Ivanov: Packages from the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans should be used as a "carrot and stick" mechanism

Helena Ivanov, a scientific collaborator at the Henry Jackson Research Center, says that it is absolutely necessary for Kosovo to form the Community of Serb Municipalities, which has been awaited for 11 years, and that it would be fair and responsible for the European Union to insist that the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, part of which includes funding for Kosovo, be used as a 'carrot and stick' mechanism.

"I hope that these packages, as the EU has envisaged, will be used in some way as a 'carrot and stick' mechanism to ensure that Serbia and Kosovo fulfill what they have agreed upon. A significant reason why the situation in Kosovo is as it is stems from the fact that the EU, as a mediator in the normalization process, has not done its job well. The Community of Serb Municipalities is a key stumbling block in the normalization process. The fact that agreements are constantly signed or verbally accepted and then not implemented in practice, and that the EU should take responsibility for implementation and that nothing has been carried out, is a problem for the EU as well. I hope that we will finally see the EU take action when parties refuse to implement what they have agreed upon," Ivanov says for Kosovo Online.

When asked whether economic reasons would encourage Pristina to begin implementing the agreement on the CSM, if that issue were a precondition for Kosovo's access to European funds from the Growth Plan, Ivanov says she cannot claim whether that would be a sufficient motivation for Kosovo.

"But if we look at practice, not only in the case of Serbia and Kosovo but generally, we can see that the economic factor as a motivation to implement something that needs to be implemented has generally been effective. I can only hope that conditioning these packages on the process of normalization proceeding as it should and eventually concluding will be sufficient for Kosovo to form the CSM, and for both sides to implement what they agreed upon in Brussels 11 years ago and last year in Brussels and Ohrid," Ivanov concludes.