From New York to Pristina – where does political support end and international law begin?

Written by: Zeljko Sajn for Kosovo Online

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Pristina has once again raised a question that has remained one of the most sensitive on the European continent for decades—where does political support end and international law begin?

In Pristina on October 1, von der Leyen spoke about Kosovo’s European perspective, reforms, institutional stability and reconciliation. She also addressed the judgments of the Specialist Chambers in The Hague, emphasizing that they concerned individual responsibility and that “Kosovo’s resistance” had not been on trial. At the same time, she said that she believed in Kosovo’s European future and that, as a European country, it could become a member of the European Union, while stressing that progress required stable institutions and accelerated reforms.

Albin Kurti asked her for support in obtaining EU candidate status. However, no such status was offered. The European Commission continues to treat Kosovo as a potential candidate, while further progress requires the fulfillment of conditions and continued institutional and reform-related steps.

This is where a small asterisk with considerable political and legal significance appears—Kosovo*. This is how the European Union refers to Kosovo in its institutional language, accompanied by a status-neutral formulation. In Pristina, the political language is that of a European country capable of becoming an EU member, while the formal European framework continues to refrain from prejudging its status.

Just a few days before von der Leyen arrived in Pristina, European Council President Antonio Costa spoke before the UN General Assembly about the need to preserve an international order based on rules, the UN Charter and international law. The European Union’s message in New York was that multilateralism must be defended and that international law must remain the foundation of international relations.

If that principle is accepted as universal, the question inevitably arises as to what happens when the same criteria are applied to cases that are politically far more uncomfortable for the West.

First and foremost, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia cannot be overlooked. In 1999, NATO carried out a military intervention against the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia without explicit authorization from the UN Security Council for the use of force. Various political justifications were offered, but the fact that there was no Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force remains part of the international legal debate surrounding that event.

Therefore, when the universality of international law is discussed at UN Headquarters, a question naturally arises: do the same standards of international law also apply to 1999?

The point is not to equate all international crises. The war in Ukraine, NATO’s intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the question of Greenland and conflicts in the Middle East all have different historical, political and legal circumstances. But precisely because those circumstances differ, the universality of international law requires clear legal criteria to be applied to each of them. Otherwise, the door is opened to the selective application of principles.

And that brings us back to Pristina. Von der Leyen did not say that the European Union had changed its formal position regarding Kosovo’s status. No new international legal status, UN membership or EU candidate status was offered. The European perspective was reaffirmed, but the political message carries particular weight. When the President of the European Commission speaks of Kosovo as a European country that can become an EU member, this goes beyond a technical formulation concerning funds, reforms or economic integration.

The question therefore arises: how does the political vision of Kosovo’s European future fit with the fact that its international status is not universally accepted and that the EU itself uses a status-neutral designation?

Five EU Member States—Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus—do not recognize Kosovo’s unilaterally declared independence. At the same time, the issue of Kosovo remains within the United Nations system. UN Security Council Resolution 1244 remains in force, while there is no universal agreement among UN Member States on Kosovo’s final status.

Von der Leyen’s visit to Pristina therefore cannot be described as formal EU recognition of Kosovo’s independence. Yet the political weight of her message cannot be ignored. This is where Pristina and New York effectively meet: in Pristina, the discussion centers on Kosovo’s European future, while in New York the emphasis is on international law, the UN Charter and a rules-based multilateral order. The asterisk that does not prejudge status remains in European documents, while Resolution 1244 remains in place at the United Nations.

And between all of this, Belgrade and Pristina have still not reached a comprehensive, legally binding agreement on the normalization of relations.

This is the European paradox of the Kosovo question. It is not necessarily a contradiction between Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, since they speak from different institutional contexts, but rather a tension between two European messages: political support for Kosovo’s European future and insistence that the international order rests on universal rules.

This is precisely why the case of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 remains relevant. If it is said today that law must not depend on political convenience, then it must also be possible to discuss NATO’s 1999 intervention. If sovereignty and territorial integrity are said to be universal principles, then it must be explained how they apply to different historical cases. If consistency is demanded, then that principle must also apply when it is politically uncomfortable.

This is not a question solely for Serbia. It is a question for the international system. Because if international law is applied differently depending on who is an ally, who is an adversary, who is a major power and who is a small state, trust in the rules-based international order is eroded.

That is why a single asterisk after a name still carries more weight than it might initially appear. Kosovo*—a small symbol that, in a single line of a European document, encapsulates the entire dispute between politics and law, between Pristina and New York, between the European perspective and Resolution 1244, between political reality and international consensus.

It therefore seems that much more water will flow through the world’s rivers before the question of the final status of Kosovo and Metohija is truly settled. The Balkans have shown that a political decision can be made in a single day, while an international legal dispute can endure for generations.

And the asterisk—that small asterisk the European Union continues to use—perhaps says more than anything else about just how long the road to a final answer remains.