Surlic: Formation of CSM after elections infeasible without strong international pressure

Stefan Surlic, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, told Kosovo Online that regardless of the positions expressed about the Community of Serb Municipalities (CSM) during the pre-election campaign in Kosovo, any political option that comes to power after February 9th will lack the genuine political will to form the CSM. According to him, this will not be feasible without strong international pressure, decisive sanctions, or threats, primarily from the American side but also from Europe.

Surlic points out that the issue of the CSM is positioned in Kosovo’s political scene as an eliminatory question, with deliberate insistence that everyone declare their stance, even though in reality, everyone avoids saying, “yes, we support full autonomy for Serbs within the Community of Serb Municipalities.”

"We have two political options that have declared during the campaign that they will submit the draft statute of the CSM to the Constitutional Court, Haradinaj's party and the former party of Hashim Thaçi, but they say this is something Albin Kurti has committed to and on which American and European partners insist. So, no one talks about the essential need to implement it for the sake of lasting peace and understanding between the Serbian and Albanian communities, but rather as a forced condition by Western partners," evaluates Surlic.

On the other hand, he adds, there are political options that do not want to engage in any discussion about the Community of Serb Municipalities, believing that showing a softer stance would give momentum to Self-Determination, which has so far maintained that there will never be a CSM.

"This is an adherence to nationalist rhetoric which, unfortunately, shapes the entire political scene in Kosovo," Surlic highlights.