Here are the remarks I prepared for today’s panel in Pristina, Kosovo on “The Future of the Dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia: the possibilities for new dynamics in the process and the impact of new US and EU elections.” The Group for Legal and Political Studies sponsored the event.
Here in Pristina I face a great challenge. I need to say something sensible about the Dialogue in front of people here in Pristina who have spent years observing it and engaging in it.
Fellow panelist Sonja Biserko is also closer to the Dialogue than I am. She has been observing the political moods in Belgrade since before my first trip to Kosovo in 1998, as war was brewing.
Anything I say will be from a more distant, professorial perspective.
That perspective tells me there is no better alternative than a peaceful and friendly relationship between Belgrade and Pristina.
When I said this to Kosovo Albanian friends during and soon after the war they laughed grimly. They said they would never want to talk with Belgrade again.
But it soon became clear that Serbia was Kosovo’s biggest security threat, an important factor in its economy, and a major influence on its Serb population.
Not to mention its influence on other countries, which has prevented universal recognition of Kosovo independence.
Neighbors don’t have the privilege of ignoring their neighbors if they want security, prosperity, the loyalty of their minority populations, and international recognition.
I participated in the first training for talks with Belgrade around 2004, for the Provisional Institutions of Self-Government. Bajram Rexhepi, then Prime Minister of the provisional institutions, was a participant, along with several other ministers and directors general. Maybe some of you were there.
I soon after helped to train Serbian foreign service officers for their engagement with Kosovo.
But quite rightly the international community decided that independence needed to come first. And so it did, as Martti Ahtisaari recommended, along with his EU and American collaborators.
Then of course there was the need to ensure implementation of the Ahtisaari plan, a process that the International Civilian Office supervised well.
So it was 2011 before the dialogue with Belgrade officially began. This was the technical dialogue, which Edita Tahiri and Borko Stefanovic led.
The goal of the technical dialogue was to improve the lives of people in both countries.
It produced a lot of agreements by 2013, many of which were not fully implemented in the timeframes foreseen.
These included agreements on civil registry books, cadastral records, freedom of movement, recognition of diplomas, custom stamps and duties, regional representation, telecommunications, and energy.
In 2013, the participants raised the level of the dialogue and set a new goal: political normalization.
This political dialogue resulted in the 2013 Brussels agreement, which famously included the Association of Serb Municipalities.
But the Association was not a standalone, unilateral proposition.
Kosovo agreed to create it in exchange for Serb participation in Kosovo’s institutions, especially municipal elections, the police and judiciary, as well as non-interference by either side in the other’s progress toward the EU.
Since 2013 there has been some progress on implementing the technical agreements. But there has been virtually none in meeting the goal of political normalization. I would even say that Belgrade has reversed some progress.
It has reneged on all the 2013 commitments. It has maintained de facto governance over the Serb population in the Serb-majority communities of northern Kosovo. Serbia organized the boycott of municipal elections there. Belgrade has withdrawn Serb officials from the police and courts. And Serbia has done everything it could to block and reverse recognition of Kosovo and its entry into the Council of Europe.
Pristina has done nothing to implement its commitment to create the Association of Serb Majority Municipalities.
For the past three years, Gabe Escobar and Miroslav Lajcak have tried to pressure Pristina into creating the Association, with no success. That should not be surprising, as the agreement to create it included obligations for Belgrade as well.
Instead of fulfilling those, Serbia has chosen to make things worse, through purposeful violence. Last year it kidnapped two Kosovo police from Kosovo territory, rented a mob to attack NATO peacekeepers inside Kosovo, and organized a terrorist attack that was supposed to provide the excuse for a Serbian military intervention.
Most recently, Belgrade has torpedoed the proposal to re-call the non-Serb mayors in the north and conduct new elections.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the technical dialogue was far more productive than the political one.
I have to ask: why is this the case?
Belgrade, it seems to me, is not ready for political normalization. By the end of last year, President Vucic was expressing his hope for changed geopolitical conditions that would enable Serbia to retake part or all of Kosovo. The newly inaugurated Serbian government includes vocal supporters of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It also includes the leading advocate of the “Serbian world,” a euphemism for Greater Serbia.
President Vucic has de facto achieved the Serbian world in half of Bosnia and in all of Montenegro. Why wouldn’t he want to extend that success at least to northern Kosovo?
I am not convinced that Pristina is ready for political normalization either.
Albanian Kosovars first want to hear that Serbia regrets what Slobodan Milosevic did in 1998 and 1999. They want to see Belgrade encourage Kosovo Serbs to look to Pristina for governance, including law and order. Pristina wants Belgrade to be ready to give Albanians in southern Serbia comparable privileges and representation to those Serbia enjoys inside Kosovo for Serbs.
I suppose if Belgrade were to fulfill its obligations under the 2013 agreement Pristina would too. But that isn’t going to happen.
EU and US policy needs a reset. While I don’t expect diplomats to admit it, they need to return to a more practical, less political, dialogue. Political normalization is a bridge too far. Serbia won’t be interested in surrendering its sovereignty claims until the war in Ukraine ends the Russian annexations there. Kosovo won’t be interested in forming the Association until it is confident that Serbia accepts its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
But both Belgrade and Pristina can welcome smoothing movement of people, goods, and finance through their mutual border and enabling more licit trade, investment, and commerce.
Pristina has rightly begun to insist on the use of its official currency, the euro, in transactions in Kosovo. But that is creating problems for the Serb communities, which receive subsidies from Belgrade for health and education—and likely other things as well—in Serbian dinars.
This is the kind of practical issue the EU and US should focus on. Belgrade and Pristina need to agree on transparency for Serbia’s subsidies and a scheme for how they can proceed smoothly.
Both Belgrade and Pristina should be interested in a serious crackdown on organized crime that exploits the lack of law and order in northern Kosovo.
Now would be a good time for Belgrade to ensure that Milan Radoicic pays for his crimes and is unable to recover politically. Serbia should turn him over to Kosovo for trial. No doubt Serbia could name some Albanian candidates for similar treatment.
Another issue I’d like to see discussed in the Dialogue is Belgrade’s intimidation of Kosovo Serbs who join the Kosovo Security Force or police. It is high time to put an end to the threats and violence that they and their families suffer at the hands of Belgrade’s proxies.
That is the practical direction in which prospects for success lie. Saying farewell to failure requires getting the priorities right.
Political normalization will come when Pristina and Belgrade are ready for it. My guess is that Belgrade will be first, because its EU accession will depend on recognition of Kosovo.
More than one of the 27 member states of the EU will insist on it, even if the member states do not adopt it as EU policy.
In the meantime, the Dialogue should focus on practical problems that can be solved in practical ways. It is a mistake to require politicians to do more than they are ready to do.
That’s my professorial take.
I added a few extemporaneous remarks about the US election:
The good thing about American elections is that we know the outcome only after we count the votes.
Our 18th-century constitution makes predictions difficult, because of close races in a few battleground states.
A Biden election will lead to continuity in defending the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all Western Balkan states.
A Trump election will lead to surrender of Ukraine to Russia, unqualified support for Israel’s war on Gaza, and doubts about US commitment to NATO and Asian allies.
And it will lead to revival of partition ideas in the Western Balkans, with catastrophic consequences.