The first law of holes
Belgrade daily Pravda asked for my views on Kosovo and Serbia’s EU candidacy. Here is how I responded:
Belgrade has dug a hole for itself. It has told the world it will not recognize Kosovo as sovereign and independent. It has exhausted its diplomatic credits trying to block recognition by other countries. It has bought a Russian veto in the UN Security Council. It has held on using its security forces to the northern corner of its former province. It spends hundreds of millions of euros each year to keep its institutions functioning there.
It can expect none of this effort and expenditure to produce worthwhile results. Whatever Kosovo’s status, it is clear that the democratically validated institutions in Pristina are the legitimate government of the whole territory of Kosovo, which is treated as undivided territory in UN Security Council resolution 1244, to which Belgrade has sworn fealty.
The European Union and the United States have made it clear that Kosovo will not be divided and that Belgrade needs to conform its efforts to the Ahtisaari plan, which offers a wide degree of self-governance to the north and other Serb-majority areas of Kosovo. Pristina will no doubt be prepared to talk with Belgrade about how the Ahtisaari plan is implemented, but not about “Ahtisaari plus” or other efforts to reopen what has already been agreed by the Kosovo authorities.
I imagine that the European Council will want in December to approve Serbia’s candidacy for membership in the Union, as recommended by the Commission. While there is some possibility one or more EU members will still block Serbia’s candidacy because of Belgrade’s failure to cooperate with UNMIK and NATO efforts to resolve border/boundary issues, I would much prefer to see those issues settled and Serbia’s candidacy ensured. If Serbia fails to get candidacy in December, it may have to wait a long time for another opportunity. I doubt it will get a date to start the negotiations—it does not even appear to want one.
In any event, I am certain that the Union will not accept Belgrade as a member until it settles all its outstanding issues with Pristina. Little progress on these can be made before the Serbian elections, but I hope to see a government after the elections that can move expeditiously in a new direction.
The first law of holes is stop digging. Belgrade would benefit from ending its diplomatic efforts against Kosovo’s recognition and sitting down with Pristina to develop a cooperative approach to implementing the Ahtisaari plan in north Kosovo. It may be too much to ask Belgrade to recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty, but it is not too much to ask Belgrade to accept the legitimacy and authority of the Pristina institutions. It can best do this by unblocking the Security Council and allowing Kosovo to enter the General Assembly.
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11 thoughts on “The first law of holes”
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We’re all entitled to our own opinions. But I must try to correct at least your suggestion that “it is clear that the democratically validated institutions in Pristina are the legitimate government of the whole territory of Kosovo, which is treated as undivided territory in UN Security Council resolution 1244.”
The ICJ found in 2009 that the Kosovo UDI took place outside the framework of 1244 and of UNMIK. The ICJ also reaffirmed the continued validity of UNMIK under 1244. (UNSC resolutions create international law.) Nothing in the UN Charter or the specific UN mandate for Kosovo obligates anyone to recognize Pristina as the legitimate government. Under international law, UNMIK remains responsible for Kosovo and its presence there maintains Kosovo as an undivided entity.
The ICJ court also said that there was no legal impediment to Kosovo declaring independence, even though the act was not blessed by a UNSC resolution, since there is no international law against anybody (even the Four Municipalities) declaring independence. Under their rights as sovereign nations, other countries recognize whatever countries they wish, so for the U.S., Kosovo is independent, even though not the product of an international agreement. But then, neither was the United States, and gaining recognition was a long struggle for us, too.
As long as Russia and China continue to threaten a veto, Kosovo won’t become a member of the UN, like Taiwan. It’s a difficult but not impossible situation. Kosovo’s government was elected under internationally-monitored supervision, so why wouldn’t it be considered legitimate? Calling Kosovo or its government “illegitimate” merely means that China and Russia haven’t yet agreed to approve its sovereignty, for their own easily understandable reasons.
Well done.
Under international law Kosovo is part of Serbia controlled by UNMIK.
Kosovo can not be legal and legitimate state as long as Serbia does not accept and recognize Kosovo, the evidence is enormous pressure from the EU and the U.S. to accept the Ahtisaari plan and thereby accepts independence. U.S. and the EU know that what was done in Kosovo is a precedent that is permanently threatened by international law and the concept of state sovereignty, so they hurry to put an end to a project that was initially bound to fail.The international community can by force conduct decision but this is not a permanent solution, there is no permanent solution without Serbia approval.
The Serbian position is that it will not recognize Kosovo’s unilateral independence declaration and want a negotiated solution. But they do not exclude the possibility that in such an agreement they might recognize Kosovo. What Belgrade wants in return is clear: better conditions for the North tip. So if you write that “It has told the world it will not recognize Kosovo as sovereign and independent.” that is not correct.
“The European Union and the United States have made it clear that Kosovo will not be divided and that Belgrade needs to conform its efforts to the Ahtisaari plan”
We used to live in a world where debates were held on the basis of arguments. What happened to that?
