Two papers for one plot

The stormy week of events in Kosovo culminated in a new plot with two demands expressed in two papers; first, Pristina applied for admission to the EU, and then the Government of Serbia asked KFOR to return 1,000 Serbian soldiers and policemen to Kosovo.

While the Serbian government's action was foreseen in the UN Resolution 1244, the acceptance of Pristina's application for EU membership by the Czech Republic as the chairman and the EU Council of Ministers is a curiosity in itself.

First, it is a message that the EU does not want Serbia in its membership, since it singled out a part of it as a separate entity for accession to the EU, and secondly, it opens the door to the concept of the EU as a 'community of regions', not a 'community of states'.

Surprisingly, this move by the EU passed without any reactions, if we exclude the statement of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had supported this application and called on Kosovo to "continue with the reforms necessary for its approximation to Europe, especially in the areas of the rule of law and the protection of minorities".

The US was categorically against the return of the Serbian army and police, announced the US Special Envoy, Gabriel Escobar, while staying in Pristina and Belgrade, stating that the presence of KFOR and US forces provided sufficient security guarantees for everyone in Kosovo. But the participation of regional forces that were directly interested in the situation and relations in Kosovo gave Serbia the right to be interested in its role in Kosovo.

On that occasion, Escobar announced that the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities would certainly be formed and added that it would include all those who thought they could change the relations between the Serbian and Albanian communities for the better.

Escobar gave everyone a chance in his approach. He approved the legitimacy of Serbian demands from the north "in order for them to be fulfilled", but emphasized that "there is a way to move forward, just as there is a reason why they put up barricades and why they will remove them". The US Special Envoy already created a compromise in his approach, so that what he says would not be rejected either in Belgrade or in Pristina, while sticking to the formula of balanced statements 'in Pristina, give more to Belgrade and in Belgrade, give more to Pristina' which represents to him a solid basis for the continuation of mediation actions.

So what's the matter now? Why all the excitement and drama in which there is only an additional tightening of relations not only in Kosovo but also in the region; if the escalations appear like summer forest fires, suddenly flare up and suddenly extinguish? The good thing about this crisis was that we could see the head of EULEX in public, almost forgotten to exist, while the head of UNMIK kept herself almost invisible.

Everyone is talking about creating a Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, while at the same time those who are supposed to implement it, resolutely reject even the idea of it. In this case, there are two parallel messages for which, at first glance, it is not clear which of them is in force. We can recall that it was similar during other crises related to Kosovo issues: tax on goods from Serbia, license plates, and up to the elections that have now been postponed. Washington, for example, requested that the issue of license plates be postponed for a year, and Pristina rejected such a proposal; The American ambassador in Pristina, Jeff Hovenier, intervened quickly and angrily last month, when Pristina, even after the meeting in Brussels, did not want to give up the intention to start punishing Kosovo Serbs for license plates, so the ideas about it were quickly forgotten as if they did not exist. Just as it was once said that football was a game in which the Germans won in the end, it can be said that Kosovo poker was a game in which the Americans won in the end, but also in the beginning. That is, their position is accepted in the final outcome.

Escobar himself explained why this was so during this stay. "We consider Kosovo and the Western Balkans part of the transatlantic community. You are simply not part of the formal structures, but we consider you important partners and productive members of the community,' Escobar said. These sentences mean that the Western Balkans is in the 'zone' of NATO and the EU, but they carry a certain note of division of spheres of interest, especially since other interested powers are in the process of changing and transforming their foreign policy priorities.

The only thing that can be seen as the reason for the permanent tightening of relations could be an effort to speed up the resolution of the Kosovo issue by imposing successive crises.

The Kosovo issue in itself is not a problem that can destabilize Europe, not to mention the US, but both Europe and the US are now very interested in ending the dialogue as soon as possible and moving forward as much as possible in the direction of recognition. The Ukrainian conflict and the widespread use of the Kosovo example motivated the US and the EU to separate these two issues as much as they can, even from a distance of almost a quarter of a century, and to shape the Kosovo events as an "exception" and not as a "precedent" as interpreted by Russia, which anyone can follow if it proves to be in its interest.

The solution to the "Kosovo issue" is not the solution to the "Crimean issue", but it is the first step. The agreement between Pristina and Belgrade would certainly distance Kosovo from Crimea. But Russia is not unaware of the importance of Kosovo for its actions, not in the sense that it would hinder their plans, but as a political example of Western weakness and insincerity.

Thus, at a meeting dedicated to Yevgeny Primakov, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov drew a parallel between the actions of the Ukrainian authorities and the Kosovo Albanians: both humiliated Brussels by openly declaring that they refuse to honor the agreements reached with the help of the EU. For the Russian side, this is also an argument for ending its relations with Europe and the West in general. However, the Russian minister relativized the idea of a complete break in relations with the West, shifting the responsibility for the break in cooperation to the West. "We are not turning away from the West, they do not want to cooperate with us," Lavrov said.

At the same meeting, it was said that the Russian idea of Europe from "Lisbon to Vladivostok" had been just a three-decade-old illusion and that Russia was currently changing its foreign policy in the direction "from Murmansk to Mumbai and Shanghai", where "the Caspian Sea is more important than the Mediterranean". . Simply put, Russia said that its 'shirt is closer than its jacket', but this also had consequences for the place, importance, and significance of the Kosovo issue for Russian politics, and it would not in any way influence the behavior in the Ukrainian case. At the same conference, it was heard that it was no longer important who had recognized what and how because it would not affect the status of the territories that Russia considerd to be its part - Donbas and Crimea.

Serbia, as it seems, is the only obstacle to achieving this goal, so the pressure on Serbia, no matter how justified or not, is certainly functional in order to show Serbia that it simply does not have much choice and that it has to accept what is presented to it. Within that framework, the pressure coming from Pristina is not redundant in any matter. This can explain the impression that all crises in recent months are not only unnecessary, but also artificial, but this does not mean that they are not rational.

American, European, and other envoys participating in the talks regarding Kosovo should therefore broaden their horizons and the target group they address in Serbia regarding the Kosovo issue. Their interlocutors are not only official state representatives, but the scope of those interested and involved in this issue in Serbia is much wider and includes almost the entire population of Serbia. It is redundant to expect an effective solution, which would not be accepted and approved by them as well.

Written by: Dragan Bisenic, journalist