The right medicine
Serbia is threatening to intervene in Kosovo if its parliament votes to create an army. NATO is backing Belgrade.
This is ridiculous. The Alliance should be telling Belgrade to stuff it. NATO-led forces in Kosovo should be put on alert to underline the point.
Kosovo has been without an army since the 1999 NATO intervention that saved it from Serbian President Milosevic’s efforts to reduce its Albanian population by force and its 2008 declaration of independence. NATO has provided the country’s territorial defense, though it governs itself and has been recognized as sovereign by about 110 countries.
Pristina now wants to convert its security forces, which are only lightly armed, into an army. The US, UK and NATO have been thoroughly consulted. The process will take 10 years or more. If NATO forces are ever to be removed from Kosovo and sent on to higher priority missions, the country will have to have the means to defend itself at least for a few days. NATO should be supporting those who want to lighten its burdens, not those who threaten aggression.
Belgrade’s agenda has nothing to do with any threat from a Kosovo army, which is non-existent, now and in the future. What Serbia is trying to do is deprive Pristina of one of the vital elements of sovereignty. It is also trying to find an excuse to intervene and occupy the Serb-majority portion of Kosovo’s north, where organized crime figures aligned with Belgrade’s ruling authorities reign supreme.
NATO backing for these objectives is a serious mistake. So too is Europe’s refusal to give Kosovo a visa waiver program, despite its assiduous and successful efforts to meet the criteria that the European Commission set. Citing domestic political pressures, France and others are saying Kosovo will need to wait until at least 2020. While the EU has consistently lowered the bar for Serbia’s progress on its EU agenda, Brussels seems determined to raise the bar for Kosovo.
Kosovo makes its mistakes too. The 100% tariffs it recently imposed on Serbian imports is a violation of its international obligations under the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), so far as I can tell. But that mistake will be corrected through the normal CEFTA process. The NATO and EU mistakes are far harder to correct and will leave serious scars on their relationship with an admittedly small country with no near-term prospects of accession.
But that is precisely the reason the EU and NATO should rethink what they are doing. Kosovo as much as Serbia needs Euro-Atlantic prospects if the two countries are to escape the negative spiral they are currently locked in. A visa waiver program for Kosovo, a strong NATO warning to Serbia, initiation under NATO guidance of the evolution of its security forces into an army designed mainly for international deployments, and an end to prohibitive tariffs on Serbian goods are the medicine that can cure the current fever.
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Absolutely spot on, Daniel.
The recent visit of Commissioner Hahn was fully counterproductive, and in defence of Serbia (whilst visiting Kosova, of all places and telling leadership in Prishtinë what to do).
Hahn’s actions will only make the Kosovars more determined to take a firm stance, after they lost the ‘Interpol battle’ while the EU does not keep its end of the visa bargain.
Hence and therefore, the Kosovars will not immediately withdraw the tariffs increase and may be more convinced to implement the long-announced change from KSF to KOS Army. The fact that NATO, in its meetings of the last two days, has labelled this change as “ill-timed” (even though long on the agenda, and not earlier met with Alliance opposition) reveals that both in the EU and NATO particular (well-known) countries continue to block the Republic of Kosovo, much to the delight of both the Republic of Serbia and the Russian Federation.
All these developments teach the Kosovars basically that (at a time that the United States is unreliable, while the EU doesn’t keep its promises after Kosova fulfilled all visa criteria and has already postponed a visa decision to at least 2020, and certain countries EU block Kosovar integration process) it can in fact rely only on one partner: the Republic of Albania.
It is no coincidence that the cooperation, if not integration, of the two countries takes place on various levels and in various degrees. While some may contribute such developments to the old ‘Greater Albania’ concept, it is rather an outcome of the fact that Euro-Atlantic integration is made extremely difficult if not impossible for the young Kosovar nation, while Serbia is becoming more and more authoritarian and assertive (as it sees, after winning the UNESCO and Interpol contest, it can play with the larger geostrategic entities that are interested in bringing Serbia in their camp).
A young generation that can use their mobiles but have no mobility, trapped in a situation where there is neither political nor economic progress, and where political leaders talk about land swaps without consulting the people concerned, will want to leave when and where possible.
And of course it leads, next to massive brain drain, to some, 2nd generation, success stories here and there with Kosovar ladies reaching the top of the music charts and some Kosovar gentlemen reaching the top of international football, but by and large it leads to dissatisfaction, unemployment, radicalisation, et cetera with the risk of even ‘lost generation’ perspectives.
That is not what the Kosovars were promised, if they would take up arms against the Milošević regime and fight for independence. No wonder the Kosovars look back to these promises of the 1990s with both nostalgia & bitterness and thus show their extensive and genuine respect when a representative of the ‘greatest generation’ (#41) passes away.
It is about time that such respect becomes a reciprocal phenomenon.
“Mainly international deployments” what’s the other rationale for a Kosovo army? To invade and conquer north kosovo and take power from the Serbs there.
The Kosovars say they want to contribute to Nato operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, like the other new Nato countries. It’s a way of demonstrating their value to the alliance and their rightful place at the table.
And with Serbia bragging about its two good-as-new fighter jets from Russia, who in the neighborhood isn’t worrying about what Serbia may have in mind?