The arguments that the Ahtisaari Plan is not working are clear and visible. Just over a year ago Amnesty International published a report in which it argued that Roma refugees should no longer be sent back to Kosovo as they were treated badly there and many end up in Serbia proper. This is in line with what has happened to the Serbs. Only a few dozen urban Serbs are left. The rest have fled and are unable to return. The remaining Serbs live in the protection of mono-ethnic enclaves. That the Roma are doing worse than the Serbs (more than half of the over 200,000 refugees are gypsies) is because a much larger percentage of them use to live in the cities.
So telling Serbia to accept the Ahtisaari Plan is telling it to accept ethnic cleansing. If the Western leaders want that, let them be men and say that openly.
“What Belgrade wants in return is clear: better conditions for the North tip. So if you write th (at “It has told the world it will not recognize Kosovo as sovereign and independent.” that is not correct.”
Just today Dacic is being quoted as saying that Serbia will never recognize Kosovo, explicitly or implicitly. (This is the standard comment, BTW, nothing new or different.) Nothing about bargaining for better conditions for the Serbs of the north (and what about the Serbs south of the Ibar? Are they suddenly chopped liver?)
Obviously the ‘serbian block’ are missing the point…as usual!
Firstly, I must say that I fully agree with Mr. Serwer’s remark that “little progress [on these] can be made before the Serbian elections”. Indecision is the most noticeable feature of the policy embodied in the figure of Serbian president Boris Tadic.
Unfortunately or fortunately – depending on one’s own viewpoint and preferences – the political structure in Serbia is such that the party which wins the greatest single amount of votes in elections can hardly expect to form the government without making a coalition with at least one small (or relatively small) party. Moreover, it is quite possible that the top-ranked party even ends up being left out of the government.
Thus, in a somewhat strange way, the virtual winner of elections becomes the aforementioned small party (sometimes more than one of them) which wins precisely the percentage of votes that makes it an indispensable coalition partner to a so-called “big party”. That small party is commonly called the party with the highest “coalition potential”, which, in reality, most often turns out to be the potential for setting dishonorable ultimatums. The more of these small parties participate in a ruling coalition, the less efficient the government is likely to be in terms of accomplishing systemic reforms and reaching substantive achievements, since each of its factions tends to satisfy its own – usually selfish – political and other appetites first.
Now, bearing all this in mind, let’s consider the most likely outcomes of the next elections. What is beyond doubt is that the core member of the next coalition government will be one of two by far strongest political forces – currently ruling Democratic party (DS) of President Boris Tadic and Serbian progressive party (SNS), led by a chauvinist (ostensibly) turned Europeanist, Tomislav Nikolic, respectively. But the question is which small party is going to be the “tipper of the balance” this time?
In the last elections it was Socialist party of Serbia (SPS) – the one whose founder and first president was the late infamous dictator, Slobodan Milosevic. Various opinion polls are suggesting that SPS may well again be a party without participation of which no government can be made. However, it could easily happen that even with SPS on its side, neither of the two biggest parties will be able to secure the sufficient parliamentary majority to establish the new government, which would only further complicate an already complex situation.
One possibility is that the present ruling coalition might be joined by Liberal democratic party (LDP) of Cedomir Jovanovic. In that event, it would be reasonable to expect that the next government might be both more realistic in its dealing with the Kosovo issue and more expeditious when it comes to the pursuit of the so-called “European agenda”, given LDP’s clearly pro-Euroatlantic political platform. This would, of course, be the most optimistic of all more or less likely scenarios.
On the other hand, it is no less probable that the government could be composed of shifty SNS and openly anti-European and conservative DSS, with SPS as almost unavoidable in any combination. For more than obvious reasons, the emergence of such a government would be the worst thing to befall the country, as well as its neighborhood, at the moment.
Finally, the third and the least likely, albeit not entirely impossible scenario is that the two biggest parties simply circumvent the smaller ones and form the government together. Apart from the assumption that, if anything, such a government would be relatively stable due to overall political power of its member parties, that is an outcome whose implications would be extremely difficult to predict.
What about PUPS, the pensioners’ party? The oldsters have a right to be heard, but their ability to affect financial policy can’t be good for a country that needs investment so badly. There just aren’t enough working-age people to pay the kind of pensions the elderly want and maybe need – the pension-funds I understand were raided long ago to pay for lost wars and “saving Kosovo,” and there aren’t that many state enterprises waiting to be sold off remaining. True, there are fewer children who need new schools, but that’s hardly anything to be celebrated. PUPS’ leader is saying confidently that no government can be formed without them, but it seems, except for defending seniors’ rights and financial demands, the party is ideologically neutral? They certainly haven’t joined Jovanovic and Draskovic in their call for a change in policy toward Kosovo, and would probably tend to be on the side of defending any call to keep things as they used to be. Unless perhaps the argument is made that defending Kosovo will only be possible if pensions are cut and the retirement age raised. If the liberals could get the pensioner vote they’d become a force to reckon with.
PUPS are still in an apparently pretty firm coalition with Dacic’s SPS and therefore likely to participate in the next government. In fact, they entered the acting government as part of that coalition. And given that, over recent few months, PUPS have begun flirting with SNS, their prospects of remaining in the government after the elections appear to be very high.