Forging Kosovo: Between Dependence, Independence, and Interdependence

Arben Hajrullahu

To understand the context for the political, legal, and societal issues discussed in this volume, it is especially important to appreciate the complex relationship and long-lasting dispute with Serbia. Serbia’s attitude towards Kosovo remains unchanged, leading to the real risk of new tensions, conflicts, and wars. In this sense, the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by Serbia remains a crucial underlying factor in all key ongoing developments in Kosovo. It should also be understood in a regional and supra-regional context determined by interdependence. To overcome the lasting dispute between Serbia and Kosovo is the quintessence for establishing functioning constitutional states and integrated societies in both countries. This assumption is supported by past experiences and contemporary empirical evidence. Serbia’s and Kosovo’s diametrically opposed positions on Kosovo’s political status, however, show that the basic requirements for a “reconciliation process” as the prerequisite for integrated societies and states are still not in place.

International Intervention and State-Building in a Former “Apartheid-Like Society”

Since World War II, the Kosovo people, composed mainly by an ethnic Albanian community, did not see themselves as a national minority, but as a people, as a polity, as Kosovo, with the right to internal and external self-determination. Yet, according to Serbian expansionist interpretation, Kosovars do not comprise a people according to constitutional or international law, but can at best be considered a minority. However, until the beginning of the 1990s, the demands of the Kosovo people were not aimed at secession. Instead, since the 1960s they focused exclusively on formal recognition of the Republic of Kosovo within the Yugoslav Federation. Only when martial law was imposed on Kosovo in the late 1980s and Kosovo was de facto and de jure occupied by Serbia, another constituent part of the joint Yugoslav federation, Kosovars demanded external self-determination (Marko, 1999).

Demos versus Ethnos or Living in the Past versus EU-Integration

For Kosovo’s representatives, the 2008 independence of the country is already a huge compromise (Kraja, 2020), for example, to the ethno-nationalistic motivated pan-Albanian idea of unification with Albania. Serbia looks at the partition of Kosovo as the solution to the long-lasting dispute. Hence, as long as Serbia refuses to recognize Kosovo’s statehood and cherishes certain parts or the entire territory of Kosovo under its control, it is difficult to imagine that peaceful and friendly relations between both countries can be established. Consequently, more than two decades after 1999, the positions and relations of both conflicting parties, Serbia and Kosovo, have not changed much. “As long as Albanians fear and Serbs hope that Belgrade’ s rule might return, each side will be preparing both psychologically and practically for the next war, deflecting attention from other pressing political, economic, and social problems” (ICG, 2001, VIII). A withdrawal of NATO peacekeeping forces from Kosovo could result easily in a war between Serbia and Kosovo (Sabbagh, 2019). In this respect, the situation in this dispute on the European soul in the 21st century continues to be more like a ceasefire than a state of “perpetual positive peace”.

The contemporary Serbian Kosovo policy took on a new shape with the 1986 memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (Pešić, 2007). Ten years later, in 1996, the former president of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Aleksander Despić, spoke in Belgrade about partitioning Kosovo (Večernje Novosti, 1996, 2). Serbia continues to operate based on territorial ambitions towards Kosovo and beyond, and its claim to worry about the future of the Kosovo-Serb community appears disingenuous. The non-majority communities in Kosovo enjoy substantially more constitutionally guaranteed rights than minorities in other Western Balkan countries, or even in the EU member states itself. Caplan shows that a “number of the same rights, it is interesting to note, are denied to minorities in many of the European states that are promoting respect for them so vigorously in Kosovo” (2002, 62–63).

Consequently, the Serbia-Kosovo dispute is the litmus test of a European future in the Western Balkans. The European integration idea offers a peaceful and economically promising alternative to the Serbian and Albanian ethnically determined attempts at ethnic-based unifications. To achieve this, the quintessence is Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo’s statehood, which is based on a civic – demos, and not ethnos – approach. However, till today European states are divided and still unable to speak with a voice regarding key political developments in the Western Balkans as the issue of recognizing Kosovo’s statehood by all EU member states demonstrates. Moreover, despite the widely accepted assumption that the development of comprehensive functional networks and cooperation between countries represent a strategy for conflict resolution and peace establishment, the EU continues to be characterized by the lack of a tangible strategy on how to stabilize and integrate the Western Balkan countries in the foreseeable future.

