Graovac: Kurti will call early elections in Kosovo if the West pressures him for the CSM

Srdjan Graovac from the Center for Social Stability assesses that it is clear that the Albanian side does not want the Community of Serb Municipalities to be accepted as a solution and that Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti would rather go to elections than accept the CSM.

"I think it's hard to expect any significant progress when you look at the whole negotiation process, and we have to look at it from two aspects. The first aspect is just the idea of the Community of Serb Municipalities being accepted as a solution. Then we understand that it can be very difficult to realize from the start because it seems that the Albanian side does not want that, or that it is clear that it does not suit the Albanian side at all," Graovac said.

He reminds that Albin Kurti gained popularity based on his firm stance that there would be no Community of Serb Municipalities and that it is difficult to expect him to change his position when he has passed the halfway mark of his term.

"He won the elections in February 2021, which means that the next elections in Kosovo are expected in early 2025. Taking that into account, it seems even more realistic to me that Albin Kurti would rather go to elections than accept the formation of the Community of Serb Municipalities. This is only under the condition that the pressure from the West is so strong that he has to form the CSM, which has not been the case so far. But if that were to happen, I think he would even prefer to go for early elections, perhaps with a new mandate, so that when he materializes the current public support, he would then be ready for some compromise," Graovac stated.

He adds that, apparently, there will be negotiations in the future regarding the draft statute of the CSM, with the assessment that even that won't be easy because there is no possibility of reaching an easy consensus between the Serbian and Albanian sides.