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Delaying the inevitable

Blic Online late last night published what purports to be a draft text of a Pristina/Belgrade agreement, one supposedly agreed by the EU and Pristina.  It seems to me, as one would expect, consistent with the Ahtisaari plan in many of its details, and it follows the spirit of the Ahtisaari plan in ending at least some of the Serbian campaign against Kosovo membership in “international bodies” with

economic, cultural, and social (including sporting) purposes. Serbia shall not block Kosovo’s membership in the OSCE.

But it falls short of Kosovo membership in the United Nations.

It is difficult to comment on a text that was likely prepared originally in English, translated by Blic and retranslated into English for me by a kind reader.  Nor is it clear where the original came from or how close to a final agreement this text may be.  Is it being published now to test Serbian and Kosovar reaction?  Does it genuinely represent something Pristina can accept?

I don’t know.  Nor am I likely to know, as the diplomats will not want to discuss in public the status of this text.

What it shows, however, is that the two sides, one way or the other, are dealing with key issues:  how can the Serb population of northern Kosovo participate in Kosovo institutions and still avail itself of the Ahtisaari plan’s provisions for governing themselves?  How can Kosovo’s interest in maintaining a single judicial and security framework be satisfied while allowing wide latitude to local governance in the other respects provided for by Ahtisaari?

The devil here is not so much in the details.  It is in the broader context.  While this text purports to be status neutral, it would in principle allow Kosovo to join a lot of international bodies, some of which are open to membership only to sovereign states.  That is, so far as I know, the case for the 57-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Here there is a problem.  The text obligates Serbia not to block (or encourage others to block) membership, but others would of course be free to continue to do so.  The European Union has five non-recognizing states any one of which might block Kosovo membership.  It is my hope that there is a clear and unequivocal understanding that none of the EU member states will block Kosovo membership.

That still does not solve the problem, because Russia could still be an obstacle where it is a member, including the OSCE.  What this shows it seems to me is the difficulty of partial solutions that purport to be status neutral.  Kosovo membership in the UN would end all discussion of its eligibility for membership elsewhere.  Taking a step-by-step approach is fraught with difficulty, and inconsistent with the spirit of the original Ahtisaari plan, which foresaw universal recognition of Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state.

The simple fact, recognized almost as much on the streets of Belgrade as on the streets of Pristina, is that Kosovo is no longer part of Serbia and will never again be.  Delaying the inevitable may be the best that can be done right now, but it means a continuing uphill struggle for a state that needs to focus on other things:  jobs and economic development, the fight against corruption and organized crime, proper treatment of its Serb citizens and other (numerical) minorities.

It would be far preferable–and less painful in the long run–to end Serbia’s empty sovereignty claim.  There may be five non-recognizing EU members that can block Kosovo’s entry into international organizations, but there are 22 EU members that can block Serbia’s eventual entry into the EU.  Delaying the inevitable makes life harder not only for Pristina, but also for Belgrade.