Evenhanded would be wrongheaded

Yesterday, I said Kosovo’s 100% tariff imposed on Serbian imports was a violation of its international obligations under the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA).

Today, my email brought me this from the Kosovo Government. I still think these issues should be mainly resolved within the CEFTA framework, but certainly the government paper casts doubt on the bona fides of Serbia as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina (where policy is essentially dictated by Republika Srpska). I’m sure there are trade complaints as well in the other direction. They all need to be resolved, as much as possible within CEFTA.

The Kosovo Customs Agency is ensuring that it is exempting humanitarian goods from the tariffs. 

Some of my Serb friends are suggesting that the only reason for a Kosovo army is to chase Serbs imminently from the country. That’s silly. NATO is there and will remain for some years still, until Kosovo can defend itself at least for a few days from whatever threat Serbia presents. The less the threat, the smaller the army. No army is needed to chase people from their homes, as the tragic rioting of March 2004 demonstrated. 

It is far more likely that the Serb Army would seize northern Kosovo, on grounds that its population is threatened, a notion Belgrade has been pumping up relentlessly for weeks if not months. NATO might even fall for such a ploy, given its weak-kneed and gullible reaction to the Serbian Prime Minister’s threat of the use of force if Kosovo votes to create an army. 

There is right and wrong here. Serbia is wrong to harass Kosovo’s exports, to prevent it from joining international organizations, to seek to block it from creating an army, and to threaten the use of force. Evenhanded at the moment would be wrongheaded.