The Community of Serb-majority Municipalities is only what was agreed upon in Brussels

When, in the March pogrom of 2004, thousands of Albanian extremists set out to deal with everything Serbian in Kosovo and Metohija, one thing became crystal clear to even the biggest skeptics - that the Serbs, by their very existence, are a thorn in the eye of the separatist ideologues' movement in our southern province.

Years of cunning and insincere engagement of political structures in Pristina on the alleged creation of civil society and the spirit of inter-ethnic tolerance have not managed to convince anyone that the ethnically pure, mono-ethnic territory of Kosovo and Metohija has ceased to be the central idea of the Pristina separatists, and the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija are the least willing to believe it.

The constant disenfranchisement of our people, carefully dosed, but constant and consistent attacks on the Serbs and their property, legal violence, and a campaign of hatred towards everything Serbian, which has not spared even the Serbian products on store shelves, are the true face of what the irredeemably dishonest and cynical politicians of Pristina described as "the youngest European democracy". In the absence of democracy and any hint that a safe and dignified life is possible for the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, and from the natural urge of a people to survive, the political concept of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities was born.

Belgrade put that concept at the very center of the dialogue that is taking place with Pristina with the mediation of the European Union. I will remind you that the first six of the total out of 15 items of the First Brussels Agreement are dedicated to the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities. Therefore, it was not one of the topics but was the key and central point of the dialogue that led to the signing of that agreement, and to this day it remains for us something on which every thought about the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina and the situation on the ground must rest. That is why, I emphasize once again, the idea of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities is not a political luxury and whim, but a way for the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija to physically survive and be institutionally protected from the dangerous and aggressive actions of extremists in Pristina. How correct the fight of President Aleksandar Vucic for the CSM was, is best shown by Pristina's decisive attitude to avoid fulfilling this obligation at all costs. Experience teaches us that what Pristina is so strongly resisting, as a rule, is in the interest of the Serbian people. The escalation of violence against the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, which we have witnessed in recent months, also confirms that the CSM is our daily need.

The stubborn refusal of Pristina to provide guarantees of survival to the Serbs through the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities has lasted for almost ten years, and the consequence is not only the prolongation of the de facto state of emergency in which the Serbs in our southern province have been living since 1999 but also the all-pervading agony of the entire society in Kosovo and Metohija. That society has become a permanent hostage to the ideologies and politics of hatred that are produced in Pristina. At the same time, the concept of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities in no way threatens the Albanians in Kosovo and Metohija. If it had been formed nine and a half years ago, when it was time for it, today we would have more stable and safer opportunities on the field in a society in which the inter-ethnic gap has been reduced. So many wounds could have been healed and problems could have been solved if only Pristina was willing to fulfill what it committed itself to, or if the EU wanted to be the guarantor of the signed agreement in its full capacity and ensure the implementation of the First Brussels Agreement. The reasons for such behavior of Pristina can only be sought in the field of irrationality, i.e. in the fact that hatred towards the Serbs and everything Serbian is so deeply rooted in the ideology of Albanian politicians in Kosovo and Metohija that it cannot fade and disappear by itself over time. Sometimes this ideology is hidden between the ranks, and often, as in the case of Albin Kurti and his Self-Determination Movement, the essence of political action is publicly declared. What's more, today the anti-Serb policy of Albin Kurti has become the very center of his rule in Pristina, and it is neither the economy nor the rule of law.

In the Brussels dialogue itself, representatives of Belgrade have never stopped fighting consistently and decisively for the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities in the past nine and a half years. For the Serbian side, it was a topic at every meeting, because there can be no compromise on the most elementary humanity and the demand that our people be allowed to continue and exist where they have lived continuously for centuries. On what basis can we build future Serbian-Albanian relations, if our people cannot be given even such a guarantee?

Despite our constant insistence on the literal application of all the provisions of the First Brussels Agreement, as well as the accompanying agreements from 2013 and 2015 that regulate the issue of the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, no formal progress has been achieved in this matter to date. Since without the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, it is objectively impossible to achieve any substantial progress on any other issue of importance for the process of normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina; we found ourselves, through no fault of our own, in a kind of frozen conflict, which threatened to turn into a real conflict on a wide scale every time the irresponsible and unaccountable politicians in Pristina feel the need for it.

Readers of these lines will understandably ask themselves: but where is the European Union in all this, and did it not mediate in the talks, and was the guarantor of the implementation of the agreement? Among other things, Belgrade asked the EU mediators to immediately fulfill their obligation from Article 21 of the General Principles from 2015, which explicitly stipulated the obligation of the EU to - immediately after the Management Team for drafting the Statute of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities finished its work on that document - convened a Dialogue meeting at a high political level where that document would be presented to Belgrade and Pristina. This obligation is stipulated by the cited agreement as the first step in the process of formally starting the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities. However, in April 2018 the EU officially confirmed the mandate of the Management Team to start the work on drafting the Statute and despite the fact that in August 2018 the Management Team officially informed Brussels that it had completed its work on this matter, the EU mediators still did not act in accordance with the aforementioned obligation from Article 21 of the General Principles. There will be an opportunity to talk specifically about the reasons for the insufficiently effective action of the EU so far, which instead of insisting on the formation of the CSM, and thus on the essential unblocking of the process of normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, preferred to appeal "to both sides".

The change in the narrative of the EU and other interested parties in the West, when it comes to the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, came gradually in the last few months, and only a few weeks ago those messages turned into a very explicit request to Pristina and Kurti to fulfill their obligations. Instead of Pristina's response, there is some kind of diversion at work in which suddenly everyone in Pristina has an opinion (including some foreign non-governmental organizations) about what the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities should be called, how it should be structured, and with what kind of powers. Namely, all the necessary basic elements for the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities are contained in the First Brussels Agreement itself and in three additional agreements related to this topic. Any suggestion of deviation from the letter of the agreement is really just a euphemism for refusal to implement it. These are publicly available agreements, and the process of harmonizing them was both long and arduous, and spears were often broken for days over every word or punctuation mark. So that agreements on the CSM cannot be subject to arbitrary adjustments and changes. The Community of Serb-majority municipalities is only what was agreed upon in Brussels, with clearly defined responsibilities - and nothing less.

Belgrade has no intention of renegotiating the fulfillment of what was already guaranteed by the agreements reached and the implementation of which was detailed in those same documents. Also, we have both the obligation and the right to persist in the position that the fulfillment of already undertaken obligations cannot be conditioned by reaching new agreements within the dialogue, especially in circumstances where Belgrade has in good faith and fully fulfilled all its previous obligations. Therefore, the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities is an urgent obligation of Pristina, which must be fulfilled without delay. Any attempt by Pristina to renegotiate this topic or to condition the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities on some new developments in dialogue is directly opposed to the principles of dialogue and normalization of relations. Belgrade has shown, both in word and deed, countless times that it is consistently committed to dialogue, but now it is time for Pristina to finally show that kind of commitment.
  
Written by: Petar Petkovic, Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija