Opening gambit
Kosovo Prime Minister Haradinaj has circulated a 30-page draft comprehensive agreement between his own Republic and Serbia. It contains a lot of things I might like, including extensive arrangements for cross-border cooperation, protection of Serbs and Serb monuments in Kosovo, and implementation of the many technical agreements already reached between Pristina and Belgrade.
But there are some obvious problems. This paper is essentially to an opening negotiation proposal. From that perspective, it incorporates serious negotiating errors that should be fixed before any encounter with Belgrade. On first reading, I see two glaring problems:
- The agreement foresees entry into force before Kosovo membership in the United Nations. Since that can be blocked by Russia or China even if Belgrade is prepared to allow it, Kosovo could find itself out on a limb, having committed to give Serbia the substantial benefits contained in the agreement without getting a big part of the quid pro quo. It is inadvisable to run that risk. UN membership should come first. Only after that is finalized should a comprehensive agreement of this sort be signed.
- The draft agreement includes a long list of unilateral concessions to Serbia on governance arrangements in Kosovo at both the central and local levels. All such concessions should be proposed as reciprocal, not unilateral. There is no reason why Kosovo should not ask for the Albanian-inhabited areas of southern Serbia whatever arrangements are provided to Serbs in Kosovo.
Admittedly reciprocity is not provided for in the Ahtisaari agreement (from which many of these governance and other provisions are derived) but that is now overtaken by events, because Serbia refused to sign on. A sovereign state should not make unilateral concessions in its own proposal, unless it is certain they will be appreciated. The way to determine whether Serbia is really interested is to see if they are prepared to pay the price of reciprocity. If so, fine. If not, why should Kosovo concede even before the negotiation starts?
I see other potential concerns as well. The draft agreement includes a dispute settlement mechanism that relies on the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Why not the International Court of Justice? The draft agreement omits reference to cross-border cooperation between the countries’ security forces. This should be included: no two countries sharing a fortified border, which for the foreseeable future this one will be, can afford not to have regular consultations on national security issues as well as dialogue between their chiefs of staff. Kosovo does not yet have a full-fledged army, but cooperation of this sort should be starting sooner rather than later.
I am told that the Kosovo parliament, in creating a new negotiation team, has ruled out border changes. That is certainly a good thing.
I’m pretty sure I’ll find additional wrinkles in this opening gambit, but that will have to suffice for now. Anyone want to join me in offering suggestions and comments?
Share this, I'll really appreciate it:
5 thoughts on “Opening gambit”
Comments are closed.
RSS - Posts
Dear Dan,
excellent observations as always. However Ramush is unfortunately not a reliable political partner.Thus I am curious whether he will succeed in bringing together a much desired all-Kosovan negotiating team.
Why am I sceptical?
Just think of the border correction treaty with Montenegro, a precondition for visa-free travel to the EU.
First he succeeded in delaying the EU-visa deal for three years only to sign – after he became Prime Minister – exactly the same deal. This has lead some EU-members to give up on him. There have been enough such unreliable politicians around in the Balkans.In view of the ongoing geopolitical changes in the Balkans Brussels needs serious partners in Kosovo. I know Ramush really respects you (so he again told me only recently in Vienna) – inject some reality into his policies.
I’d have described EU behavior on the visa deal as more unreliable than anything the Kosovars did.
well, there you are simply wrong.
Lets put the record straight:
I was quite close to the whole process; but to oppose for purely personal reasons for three year the border correction deal is simply unacceptable. Who suffers? Not Ramush, its the much maligned citizens of Kosovo.
Serbia has agreed to certain provisions in past agreements and never followed through (recognition of diplomas, return of “cultural treasures” taken from the national museum in Prishtina before, during, and after the war, required use of a more expensive type of license plate -“prova”… For example). These are probably meant to be included in those references to previous agreements, but maybe it would be good to specify the individual points? Serbia has a habit of airily claiming that it has been punctilious about fulfilling all its commitments while Kosovo has not. (Vuçić moaned on dramatically about the failure to form the ZSO, while Kosovars say they’ve been prepared to do it at a moment’s notice – under Kosovo Law).
You’d have thought they’d have learned from their experience with the Ahtisaari agreement not to give anything away – the Serbs never had to trade for use of the existing name of the country and capital city, the status of Serbian as an official language, a separate school system (still seems like a bad idea, but nobody asked). Serbia got more than they ever offered Kosovars before the war, and started angling immediately for more. Some people don’t feel compelled to return magnanimity with the same. So definitely get the UN seat before worrying about monuments to the victims. Otherwise it’s all up to Putin, and he’s getting enough from Trump – Kosovo certainly doesn’t need to add to his take.
Oh, nearly forgot: in UN resolutions, the points in the Preamble are kept clearly distinct from the operational clauses, including by punctuation (preambular clauses end in commas, operational – in semicolons). At the Emergency Session, the lady for Bolivia was still claiming that the UN had guaranteed that Serbia’s territorial integrity would be guaranteed (and that therefore Kosovo was actually not an independent country) based on a Reaffirming clause in 1244. Whatever the conventions in this type of document, there should be no chance of the waters being later muddied about anything significant. Everything should be examined for how it could be turned against the drafters in the future.