Efforts to coax Serbia into the arms of the West instead of China and Russia have not yielded results and it is time to wake up to a new approach, former US ambassador to Kosovo, Philip Kossnett, told Euractiv in an interview.
Kossnett, who was ambassador from 2018 to 2021, said that over the last 15-20 years of efforts to broker a deal between Serbia and its former province, there had been a tendency to get frustrated with Kosovo and treat it like an “unruly child that should do as it’s told”.
This, combined with the idea that Serbia is the most important in the region and we should “bring it into the European fold and not push it into the arms of Russia and China”, has not been the wisest approach, he added.
Serbia is the only country in Europe that has not aligned itself with Western sanctions against Russia since Moscow invaded Ukraine.
“I think Serbia is clearly nestled very deeply into the arms of Russia and China. So whatever efforts the internationals have been undertaking all these years to try to coax Belgrade towards the West have not really shown any results yet,” he said.
Kossnett, now a senior fellow for the transatlantic defence and security programme at the Center for European Policy Analysis, added that it is time for Europe and the West to be more realistic about this.
As Russia continues actively trying to destabilise the Western Balkans, Kossnett said it would be an important manifestation of European and Western solidarity to “recognise the reality that Kosovo exists” and the fact “that it is a country”.
EU countries Spain, Cyprus, Slovakia, Romania, and Greece do not recognise Kosovo’s unilateral independence, declared in 2008. This also causes problems in NATO, where unanimity for membership accession is also required and is held up by the same countries, excluding Cyprus, which is not a NATO member.
“I think this would be a good time for the US and the European Union to make a strong appeal to those European countries that are members of NATO that have not recognised Kosovo to do so,” Kossnett said.
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Measures and sanctions
Over the summer, the EU enforced ‘measures’ on Kosovo over what they say is Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s failure to de-escalate the situation in the ethnic Serb-majority northern municipalities.
The issue started in late 2022 when Pristina enforced rules that all Kosovo vehicles must display Kosovo-issued plates. This upset Serbs who do not recognise Kosovo’s independence and continue to use plates issued by Belgrade, and also led to mass resignation of Serbs from all government institutions
Elections called to replace mayors and local government officials in the north were largely boycotted by Serbs, backed by Belgrade. When elected ethnic Albanian mayors entered municipal premises to start work, violence ensued.
The protests resulted in the injury of some 30 KFOR peacekeeping troops as well as scores of protestors, citizens, police, and mainly, ethnic Albanian journalists.
Since then, the EU has called for the withdrawal and resignation of the Albanian mayors, demanding that new elections be held, and Pristina withdraw its special police from the region.
While steps towards elections have been taken, Pristina has dug its heels in on the other matters over fears for its security.
On 24 September, a group of 30 heavily armed Serbs ambushed a Kosovo police patrol, killing one officer. They then barricaded themselves in a monastery and a shootout with authorities ensued, resulting in the death of at least three attackers.
Since that day, Kosovo authorities have pointed to evidence of Serbian state involvement.
An investigation by BIRN found that some of the seized weapons and ammunition passed through Serbian state repair facilities multiple times in recent years, and as recently as 2022.
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But Kossnett does not believe that measures against Kosovo or Serbia are the right approach and says they should be incentivised and not punished.
“Carrots are more effective than sticks, incentives more effective than threats in diplomacy. Both have their place, but I think the international community would do better to focus on economic, political, and security incentives than on sanctions.”
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Association of Serb Municipalities
One particular topic that needs to be readdressed is that of the Association of Serb Municipalities (ASM), he said, adding that after the attack, the Kosovar majority population is going to find it very hard to imagine it would not constitute a security threat.
“Everybody has to talk about this from the beginning, from ground zero,” Kossnett said.
The establishment of the Association of Serb Municipalities was first agreed on in 2013, under a previous Kosovar government. It was then ruled unconstitutional by the country’s highest court in 2015, as it would give executive powers, which would be in conflict with the country’s sovereignty.
Belgrade has argued that it will simply give more rights to Kosovo Serbs, who make up around 7% of the population. Kosovo says its constitution already gives minorities more rights than in any other country in Europe.
In particular, they include Serbian being an official language, guaranteed seats in parliament regardless of election results, representation at a municipal level, the right to nominate key police officials in Serb-majority areas, Serbian language taught and studied in Serb-majority schools instead of Albanian, and at least one minister from the Serb minority in government.
Kossnett said that during his mandate, it should have been possible to find a way of providing administrative autonomy for municipalities that would over time build confidence between communities – and this should be reassessed in light of the latest escalation, which Kosovo says was an attempt to ‘annexe’ the north of the country.
Kossnett said it was not possible to ‘pretend that none of the subsequent events happened”.
“I just think that that right now it’s going to be more important to think realistically about how recent events have affected the calculus.”
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(Alice Taylor | Euractiv.com)
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