Acceptance of the German document tomorrow would mean that the CSM would not be formed

The anniversary of the war in Ukraine was marked by an unusual Chinese diplomatic action. China disclosed its 12 items for ending the conflict, which were received in different ways in the West and in Moscow, while the Ukrainian president understood that this proposal gave him a new chance that he had not had before and immediately proposed to meet with the Chinese president.

The Ukrainian president saw the significance of the change made by the Chinese proposal compared to other peace plans that were emerging. In the first item, the Chinese plan starts with respect for national sovereignty, unlike other plans that wanted an immediate ceasefire and started from it, which meant indirectly recognizing the situation on the demarcation lines and accepting territorial gains or losses.

In China's plan, the ceasefire is only the third item. Respecting the principle of territorial sovereignty is not the only principle that China wants to apply to Ukraine. It wants its territorial sovereignty, meaning China's sovereignty over Taiwan and the "one China" policy, to be respected. Therefore, one law cannot be valid for Ukraine and another for China.

We would say that this Chinese proposal should be studied by the European officials who are convening meetings on the Kosovo issue, including the one tomorrow, where the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic and Albin Kurti will meet because the Chinese proposal is also important for the future of the Kosovo issue.

Serbia has its own, special interest in this Chinese proposal. There is an interesting historical situation when Tito negotiated with Churchill in 1944.

In the middle of the conversation, to the astonishment and anger of the British, Tito disappeared from Vis and took refuge in Moscow. There he received what made him the commander of a real army - weapons for 12 divisions. It does not necessarily mean that the President of Serbia should travel to Beijing, but taking into account the influence of the Chinese position on the talks on Kosovo, this idea should not be rejected either.

All the more since, of course, there is not much chance that European officials will be interested in Chinese ideas about sovereignty, since, one would say, the highest European officials do not value the European Union and the rest of the world in the same way.
Following Robert Kagan's idea from the book "The Jungle grows back" published five years ago, which will soon be published in Serbian language, High Representative Josep Borrell compared the EU to a garden, and everything else, outside of it, to a "jungle" that is invading that “garden". That is why "gardeners" sometimes need to invade the "jungle" with machetes and cultivate it before the "jungle" puts the "garden" in danger.

Borrell's Manichaeism resembles the ideas of Islamic mystical authors who saw the "world of Islam" as a "garden" of enlightenment and faith, while everything else was "jahiliyyah", a world of backwardness and ignorance. This formula was adopted by the most prominent radical Islamic thinker Sayyid Qutb, who, contrary to Borrel and Lajcak, included Europe and the US in "jahiliyyah".

According to the way the European envoy Lajcak interprets the dialogue that takes place in Brussels, they are a variation of the relationship between the "garden" and the peripheral "jungle".
Nothing else is expected from the "jungle" but to obediently nod its head to what the "gardener" asks of it - and that is "that both sides accept the German plan and formally and publicly say that they accept that plan, and then let's talk about all other details, and above all about fulfilling that plan", as Miroslav Lajcak put it.

In his explanation of tomorrow's meeting, the Slovak diplomat made an effort to present it as an ultimate event that can have only one outcome - "yes" from both sides. The Slovakian diplomat finds encouraging arguments for such an expectation of a meeting in his own belief that one should not say "no" to the European Union and America.

If someone said "no", then the punishment would follow: "Rejecting that proposal would mean rejecting the normalization of relations and rejecting the European path, the US, the international community, and the EU would react to that, and I don't want to go into what the negative consequences would be." 
If it is such an ultimatum, which talks about a reaction with "negative consequences", then it seems logical why these meetings are held in a burdensome format, both for its participants and for the fate of the outcome of the dialogue. They have only one representative from each side, along with Borrel and Lajcak. Let's not go into the motives of such a specific format of the conversation, because they seem quite clear, it puts the Serbian side in a disadvantageous position.

Let us add that it is not known in diplomatic practice that any talks about the territorial integrity of a country were conducted in private and that they were successful. When several years ago Egypt returned to Saudi Arabia two islands in the Red Sea, Tiran, and Sanafir, which normally belong to it, the Egyptian court rejected the government's decision twice, before after many months it arrived before the parliament, which ratified it, but only since everyone - from the National Security Council to the Tourism Association of Egypt - has spoken out about that decision.

The European representative will most likely get what he already got before - consent in principle for this plan. The President of Serbia has repeatedly said that it was acceptable in principle, except for the item where Serbia was asked to allow Kosovo to join the EU, the Council of Europe, NATO, and finally the UN. It basically just means "maybe".

On the Kosovo side, they will get even less. Albin Kurti accepted the plan at the last moment so as not to anger the allies, but he placed numerous reservations on the forrrmation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, which, it seems, influenced the authors of the agreement, if the allegations are credible that the implementation of the CSM will begin two weeks after the signing of the Franco-German paper.

It will be impossible for the President of Serbia to participate in a meeting where unfulfilled obligations from previous agreements will not be clarified, that is, a precise chronology will be determined in the formation of the CSM and the beginning of its functioning.

After that, it makes sense to talk about the German document itself. Acceptance of the German document tomorrow would mean that the Serbian side accepts that the CSM is not and will not be formed. Falling into such a trap should not be expected, because no one will pay for what they get for free. And certainly not the Prime Minister of Kosovo.

Writte by: Dragan Bisenic, journalist