By Ian Bancroft*
The European Union is again taking the lead role in mediating between Serbia and Kosovo after a planned Washington meeting came to nothing – and that means the idea of resolving the problem with a land swap is unlikely to resurface soon.
It was supposed to be a triumph for the Trump administration, a welcome foreign policy boost ahead of this November’s presidential elections.
Alas, a planned White House meeting between the presidents of Serbia and Kosovo, Aleksandar Vucic and Hashim Thaci, was stymied by an announcement by the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office that the latter could face trial for war crimes.
US mediation in the Kosovo-Serbia dispute arguably became a victim of its own success; the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office being so aghast by the prospect that Thaci might negotiate an amnesty for himself that it took the unprecedented step of publicising an indictment that is yet to be confirmed by a judge.
The European Union has since jumped at the opportunity to re-engage with a process which it initiated and presided over for almost a decade ago.
Dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina under the auspices of the EU had remained stalled since the introduction of a tariff regime by Kosovo back in 2018.
It was a move ostensibly motivated by Serbia’s campaign to encourage countries to suspend or reverse their recognition of Kosovo’s independence; a campaign which bore a healthier harvest than it might have expected.
Resuscitating negotiations required US chest compressions, and a hijacking of the EU’s connectivity agenda. A highly symbolic deal on resuming flights between Belgrade and Pristina (which seems unlikely to get off the ground), alongside a commitment to revitalise rail and road links, created renewed momentum. The US special envoy for Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell, also hinted at further progress on the economic front.
Yet many suspected that this process – which has been blamed for causing the downfall of Prime Minister Albin Kurti and his Vetëvendosje-led government in June – was conspiring to bring about a historic land-swap deal. Namely, part of the predominantly Serb-populated north of Kosovo would be exchanged for part of the predominantly ethnic Albanian-populated south of Serbia.
A land swap has often been presented as a panacea to the thorny question of how to normalise relations between Belgrade and Pristina. By offering Serbia something in return for helping consolidate Kosovo’s fledgling statehood (including a possible UN seat, Russian opposition notwithstanding), it has been deemed by some to be the cleanest way of snipping through the Gordian Knot of Kosovo’s status. Miss this window of opportunity, or so it is claimed, and another may not arise for a decade or more.
In its maximalist form, three or all four of the Kosovo Serb-majority municipalities in the country’s north (Mitrovica North, Leposavic, Zvecan and Zubin Potok) would be split from Kosovo. In its minimalist form, only Leposavic would change hands.
Leaving aside the broader and profound ramifications for countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia, each formulation has deficiencies that would undermine the normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina.
The maximalist form would destroy the multi-ethnic fabric that Kosovo is in the process of forming, albeit haphazardly. It would betray those Kosovo Serbs south of the river Ibar (many of whom already live in difficult circumstances), and likely render them largely unwelcome within Kosovo’s newly defined borders.
The reserved parliamentary seats Kosovo’s Serbs and other minorities have strategically employed would become untenable. Enhanced competencies that certain municipalities enjoy under the Ahtisaari Plan would likely be curtailed. The resulting dynamic and demographics would be most unfavourably to those Serbs for whom Kosovo is – and will remain – home.
In its minimalist form, a land swap would leave a host of fundamental problems unresolved; problems that would continue to burden relations between Belgrade and Pristina. Chief amongst them is how to integrate the remaining Serbian-controlled institutions into Kosovo’s system, most notably in the spheres of health, education, and local governance.
The mechanism intended to facilitate this, the so-called ‘Association/Community of Serb-Majority Municipalities’, was torpedoed by a 2015 ruling by Kosovo’s constitutional court. It remains one of the few outstanding elements from the 2013 Brussels Agreement (which has integrated Serbian police, judges, prosecutors, and members of the Civil Protection Corp); and in its absence, Pristina cannot exercise full sovereignty over its territory.
Securing a comprehensive normalisation of relations between Belgrade and Pristina will instead require more hard graft, a renewal of incentives, and possible sanctions for non-compliance.
There are agreements reached that must be implemented, and new topics that need to be addressed (especially the issue of missing and internally-displaced persons). It is often overlooked that Serbia’s EU accession path includes Chapter 35 on the normalisation of relations between Serbia and Kosovo. If EU membership is Belgrade’s goal, then these issues cannot be avoided.
The dialogue process has now resumed via video link (such is the nature of diplomacy these pandemic days), involving French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the EU’s High Representative, Josep Borrell, and the EU’s newly-appointed Special Representative for Dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, Miroslav Lajcak.
A face-to-face encounter between Serbia’s President Vucic and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti is planned for 16th July.
A prime challenge Lajcak faces is not only the recalcitrance of both Serbia and Kosovo, but that of EU member states and their willingness to uphold the very commitments they have long made to the Western Balkans.
Though the European Commission deemed that Kosovo had met all the conditions for visa liberalisation, resistance from various countries (France and the Netherlands amongst them) have frustrated the wishes of Kosovo’s citizens (including many of its Serbs). That Lajcak recently met with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas is acknowledgement of the need for a united European front towards the region.
With the Europeans – and most notably Germany – back at the helm, proposals of a land-swap are unlikely to resurface anytime soon. Dialogue can, therefore, focus once again on those elements that really matter and on which substantial progress has already been made to date; namely resolving the fundamental problems that scupper the normalisation of ties between Belgrade and Pristina.
As the prospects of European Union membership have dimmed, however, so too has the EU’s leverage in both Belgrade and Pristina. If the recent American adventures and sense of panic they induced fail to focus the minds of Europe’s capitals, then very little else will. /Balkan Insight, July 16, 2020/
*Ian Bancroft is the author of ‘Dragon’s Teeth: Tales from North Kosovo’.
