This week, the EU and US envoys for the Western Balkans have been on a diplomatic trip to Kosovo and Serbia in a bid to move the stagnant dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia on a bit. As usual, most of the pressure was piled onto Kosovo, which is expected to make significant concessions while its larger and arguably more powerful neighbour fails to do the same.
At a press conference this week, the EU’s envoy Miroslav Lajcak and his US counterpart Gabriel Escobar said that the stalled 2015 agreement on the Association of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo should be implemented.
This association would be self-governing, existing within Kosovo, and comprise the municipalities with a Serb majority, including North Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Leposavic, Zvecan, and several others. It would have complete oversight of matters relating to economics, health, education, infrastructure and planning, and development.
“Kosovo is an equal party in the dialogue, which means that nothing can be imposed on Kosovo without an agreement. Nobody wants a Republika Srpska, but what has been agreed must be implemented; the association is one of them,” Lajcak said.
They called on both countries to be constructive and present their own models for how the agreement should be rolled out, taking the option of it being repealed off the table.
The problem is that since the signing of the agreement, Kosovo’s Constitutional Court found that such an association would be unconstitutional, and the agreement needed amending. Furthermore, Prime Minister Albin Kurti said that setting up the constitution would go against the constitution or require changing it.
“To create a mono-ethnic Association in Kosovo, we should change the constitution. The constitution we have cannot afford a mono-ethnic Association. Therefore the Constitutional Court has ruled that in total 23 articles of the constitution are violated by each of the seven chapters of the Serb-Majority Municipalities’ Association,” Kurti told RTK on July 1.
Kurti has also compared the proposed model to the current Bosnia and Herzegovina model, which continues to fail for all intents and purposes.
Kosovo has been clear that the association is a no-go. The constitutional court says no, elected political leaders say no- this should be more than enough for the EU and US. After all, it is a sovereign state and should retain full autonomy over every decision. To ask a country to go against the advice of its highest court takes diplomatic meddling to a whole other level.
But the real point I want to raise here is the hypocrisy from the US and EU in pressuring Kosovo, while the plight of Albanians in the Presevo Valley goes unnoticed.
In southern Serbia lies the Presevo Valley, home to most of the country’s Albanian population. But over the last decade, the Serbian government has been engaging in “ethnic cleansing through administrative means” of the Albanian population.
Although some other media have claimed they reported it first, Exit was actually the first to draw attention to the issue by publishing an article by academic and researcher Flora Ferati-Sachsenmaier, which described how ethnic Albanians were living in Serbia in “an apartheid-like reality”.
After her article, in 2021, the Helsinki Committee confirmed Ferati-Sachsenmaier’s findings, noting that Albanians in the region were “hostages of Kosovo-Serbia relations” and that Serbia was conducting an extensive wipe out of addresses belonging to Albanians.
In 2011, the Serbian government adopted the Law on the Residence of Citizens, allowing authorities to inspect homes. Police are required to verify that people live there; if not, the individual is deregistered. Once they are deregistered, they cannot renew their passport or ID, access healthcare, education, work, or vote.
Over 4000 Albanians (and counting) have been deregistered in the last few years, leaving them in poverty and forced to flee their homes for Kosovo or North Macedonia.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for an investigation into the area’s depopulation in March 2021, but almost a year later, nothing has come of it. Serbia denies the claims, but the facts are clear.
As far as I am aware, the US or its envoy has not made any public comments on the ethnic cleansing taking place in the Presevo Valley.
Do you see the issue? On the one hand, we have two unelected, foreign individuals trying to force Kosovo to overrule its constitutional court and democratically (twice) elected prime minister to implement a state-within-a-state for the sake of a minority.
Yet, on the other hand, we have overwhelming silence on the administrative ethnic cleansing of thousands of ethnic Albanians who make up a majority in some Serbian municipalities. I wonder what the Serbian government would say if Kosovo asked to form an Association of Albanian Municipalities in Serbia?
Albanians in Serbia are being stripped of their fundamental, basic human rights in a cold and calculated manner, and no one says anything. Yet Kosovo is being pressured to accept the formation of an association which would essentially split their country in two.
I don’t blame them for not implementing the decision, and I don’t see why they should implement or sign any more until the rights of Albanians in Presevo Valley are protected and until Kosovo’s independence is recognised. But until then, foreign diplomats should focus on encouraging dialogue, not trying to impose themselves on or pressure sovereign countries, while ignoring the gross human rights violations of others.
