Pristina and Belgrade need to move ahead

The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly has adopted a vigorous but reasonable resolution calling for a serious investigation of organ trafficking and inhuman treatment in the aftermath of the NATO/Serbia war.  While I had concerns about the uncaveated and incautious way in which Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty presented his allegations, it seems to me appropriate that EULEX, the European Rule of Law mission in Kosovo, be charged with determining the facts, bringing any charges that may be appropriate in Kosovo, and ensuring the protection of witnesses.

At the same time, the re-run of elections in some Kosovo municipalities has apparently confirmed Hashim Thaci, accused in Marty’s report of directing the organ trafficking operation, as the winner of Kosovo’s parliamentary poll.  To govern, he will need to form a majority governing coalition that includes Serbs and other minorities as well as at least one other Albanian political party. Kosovo Albanian voters appear disinclined to block Thaci from a new mandate because of the organ trafficking allegations, though his political rivals may well try to unseat him by forming an alternative majority.

In some societies, Thaci would be expected to resign while being investigated, but the more usual practice in my experience is to continue in office unless an indictment (a formal charge) is brought to court. I imagine that is what Thaci will do, though I hasten to add that I have not been in touch with him and believe that the decision on this issue belongs entirely to Kosovars, whose interests are most immediately at stake, not internationals.

The question is whether Thaci’s remaining in office will weaken Kosovo’s negotiating position vis-a-vis Serbia in the talks on practical issues that the General Assembly has called for, and that the EU is prepared to facilitate.  Belgrade has said it is still prepared to meet with Thaci, but that doesn’t mean it is a good idea from the Kosovar perspective.

If the talks were best held at a political level, I would have doubts.  But that is not the case.  Pristina and Belgrade need to focus in the first instance on issues that are likely to be best dealt with below the political level.  Looming in the background there will always be the issue of status, which the Kosovars regard as resolved in favor of independence and sovereignty but the Serbs would like to re-open, at least for the northern municipalities that they control.

The distance between a practical issue and a status issue is rarely more than a sentence or two. It would of course resolve a lot of things if Belgrade were to accept the facts and recognize Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state, albeit one in which Serbs have legitimate interests.  But Belgrade is not going to do that, so the best we can hope for is some confidence-building progress on other issues.  That can be achieved at the technical level, often between officials in the respective administrations.

Of course some might argue that miscreants may be present at that level as well, but that is true for both sides.  It seems to me that if Albanian Kosovars are prepared to meet with Serbian officials, Serbian officials should be prepared to meet with Kosovan officials, whatever their ethnic group.  It is time to get things moving, before Belgrade begins to get distracted by its own electoral cycle.