What are the chances of establishing the CSM if there is a change of government in Kosovo?

The issue of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities (CSM) was also included among the conclusions on EU enlargement. The attitude of the Self-Determination Movement toward this obligation has been evident over the past years, and—given that the establishment of the CSM has been demonized in the public discourse—parties that are currently in opposition are also unlikely to devote themselves wholeheartedly to this issue if they come to power, unless there is strong encouragement from international actors, Kosovo Online’s interlocutors assess. At most, they might submit the European draft statute of the CSM to the Constitutional Court for review.

Written by: Dusica Radeka Djordjevic

The requirement for Kosovo to immediately begin establishing the CSM and to start fulfilling its obligations stemming from the 2023 agreement was included in the draft conclusions on enlargement policy at today’s meeting of the EU General Affairs Council.

During his visit to Pristina in November, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul also stressed that Kosovo must take the necessary steps to establish the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities.

The establishment of the CSM has been an obligation of Kosovo since 2013 and was ratified in the Assembly, yet there has been almost no discussion of this issue among Albanian parties in recent months.

This comes as no surprise. Anything that could be interpreted as a concession to the Serb community does not bring political points, and elections are just around the corner.

Political analyst from Pristina, Shkelzen Maliqi, believes that if, after the elections, a government is formed by parties that are currently in opposition, such a government would most likely submit the European draft statute of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities to the Constitutional Court for review.

Maliqi says that the opposition has not spoken much about the Association because it was the main populist trump card of Albin Kurti, but that opposition parties are essentially in favor of improving relations with the West—both with Brussels and with Washington.

“Kurti negotiated the Ohrid Agreement with Vucic, and if nothing else, they (the opposition) will at least send the statute of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities to the Constitutional Court. That was also a condition for entering the Council of Europe. I believe that any government that is not Kurti’s will be far more cooperative,” Maliqi told Kosovo Online.

Aleksandar Sljuka, an associate of the NGO New Social Initiative, also believes that a government formed by parties currently in opposition would have a different approach to the establishment of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities, as these parties have expressed readiness to cooperate with international actors demanding the CSM’s formation. However, he emphasizes that this issue is extremely unpopular among all Albanian parties in Kosovo.

Sljuka told Kosovo Online that the question is how much support opposition parties would have from the international community to implement the CSM if they come to power, given that the topic has been demonized in the public sphere. A high degree of polarization, he adds, was created around this issue during Albin Kurti’s government.

“The international community declaratively demands that both sides in the dialogue fulfill their obligations, but we do not see stronger engagement in the form of pressure on the parties. In addition, other issues in the world have now drawn the international community’s attention, such as the situation in Ukraine or Gaza,” he notes.

Sljuka also sees a potential problem in the fact that if opposition parties form the new government, it will have to be a coalition, raising the question of how stable it would be.

“If it starts implementing something so unpopular, it could lead to its collapse. The establishment of the CSM is a process that will certainly take time. They might be able to send the draft statute for review, but full establishment of the Association will require a longer period—perhaps a year or two—and then the question is whether that government would be stable and long-lasting enough to deliver something like that,” Sljuka points out.

In the event of a change of government at the central level, he says that a drastic change in approach toward the Serb community in general should not be expected, but he believes it would be better than during the rule of Self-Determination.

“I would not say that they are particularly eager to fulfill things that would improve the status of the Serb community, but they want better cooperation with international partners. Their support is important to them, so they will probably be more willing to implement even these unpopular decisions and take some step forward in normalization or de-escalation, with support, a green light, and perhaps certain guarantees from the international community. Essentially, they have no direct political interest in such moves because they can cost them political points,” he says.

As he emphasizes, the situation is so polarized that any decision perceived as a concession to Serbs would be closely scrutinized by the opposition—especially if the opposition were Self-Determination, led by Albin Kurti.

Petar Curcic, a researcher at the Institute for European Studies in Belgrade, is also not optimistic that the CSM could be established shortly after the formation of a new Kosovo government, regardless of EU demands.

He says that at this moment it is difficult to predict whether, if after the elections on December 28 the new government in Kosovo is formed by parties currently in opposition, that government would be more willing to establish the Association, especially given the strong and pronounced Albanian nationalism—not only in Kosovo but also in the diaspora.

“Each side will want to be ‘more Albanian’ than the one in power. This solution will have to include all Albanian representatives, and what it will look like will depend primarily on the dynamics of relations with Western allies,” Curcic told Kosovo Online.

When it comes to the CSM, he says three perspectives should be kept in mind.

“One is the Serbian perspective, which assumes that Pristina’s institutions establish the CSM, something they committed to more than ten years ago through the Brussels Agreement. Since then, Pristina has had an obligation, but it has not happened, considering that Self-Determination has been in power for nearly half a decade, and that before that there was also a complex coalition of Albanian parties in government. They simply did not want to establish the CSM, which brings us to the second perspective—the political will in Pristina. I do not expect Pristina to initiate this process on its own, regardless of who is in power,” Curcic says.

The third perspective, he adds, relates to European institutions and broader international factors.

“Here I primarily mean the United States, which has somewhat toughened its rhetoric toward Pristina, and the European Union as well. Through some negotiation and dialogue process, we hope that the European side could influence Pristina to intensify the formation of the Association, which is important for Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, but in the short and medium term I am not optimistic that this will happen,” he concludes.