What Serbia can get

Berlin will be hosting Balkan leaders Monday. This summit will be EU High Representative Mogherini’s last chance before she leaves office to strike a deal on “normalization” of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. The Germans have let it be known that they are firmly opposed to border changes as part of such a deal and hope to kill the idea. But that leaves open the question of what Serbia could get from recognizing Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state.

Belgrade lost sovereignty over Kosovo due to Slobodan Milosevic’s depredations, including annulment of Kosovo’s autonomy under Socialist Yugoslavia, the expulsion of Albanians from its Serbia institutions, the establishment of an apartheid-like regime, mass atrocities committed against innocent women and children, state violence to chase Albanians out of Kosovo, and continued hostility after the fall of Milosevic to the establishment of self-governing democratic institutions that provide significant privileges for Serbs. Even after the fall of Milosevic, Serbia did nothing to “make unity attractive,” in the Sudanese phrase.

Serbia is entitled to nothing in Kosovo, but of course not being entitled doesn’t mean you can’t ask for what you want and use what leverage you have to get it. Serbia has leverage because it has been successful in blocking entry for Kosovo into some international institutions, including the United Nations. No doubt they give awards for that in the Serbian foreign ministry, but it isn’t doing anything for Serbia or Serbs except denying the Kosovars their dreams and holding out the forlorn hope that some day Serbian sovereignty over Kosovo can be restored. Inat (spite, more or less) is emotionally gratifying but not otherwise rewarding.

The trick for Serbia and for Kosovo is to ask for things that your adversary, or someone else, can give. That is where President Vucic has failed. He has asked for a chunk of northern Kosovo that includes a municipality that was Albanian-majority before the war as well as Kosovo’s major non-energy mineral deposits and its main water supply. Alternatively, Vucic appears ready to accept an Association of Serb Municipalities that would allow Belgrade to govern all the Serbs of Kosovo, north and south of the Ibar river. No self-respecting Kosovo president could concede these intrusions on sovereignty, no Kosovo parliament would approve them, and no popular referendum is likely to confirm them.

What could Vucic reasonably hope for? First and foremost is removal of an otherwise insurmountable obstacle to European Union membership. Germany and several other EU member states have made it plain that they will not ratify Serbia’s membership without complete and irreversible normalization of relations with Kosovo. Even if their governments wanted to do so, which they don’t, their parliaments would not. If Serbia, as it has planned to do, waits until it is fully qualified for EU membership, it can expect nothing in return for normalization with Kosovo, since all the leverage will then be with the EU and its member states. All membership aspirants yield on the last issues remaining once they have met the other EU membership requirements. Ask the Slovenians and Croatians.

Having wisely decided to normalize earlier rather than later, what can Vucic hope for? Pristina’s recently approved negotiating platform gives one hint: a good deal on payment of former Yugoslavia’s sovereign debts. There are other possibilities:

• Kosovo has approved conversion of its lightly armed security force into an army, not least so it can join NATO. Belgrade says it fears the Kosovo army would be used against Serbs. It is not hard to imagine a Kosovo army entirely designed for international missions that would pose no threat to Serbs either in Kosovo or in Serbia, whose army is far larger and better equipped than anything Kosovo can afford. Two hints: focusing on helicopters (the Americans have them conveniently at hand at Camp Bondsteel) and cyber defense would give the Kosovo army opportunities to add real value to NATO.
• The most important Serb historical and religious sites in Kosovo are south of the Ibar river, where most of the Serb population lives in enclaves. Further enhanced security arrangements that would ensure the sites and the people remain inviolate but still respect Pristina’s sovereignty should be doable.
• Kosovo has imposed high tariffs on Serb imports, in an effort to force Serbia into normalization. That isn’t working: Serb goods are entering Kosovo without passing through the official entry points. The Europeans and Americans are berating and threatening Pristina. The tariffs need to end, as they are no more than an incentive for smuggling and enrichment of organized crime that neither Kosovo nor Serbia should want if they want to be taken seriously by the EU.
• Kosovo’s constitutional court has issued a ruling that clarifies what kind of Association of Serb Municipalities would be acceptable. If Serbia is prepared to respect Kosovo’s constitutional order, it should take what is on offer, and provide comparable arrangements for Albanian communities inside Serbia.
• The nub of territorial contestation between Kosovo and Serbia is the municipality of North Mitrovica, which is still controlled by Belgrade (insofar as it is controlled) but was majority Albanian before the 1999 war. The Americans managed a similarly sensitive town in northeast Bosnia, Brcko, by declaring it a condominium of both the Federation and Republika, the two halves of the country. That effectively removed it from control of both and made it a self-governing entity with a special status, under American tutelage, within the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s sovereignty. A similar solution for North Mitrovica, within the sovereignty of Kosovo, is conceivable. Whether American tutelage is practicable is another question.
• Both Belgrade and Pristina want immunity from prosecution for their own citizens who participated in the 1990s fighting, some of whom still serve in high positions. Odious though it may be to me, mutual amnesty for everything but war crimes and crimes against humanity is permissible. In both capitals it is widely assumed that whichever leaders take up President Trump’s invitation to sign a historic deal in the Rose Garden will be immune from prosecution.

None of this can happen quickly or easily, but there are some immediate steps that would point in the right direction:

1. The defense chiefs of staff should meet and begin the process, common among neighboring countries, of exchanging information on their respective forces and defense strategies. They should also discuss security for Serb communities and sites in Kosovo as well as for Albanian communities and sites in Serbia.
2. CEFTA, the central European free trade association in which both Serbia and Kosovo participate should begin an intense process of examining trade complaints by both Belgrade and Pristina, including the tariffs, with a view to resolving them by the end of this year.
3. Kosovo’s Ministry of Communities and Returns should begin talking with Serbia’s Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government about reciprocal cooperation arrangements for Serb communities in Kosovo and Albanian communities in Serbia.
4. All those concerned should read Bill Farrand’s account of what he did at Brcko in the first years after the war and how he did it. It is hard to picture that any international could reproduce that success in North Mitrovica without extraordinary and plenipotentiary powers. And it is pretty much inconceivable that anyone but an American, aided by a Russian and a European, could even begin to hope for success in less than a decade of concerted, well-resourced efforts, including backup by whatever NATO forces can be provided.
5. Both Serbia and Kosovo need foreign investment and faster economic growth, not least to provide employment and keep their young people at home rather than fleeing to the European Union. The EU and US should be prepared to ante up for a multi-billion dollar/euro package of economic support, provided Pristina and Belgrade implement a serious normalization process.

Normalization may not arrive in one magical package this year, as some overly sanguine diplomats have been hoping, but as the result of a long and difficult process. It is going to require a lot of intense and complex cross-border cooperation. The time to start that has arrived.