Partition is not the solution

Agron Bajrami, editor in chief of Pristina daily Koha Ditore writes at kathimerini.gr: 

The idea that Kosovo and Serbia could reach a comprehensive final agreement within the EU mediated dialogue has sparked a lot of enthusiasm, especially in the West which would like to see the open issues in Balkans closed so that the whole of the region could move towards integration within EU and NATO.

But the discussions that have been incited by the idea of a final Kosovo-Serbia “normalization” deal have so far gone in the opposite direction, away from European solutions.

The most un-European proposal that we heard so far in this debate, was the increasing talk from Serbian side about Kosovo partition. Even the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, has talked about it, while Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic is publicly favoring partition for quite some time – even calling it “the best solution”.

These Serbian statements were followed by clear signs that Kosovo president Hashim Thaçi might be willing to enter such negotiations. Furthermore, he also used the opportunity to include into discussions the Preshevo Valley – an Albanian-majority region in Southern Serbia.

While most of the political parties and other leaders in Kosovo reject these ideas, claiming rightly that Kosovo status and its borders were permanently settled in 2008, Thaçi and Vucic seem to be ready to agree on some sort of territorial solution, insisting it is the “best” and even the “only” solution.

Nothing could be further from truth.

Once we accept that changing the borders is a solution, it will not stop at Kosovo-Serbia line. It will spread to the whole of the region, from Skopje to Sarajevo, with Bosnia and Hercegovina situation being particularly explosive. Change of borders – which Thaçi and some others euphemistically call “border correction” – will also mean partition on ethnic basis, and exchange of territories. And – as history taught us – where territories cannot be exchanged, population exchange will follow.

Hence, the whole region would return to the time of the conflicts, not unlike the ones we have witnessed during the 1990’s, and all the work done in the last 20 years to bring peace to the people of Balkans will be disregarded overnight.

In this context, it is highly unfortunate, disgraceful even, that EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, under whose facilitation the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue takes place, has kept silent in the face of ethnic partition talks. EU might be tempted to accept any kind of deal that two sides agree, but that would make Brussels equally responsible for the disaster that will certainly follow if Kosovo partition is legitimized as an option.

Because, even if all the negative effects could be limited to Kosovo only, it will be a monumental disaster; it would run against the European idea of multiethnic and multicultural democracies, which is enshrined in the Ahtisaari proposal that served as the basis for Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.

Of course, Ahtisaari plan has never been fully implemented also due to refusal of Serbia to agree with it, and there are still issues to be addressed related to minority and religious rights. But, giving up on that idea and returning to the ethnic based solutions will only push all of us back to conflicts and further instability.

That should not be allowed to happen.