Alternative history and the Washington Agreement

Written by: Ivan Jaksic, Editor-in-Chief of Kosovo Online

On this day in 2020, in the White House in Washington, the Agreement on Economic Normalization, later colloquially known as the Washington Agreement, was signed. The controversies surrounding this agreement have been the subject of numerous articles, and no foreign policy analyst from Belgrade or Pristina has refrained from contributing to its subsequent analysis. It was so unique and unusual that even today, four years later, it continues to provide ample room for discussion as both an intriguing attempt in the process of political resolution of the Kosovo issue and a significant missed opportunity.

The peculiarity of this agreement lies in its very title, as it does not specify who is agreeing with whom on economic normalization. Furthermore, the agreement (in the singular) actually consisted of two separate agreements signed individually by representatives of Belgrade and Pristina with the U.S. administration. There was no document signed by both Belgrade and Pristina together, leaving many legal experts baffled. This brief reflection on the anniversary of an interesting historical moment will not contribute to legal theory, but I hope it will shed renewed political light on that unusual meeting in the Oval Office.

Much about the Washington Agreement is unique and strange, not because someone forgot to consult international law experts, but because the impetus for its creation came from former U.S. President Donald Trump, whose foreign policy was characterized by unconventionality.

Let me explain this thesis further. Every administration, including the American one, suffers from inertia. The larger and more powerful a country, the more rigid it becomes in executing established strategic plans. Although the U.S. has an unlimited academic potential, numerous reputable foreign policies think tanks at the disposal of the American political elite, and a highly professional State Department administration, Washington has surprisingly little ability to fine-tune the country’s foreign policy in real-time in response to new circumstances and current challenges. This was the case until Trump came to power. Political opponents might compare his pragmatic and managerial approach to foreign policy to a bull in a China shop, but the fact remains that he jolted an otherwise stagnant system out of lethargy. As a businessman, Trump understood that problems do not solve themselves and that any successful strategy must contain a dose of unconventionality and flexibility. That is why, despite his verbal tirades against political opponents worldwide, Trump could be found at the table with both Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un. Trump built his image, in both business and politics, as a problem-solver, and this remains his political agenda in his current U.S. presidential campaign.

In this context, his attempt to break the deadlock in resolving the Kosovo issue was neither unusual nor surprising. Whether the Washington Agreement would have worked and what results it might have produced if Trump had won the 2020 presidential election remains a hypothetical question, much like asking whether there would have been a war in Ukraine or whether U.S.-China relations would be in such crisis if history had taken a different course four years ago.

Let’s return, however, to the agreement itself and its content. For now, we'll set aside the issue of Israel, which found itself strangely, but in line with Trump's aforementioned unconventionality, in two versions of both agreements. We should remind that, following the signed agreement with the U.S., Kosovo quickly opened an embassy in Jerusalem, and Israel recognized Kosovo. Serbia, despite obligations under its agreement with the U.S., did not relocate its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem because Israel had already recognized Kosovo, fundamentally altering the political circumstances. This part of the agreement, though unrelated to the relationship between Belgrade and Pristina, garnered the most public attention, overshadowing the more important and central parts of the agreement.

The Washington Agreement was primarily an economic agreement and represented an attempt, in line with Trump's view that business relations precede politics, to create an environment for laying the economic foundations for political normalization between Belgrade and Pristina. There is no fault in that logic. Since we are in the realm of hypotheticals, we can ask: what would the quality of Serbian-Albanian relations on Kosovo and between Belgrade and Pristina be today if we had a highway and railway line from Pristina to Nis, or if, instead of the trade blockade imposed by Kosovo authorities, greater freedom of movement for people, goods, capital, and services between Kosovo and Serbia had been established, with Pristina joining the "Open Balkan" initiative? Certainly, the ethnic divide in Kosovo would be smaller, Kosovo's ethnonationalists would have lost some of their voter base, and both Pristina and Belgrade would have gained tangible benefits from such an arrangement, allowing for more capacity to discuss sensitive political topics at the negotiating table.

Serbia was not obliged by the agreement to change its position on Kosovo's status, leaving room for possible future political arrangements that might resolve the current irreconcilable positions of Belgrade and Pristina in a unique, compromising, and creative way. Additionally, the Trump administration would have financially supported the process of normalization.

Many heavily criticized the Washington Agreement four years ago, but time has shown that instead of improvements in relations, even in hypothetical terms, we now witness the twilight of democracy in Kosovo, the collapse of dialogue, open and brutal use of force by Kosovo authorities against Serbs, and the political disenfranchisement of an entire people.

An alternative history, where the Washington Agreement remained in force, would certainly be better and more humane than what we witness today.

In the end, the inevitable question arises: is the Washington Agreement dead? Kosovo has certainly done everything to bury both this process and the EU-led dialogue in Brussels, unilaterally and brutally changing the situation on the ground to the point where there may be nothing left to negotiate.

The answer to whether the Washington Agreement and its underlying logic are merely a historical dead end or whether this "less-traveled path" will once again become the main course of U.S. foreign policy concerning the last major unresolved issue in the Western Balkans will be revealed in the coming months. The final word on how the Kosovo issue will be resolved will not be given by the European Commission, EEAS, Berlin, or Paris, but by American voters.