while at the same time endangering the important place Kosovo occupies as far as the Serb cultural and historical heritage in Kosovo; a factor that is forcefully but not convincingly advertised by Serbia. And again the loser would be Serbia.
And Serbia cannot make the mistake of looking at Russia as an alternative to the EU and EU integration. The current political interests Serbia and Russia share, the economic cooperation with Russia cannot change the fact that the interests of Serbia do not constitute a goal in themselves for Russia, but just one element in Russia’s global interests and a pawn in its challenge to the West in general and the Americans in particular. had it been otherwise Russia would have kept its military presence in Kosovo as part of the forces guaranteing security. It is also hard to imagine Serbia projecting itself as a destructive island in the heart of the Balkans, surrounded by neighbours that are EU memberstates. She would be a great loser and so would be the whole region.
That is why it was important to congratulate Serbia on the visa agreement with the EU and to wish that President Tadic, the representative of the pro-European reform minded forces win the elections on February the 3rd. But above all we as Albanians would do well to adopt a new philosophy in the relations with our neighbours, a philosophy that is rooted in civilised relations because what is good for our neighbours is also good for us.