The fundamental European idea of a common polity based on shared values and freedoms offers a real framework for solving the territorial and statehood disputes marking relations between Serbia and Kosovo (Hajrullahu, 2007). However, peace and cooperation among the countries presuppose a minimal common basis of political goals and interests, which in the dispute between Serbia and Kosovo are clearly still lacking. The mutual recognition between Serbia and Kosovo appears to be the prerequisite for sustainable cooperation processes and thus ultimately also for successful EU integration. In this respect, the main common goal of these countries, integration into the EU and into the common Euro-Atlantic security structures, should be pursued much more clearly and decisively. But in reality, that goal remains elusive. The reality is that Serbia, Kosovo, and the EU itself are involved in a “trilateral vicious circle” (Hajrullahu, 2019). Without a lasting solution of the political dispute between Serbia and Kosovo, the chances of integrating these countries into the EU are minimal.

Remarkably, the dispute between Serbia and Kosovo appears to be a paradox in itself for the interests of both conflicting parties and beyond. On the one hand, Kosovo needs recognition by Serbia. Without Serbia’s recognition, Russia and China are not expected to accept Kosovo’s UN membership. On the other hand, Serbia needs to solve the dispute with Kosovo to achieve membership status in the EU. As long as Serbia has a de facto and de jure open dispute over the territory of Kosovo, it is almost impossible to be established as a functioning democratic state with a defined territory, which is inter alia a condition for Serbia’s aspired EU membership.

Since Serbia and Kosovo have roughly the same rational interests to achieve their European perspective, EU membership, why is this not happening? The reasons can be many. In attempting to address this question, the following two reasons should be taken into consideration: First, Kosovo fails to establish a relationship based on reciprocity with Serbia; Second, Serbia is not yet fully convinced that it actually should recognize Kosovo, since a part of the international community applies a kind of preferential treatment towards Serbia’s non-recognizing position. For example, in this spirit after the 1999 NATO bombings, Serbia is often considered not as the main instigator of wars and aggressions against other former Yugoslav federal units, but primarily as a victim of the dissolution process of the former Yugoslavia.

The EU’s 2018 Strategy on the Western Balkans calls for Serbia and Kosovo to conclude a legally binding normalization agreement as an urgent and crucial step towards EU membership (EC 2018). However, by taking a status-neutral position regarding Kosovo’s statehood, the EU has become part of the vicious circle of Serbia and Kosovo’s EU membership aspirations. Thus, Kosovo lacks a real EU membership perspective. The EU’s “creative ambiguity” and its “status neutrality” towards Kosovo’s statehood have reached its limits, and it is facing difficult political realities on the ground.

Not only for Serbia and for Kosovo, but also for the EU as a whole, the 2010 ICJ advisory opinion on the legality of the Kosovo’s independence declaration remains a missed opportunity. The EU’s “neutral position” on Kosovo’s statehood has resulted in a trilateral vicious circle, consisting of Serbia’s revisionist foreign policy, Kosovo’s inability to focus on internal governance reform and rule of law, and the EU’s lack of coherent vision for the region. Moreover, by de facto enabling the conflicting parties the possibility for divergent and conflicting interpretations, the EU keeps the entire region in limbo. This makes it easier for local politicians to maintain state capture structures and oppose the much-needed genuine pro-European local elites as agents of the Europeanization process (Istrefi and Hajrullahu 2020). The Europeanization and future EU membership projects need genuine local pro-European functional elites who would delineate the opposite types of politicians, maintain power in Kosovo and in the region, and are led by the international community, including the EU.

At this end, as long as Serbia and Kosovo operate based on the logic of living in the past, it remains a matter of time before the next cycle of confrontation arises, as it happened several times throughout the 20th century and continues till now. Political leaders in Serbia promote revisionist foreign policy, and some adventurous politicians in Albania, in Kosovo, as well as in Europe and beyond speak of a “historic agreement between the Serbs and the Albanians”. The dispute is, however, between two successor states, federal units, of the former Yugoslav Federation, namely between Serbia and of Kosovo, and not between Serbia and Albania.

Education as a Last Resort to Decline in the Value of Life

Whereas Serbia and Kosovo continue not to be able to establish a lasting peace, the “population of every Balkan country is shrinking because of emigration and low fertility” (The Economist, 2020). In addition to educational system’s transition through troubled political and economic circumstances, Kosovo, like the rest of the region, faces critical demographic and societal challenges caused by the phenomenon of “brain drain” and the general decline of population (Vračić, 2018).

The poor economic situation makes it more difficult to bridge the gap between human and non-majority community rights guaranteed by law as well as individual rights. And, as if the lack of liberal democratic tradition and social hardship were not enough, more than two decades after the war, Serbia still continues to undermine Kosovo’s statehood and to pressure Kosovo-Serbs to demonstrate their loyalty by undermining public institutions of Kosovo.