It is clear what Kosovo can get, but not what Serbia gets

Aleksandar Vucic presented the meeting with the delegation of the "five" that officially had brought the Franco-German proposal for reaching an agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, it was quite clear that this was an ultimatum presented to Serbia.

Otherwise, the process of European integration will be interrupted, investments would be stopped and then withdrawn, and in the end, Serbia could face overall economic measures that could have harmful consequences for Serbia.

The next day, the international representatives slightly softened and modified this rhetoric, but did not change its essence, except that, one would say, they wanted to correct the image of themselves as international blackmailers who impose living conditions on small nations. The French ambassador in Belgrade, Pierre Cauchard, said that France "does not have a punitive approach towards Belgrade", but that in case of rejection of the proposal, there would be consequences "but that these are not sanctions".

The European mediator, Miroslav Lajcak, specified that the "five" had come as a "partner" and not "with threats or ultimatums". However, he announced that in case of rejection, "the international community will have to respond appropriately and will support one side more or reduce support to the other side."

The impression remains that this is certainly a kind of ultimatum, one of many that Serbia has faced in its history. Serbia's reflex in that situation is almost 100% predictable, so it seems that there is no counterbalance against that collective inertia that would change its course. The history of ultimatums and responses to them, rejection or acceptance is not completely unambiguous.

Surrendering is not the worst thing in the world. There are known capitulations after the ultimatum that did not lead to any special losses, but there are known losses without capitulation that are so drastic, that the capitulation would look like a pure gain. One famous example is the Danish capitulation to Hitler. After a phone call and a threat that the German Luftwaffe would bomb Copenhagen, the government signed the capitulation at dawn, after just three hours, and the king and government remained in place until 1943 when the Germans entered the country. But, for Denmark, calling for resistance is still so important today, that there are countless discussions about whether the capitulation occurred after 3, 6, or 9 hours of resistance.

Another example is an ultimatum without capitulation, but with huge negotiation losses, greater than if there had ever been capitulation. Such is, for example, the Brest Litovsk Treaty between the Germans and the Bolsheviks, by which Russia unilaterally left the war. In the first part of the negotiations, discussions were held on completely insignificant issues, which was a Bolshevik tactic. When Trotsky asked Lenin, "How long are we going to negotiate like this," Lenin replied, "Until we get an ultimatum." In the evening of the same day, the Soviet delegation was given a categorical request to sign peace according to German conditions, formulated as follows: "Russia takes note of the following territorial changes, which come into force together with the ratification of this peace treaty: the area between the borders of Germany and Austria-Hungary and the line, which passes... from now on it will not be subject to the territorial supremacy of Russia. Due to the fact that they belong to the former Russian Empire, they will not have any obligations toward Russia. The future fate of these areas will be decided in agreement with the given people, based on the agreements that Germany and Austria-Hungary will conclude with them".

The agreement deprived Russia of a third of its population, half of its industry, and nine-tenths of its coal mines. Something similar happened again with the collapse of the USSR when the country was reduced by another 5 million square kilometers and by 140 million inhabitants.

When Egypt and Israel negotiated the return of the Sinai to Egypt, they conducted them on the platform of "land for peace," which meant that Israel was getting peace, but had to return the occupied Sinai territory to Egypt.
A document that starts from the most general principles, but already at the beginning poses a puzzle when it emphasizes the awareness of the responsibility for maintaining peace and the commitment to "contribute to fruitful regional cooperation and security in Europe" to correctly conclude that "the inviolability of borders and respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, as and protection of national minorities, basic conditions for peace". Almost the same position emphasizing territorial integrity and sovereignty is repeated once again, but this time with a reference to the UN Charter.

In this context, the document should refer to the UN Resolution 1244, since it is the only international legal document based on which Kosovo exists for the international community and the United Nations. Unless it is assumed that Kosovo was an independent state and that it was now concluding an agreement with another independent state, Serbia, in which the parties guaranteed each other that they would respect each other's territorial sovereignty and integrity. If that is so, then this paper introduces more confusion and misunderstanding than it clarifies.

