Unwise

Its Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU signed, Kosovo is currently campaigning to join UNESCO. This would enable its educational and cultural institutions to benefit from international privileges reserved in practice to UNESCO  members. The General Conference, which convened Monday in Paris, is expected to vote on the issue this month, perhaps as early as Monday.

That at first glance is about as far as you can get from a war and peace issue. But unfortunately it matters, mainly because Serbia is trying to block Kosovo’s move with an intense diplomatic countercampaign. Belgrade sees international organization membership for Kosovo as a back door to recognition of its sovereignty.

That’s silly. Recognized by 111 states, Kosovo is already a member of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as other “country” clubs. That is surely more testimony to its sovereignty than membership in UNESCO, which comes with obligations as well as privileges. Someone in the Serbian Foreign Ministry must get a point for every blocked Kosovo effort to enter an international organization.

UNESCO membership for Kosovo is particularly appropriate. The country has elaborate obligations to protect Serbian religious and cultural property under the Ahtisaari plan that paved the way for Kosovo independence. Belgrade rightly expects Pristina to fulfill those obligations. Its leadership is committed to doing so. Since declaring independence in 2008, it has substantially done so. But extremism is gaining in Kosovo, as it is throughout the Balkans. Denying Kosovo membership in UNESCO would strengthen more radical political forces there and increase potential threats to Serbs and Serb cultural and religious property.

The authorities in Pristina will have to be ready to meet those threats effectively, but even better protection would come from improved relations between the Serbian Orthodox Church and the local communities in which Serbian churches and monasteries are located. Albanians and Serbs of good will should be trying to ensure proactively that the local population appreciates this commitment and that the local authorities and police give high priority to ensuring its fulfillment.

The Serbian Orthodox Church has taken a position against Kosovo membership in UNESCO, enunciated here in reasonable terms by Father Sava, for whom I have a lot of respect:

This I don’t buy. A sovereign Kosovo can’t be put in the position of taking every issue Belgrade suggests to “the dialogue” the EU has sponsored. That is explicitly aimed at normalizing bilateral relations. Multilateral acceptance of Kosovo needs to proceed in the normal fashion, decided in accordance with each international organization’s normal procedures.

Kosovo is still struggling to gain full international recognition, which is an issue the more nationalist forces use against its current government. Failure to get into UNESCO will encourage this bad habit. There is nothing that could set that cause back more dramatically than a repeat of the disgraceful pogrom of March 2004, in which Albanians strove to drive Serbs out of Kosovo and destroyed churches and other Serb monuments. Most Kosovo Albanians understand and appreciate this now. But there will always be a fringe that wants revenge against Serbs for the injustice and crimes done to Albanians in the past. It is up to Kosovo’s citizens and police to prevent them from acting in ways that most Kosovars would disapprove.

But it is up to Belgrade to appreciate that denying Kosovo membership in an organization devoted to culture, education and science undermines the responsibility and accountability the Pristina authorities and the majority of moderate Kosovo citizens need to accept as their own. UNESCO membership does nothing to hurt Belgrade. Opposing it is unwise and should stop.