SETimes.comBack to "Plan A" in Kosovo
26/11/2007
With a new leadership taking the reins in Pristina and the latest phase of negotiations nearing its end, the EU is looking for the least messy way out of the Kosovo puzzle.
Analysis by Robert C Austin for Southeast European Times – 26/11/07
In a political climate largely overshadowed by the question of final status, the people of Kosovo went to the polls on November 17th to choose new leaders. Despite the omnipresence of campaign posters, TV debates and articles in the print media, enthusiasm was low. Many simply could not see the point of even holding an election with the status issue looming too close. Turnout figures, at around 45%, were the lowest in any vote since the 1998-1999 conflict.
The low level of trust Kosovars have in their leaders was all too evident. Most people are acutely aware of the large gap between campaign promises and the harsh economic reality that Kosovo faces. Few parties were able to capture any serious momentum – even the new Alliance for a New Kosovo, led by Bexhet Pacolli, failed to impress voters disenchanted with the mainstream parties and their legacy of corruption and incompetence. Indeed, Pacolli repelled more than a few by declaring himself "too rich to be corrupted".
The Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), which under the late President Ibrahim Rugova dominated political life in the province, appeared to have nothing new to tell voters. Instead, it campaigned with eerie images of Rugova and vague promises of Euro-Atlantic integration. Voters punished the LDK and rewarded Hashim Thaci's Democratic Party of Kosovo. After being denied the prime minister's office for so long, Thaci looks set to take up the post at this critical moment in Kosovo history. Despite his lead, however, forming coalitions in Kosovo is never easy and the days ahead will see some serious deal making among the vast array of political parties. Just about everyone wants to be in power when independence comes.
Liberal reformists will be deeply disappointed by the poor showing of Veton Surroi's ORA party. By far Kosovo's best statesman, Surroi likely lost votes to Pacolli's new party and may have alienated his traditional supporters in urban centres. An ill-advised campaign poster didn't help. Showing Surroi with US President George W. Bush, it promised that an ORA vote would help Kosovars become "master of the House".
For the international community, the elections raise a number of red flags. The record low turnout – and the disenchantment this reflects – raises fears that all the work done over the past years to build a civil society in Kosovo is coming undone as the status process drags on. The near-total boycott by Kosovo Serbs suggest most in the community are still counting on Belgrade to prevent independence, rather than looking ahead to political life in a sovereign Kosovo. And while Thaci has already promised not to make any sudden moves, it is clear that the voters are counting him to do what his predecessors failed to achieve: lead Kosovo to statehood, one way or another.
The negotiations process has now been extended as far as it can go. After successive rounds, Belgrade and Pristina continue to hold irreconcilable positions, while the threat to regional stability is becoming more concrete. Militant groups have not only resurfaced in Kosovo, but have shown signs of fomenting unrest in neighbouring Macedonia as well. Meanwhile, Kosovo's leaders have already put the world on notice that action – in the form of an independence proclamation – can be expected after December 10th, when the latest round of talks ends. The West has been urging them to exercise restraint, cautioning that unrecognized sovereignty would cause more problems than it would solve. But to stop the Kosovo Albanians from taking matters into their own hands, the international community will have to act decisively – and quickly.
Within Kosovo, polls show that people would settle for independence without broad UN endorsement, as long as it was supported by the United States and the major European powers. Some would even accept a declaration that was only supported by the Washington -- although this poses a problem since it is the EU, not the United States, which is supposed to be launching a mission to succeed UNMIK. Kosovo's future is meant to be resolved within the larger framework of EU integration. For that to happen, any moves by Pristina must have backing from a solid number of EU countries, even if unanimity is hard to achieve at this point.
Belgrade, meanwhile, has put on the table all sorts of new proposals for broad autonomy, including a "Hong Kong model" and one inspired by Aaland, an autonomous, Swedish-speaking part of Finland. There is even talk of the two Germanys in the 1970s when the West German state more or less recognized the East German state. All these proposals have been turned down by the Albanians, allowing Serbia to score some rhetorical points by complaining of Pristina's inflexibility. But these gains on the diplomatic stage are hollow. The concrete fact remains that Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority will not accept governance from Belgrade in any form. Serbia cannot hold onto Kosovo; the most it can do is block it from achieving stability. If it chooses that route, it may find itself dealing with unrest in the southern Serbian provinces of Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja.
For the EU, the top priority is to fend off any threat to regional stability. Much energy, not to mention revenues, has been expended over the past years to get the Balkans on track again after the catastrophes of the 1990s. Assuming Bosnia and Herzegovina's backslide into ethnonationalism can be contained, Kosovo is the last outstanding problem in the region. The challenge now is to find the least messy solution, one which has the potential to bring long term stability here and pave the way for integration with Europe.
Only one viable compromise has been put on the table – former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari's plan for supervised independence, proposed back in March. The proposal was immediately embraced by the Albanian majority despite the substantial powers they were being asked to cede to the Serbs and other minorities. It was rejected by the Serbs in Kosovo and the authorities in Belgrade, and blocked internationally by Russia.
The Ahtisaari plan remains the closest thing so far to a solution that would balance Kosovo independence – a non-negotiable issue for the Albanians – with the Serb demand for autonomy and power-sharing. The authorities in Pristina have promised to abide by its principles even if they decide to go it alone. It is a nice gesture, but hardly workable – they will need EU support to deliver.
In many ways, the last round of diplomacy on Kosovo has been an exhaustive exercise in demonstrating that there really is no other alternative out there – no magic formula which will somehow dissolve the unbridgeable gap between Belgrade and Pristina. In the coming weeks, diplomats will either have to come up with something extremely creative immediately, or fall back on Plan A as outlined by the former Finnish president. Anything else will, at best, be another bid to buy time – and at worst, a recipe for destabilisation.
Robert Austin teaches at the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.