It seems that this is about creating the basis for a parallel or divided existence of Kosovo: one that will exist within the UN system, and the other that will function in Europe, that is, Euro-Atlantic integrations. This excludes the EU from the UN system, which is reinforced by the fact that one member of the Security Council, France, participates in it. The Security Alliance regularly reviews the situation in Kosovo, so it would be interesting to see the reaction of its members to this document, which most directly concerns issues within the jurisdiction of the UN Security Council.

Immediately after that, history is introduced into all of this with unclear motives, so the German and French sides as the authors of the document claim that they are acting based on "historical facts", which should imply that they established and objectively interpreted them.

All the more so since the Franco-german proposal bears a clear resemblance to the 1972 agreement between West Germany and East Germany, which also did not include full mutual diplomatic recognition. In practice, however, the two German states accepted mutual independence and established embassies, in name only, in each other's capitals.
Just as West Germany and East Germany agreed that neither could represent the other on the international stage, a similar arrangement would apply to Serbia and Kosovo. Serbia would be asked not to oppose Kosovo's membership in international organizations, such as the Council of Europe or Interpol, from which it has been excluded since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

It is common for negotiations to be conducted in a formula of rewards and punishments for foreign participants. International mediators, it would be said, did not appropriately fulfill this scheme, so they provided rewards for only one side if the agreement was accepted. This already increases the chances that an agreement will not be reached.
It is clear what Kosovo can get, but it is not at all clear what Serbia is getting. The prize for Serbia was not even offered in the form of the favorite European formula "Kosovo or the EU".

European parliamentarians now have a new formula that says that Serbia will be "Iran in Europe" if it does not accept this document. That should imply the degree of isolation that would affect Serbia in that case.

The editor of the "Financial Times", Tony Barber, also points to another angle of the whole matter and the point of view that Serbia should rather use a "stick" than a "carrot". Barber states that Western governments are "deeply frustrated" by Belgrade's refusal to join them in imposing sanctions on Russia. Because of this, they believe that Serbia could be denied EU membership as long as it maintains strong ties with Moscow and does not give in to the issue of Kosovo.

The long-time correspondent of "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" from the Balkans, Michael Martnes, concluded, therefore, that the Franco-German proposal "is not very serious", because there was no motivation for either Serbia or Kosovo to agree to it. "You can talk and negotiate and have meetings, but I don't see what the results will be, because the main result and goal that the EU promises is that there is no membership in the EU for Serbia or Kosovo, and if that doesn't exist then I don't know what Western politicians expect. I don't see any serious motivation for either Vucic or Kurti to take a serious step forward," Martens said.

Martens also doubts that the EU can implement some sanctions against Serbia and Kosovo, because "there is no such thing against Dodik, so why should it be against Vučić"? Martens is assured of this by the prevailing belief that Kurti is currently to blame for the lack of results. "I am not sure that there will be any result, neither in a positive nor in a negative sense. We are just wasting time," Michael Martens concluded.

His reticence seems to be well-founded, so it seems that the negotiations on this proposal are still far away, perhaps so much so that their actual start will be called into question.

The formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Ivica Dacic, said, was the first "red line" of Serbia, so Serbia would not start any talks until this Community, on which an agreement had been reached exactly 10 years ago, was created. This attitude was also agreed upon by the US, whose envoy Gabriel Escobar said that this association would be created "with or without Kurti".

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti remains a staunch opponent of the creation of this community, so it seems that he is once again ready to give up the position of Prime Minister and for Kosovo to enter a new election cycle, but he does not want to give up his platform. In it, the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities could only be an object of barter in exchange for direct recognition from the Serbian side.

Miroslav Lajcak complained that he had expected more understanding from the Kosovo Prime Minister and explained that next year the EU would be busy with the European elections, and the US presidential elections, so there would be no possibility for Kosovo to remain in the center of attention. That was why this year was the only free period when it was possible to reach an agreement between Belgrade and Pristina.

The declarative creation of the CSM, however, is not enough, it is also necessary for it to really start functioning. There are quite enough trampled and unfulfilled promises, that it would be very easy to imagine the tactical creation of this community, and then its dispossession or complete abolition, depending on the goal that would then appear to be conjectural.

Indifference, tolerance of outbursts and incidents, and even more the wrong assessment that the creation of the CSM should be postponed until the last hour, can prove to be the key to failure, stronger than any "stick" or "carrot".

By: Dragan Bisenic, journalist