Not ideal, but clearly a step forward
Lady Ashton’s patience has paid off. Belgrade and Priština have finally reached a compromise on integration of four Serb-dominated municipalities of northern Kosovo into the country’s regular institutions. Although the agreement is not ideal since it preserves ethnic-based political divisions, it is clearly a step forward, likely to resolve a number of currently burning issues.
What could prove a serious problem is implementation. Northern Kosovo Serbs have announced they will strongly resist any attempt to enforce the agreement on them. They can count on support from far-right extremists in Serbia who are already mobilizing. Even prime minister Ivica Dačić and his deputy Aleksandar Vučić are receiving hundreds of SMS messages with terrible death threats after their mobile phone numbers have been publicly revealed by members of Vučić’s former ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party. Moreover, a couple of days ago an extremist from the pro-Russian clerical fascist movement “Naši” approached and verbally attacked Dačić during the Belgrade marathon.
While militant nationalists in Serbia may not be as numerous as before, they still pose a considerable threat, in the first place to public safety. Now that Dačić and Vučić are also potentially at risk, they could use it as a well-grounded justification to finally crack down on the militants before it has become too late.
It is hard to say who among Serbian politicians will benefit most from the deal with Priština. Latest opinion polls indicate that more than 50 percent of the public support both the dialogue in general and this particular agreement, but they are at the same time feeling largely fed up with both Kosovo and the European perspective. People want to see a concrete improvement in their standard of living.
In terms of future relationships between Kosovo and Serbia, the dynamic between the two countries will be as important to watch as that within each of them alone. For full-fledged normalization the imperative must be to put an end to deep-rooted mutual distrust between ordinary Albanians and Serbs, not only in Kosovo but also in Serbia. That will require intensive cooperation and a great deal of good will on the part of both governments.
Even more important will be developments inside the European Union in relation to its own crisis, which seems far from over. It is only European integration that is somehow still keeping the Western Balkans relatively calm. The more the crisis deepens, the lesser will be the ability of Brussels to keep the region under control.
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Now it starts to get hard: http://www.koha.net/repository/karikaturat/f1_jemi-1304241366785044.jpg
Forcing Vucic to participate and take responsibility for the agreement seems to have been worth the effort, since it’s bringing the SNS-bots along. Including Vulin at the end – head of the Kosovo Office of the Serbian government – may also prove to have been wise, since he over-promised the Northerners on what he could get them, and has resigned. The negotiators’ lives may be simpler without his baleful presence down there in Mitrovica.
It was interesting, I thought, that the Serbian side repeatedly identified each of the participants in the talks, especially for the final round that resulted in the initialing, while the Albanians talked almost exclusively about Thaci’s comings and goings, or maybe those of his team. I wondered whether he might not be providing cover for his Serbian Deputy PM and head of the largest Serbian party in Kosovo. The man does not have an easy role to play, but he seems to do it without the whining or bombast characteristic of the politicians in Belgrade. On the other hand, having to gain the support of both Serbs and Albanians may have helped Prishtina to keep the heated rhetoric and unrealistic promises under control.
As far as the goodwill that both sides are expected to demonstrate, the President’s adviser from the last round is already calling on the five non-recognizing EU members to avoid changing their positions now. I suppose he can argue that the “not encouraging others to block the EU path of the other side” is not in effect until Parliament has been heard from? they get a typeset copy of the agreement from Brussels? Lady Ashton calls him on it? The EU is obviously going to need someone to keep a beady eye on the implementation talks. (Belgrade is sending a B team, Thaci is sending his right-hand man to lead their delegation, which may tell you something about the relative degrees of seriousness of the two sides.)