This Friday, Kosovo wants to bring the creation of a private army on the way. Serbia threatens military responses. This is the preliminary culmination in a spiral of verbal and de facto escalation.
Kosovo occupied since November, Serbian imports with a customs surcharge of 100 percent. In response to the non-inclusion in Interpol, which was also prevented with Serbia’s help, a short time before. The reciprocal demands of the Overture form to a threatening Crisis were to escalate between the Serbs and the Kosovars. And the EU moves again, the long-awaited Visa liberalization for citizens of Kosovo, what feeds their frustration towards the EU. The next level of escalation is on 14. December. Then the Kosovo Parliament to adopt the starting shot for the establishment of a private army. Worse we go. Meanwhile, the politicians on-the-spot facts for a lasting solution to the Kosovo question, create, however, is different, as the European mediator present.
What is going to happen?
After years of stalemate in the “frozen conflict” in Kosovo, 2018, for the first time, the international openly about an exchange of territory and border disputes between Serbia and Kosovo will be discussed and negotiated – an absolute taboo in the European system of values! The Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic and his Kosovo Counterpart Hashim Thaci, himself raised the issue and negotiated. Basic idea: a Majority Serbian inhabited areas in Northern Kosovo should go to Serbia (back), the majority of the Albanian fall, Japanese populated areas in southern Serbia and Kosovo.
Home abroad: Serbs in Northern Kosovo expect on the 9. September, Prime Minister Vucic in Belgrade,
Officially, no one talks about it after it came out in the summer, at a Meeting in Brussels to a head, and the Serbian President left furiously the Meeting, a few days to galvanize later at a gig in the North of Kosovo, the Serbian population, rather on the well-known rate and is this: Kosovo is Serbia. Of compromise no trace. In Kosovo, the Kosova got rische President Thaci massive wind of his government for the subdivision plans. His former companion in the war in Kosovo, the Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj, mobilized politicians and the General Public against the exchange of territory.
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However, despite numerous reminders from the European policy, especially from Germany, to draw ethnic boundaries, is not the issue from the table. Again and again it is said, Vucic and Thaci negotiated.
Meanwhile, the waning of the influence of the EU, the moderated for years, the dialogue between the two countries, visible: There are the Balkan States, just barely positive, attractive incentives and little Drohpotenzial. The prospect of accession for Serbia, at the beginning of the year, is still vague with 2025 named, will, today in Brussels, no one with a concrete date. And also in Kosovo, five EU members have not recognized until today as an independent state, is felt by the former EU-euphoria nothing more, after the Visa liberalization has once again been postponed, although the country has met all the conditions. And so the Kosovar population is not the only one in the Region, which must remain free “to Europe” travel.
The disappointment of the Kosovars
The disappointment of the Kosovars, it is huge. Hardly one who has close relatives in Germany or other EU countries. The whole country lives by the Back and Forth between the worlds. The only way out: A passport with freedom to travel. These are in the southern neighbouring country, Albania. The Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, had offered to the Kosovars open Albanian passports, in the event that the EU should once again refuse the Visa liberalisation. Now it is to the extent that the offer could become a reality.
For Serbs, a provocation: The Albanian double-headed eagle at the Kosovar-Albanian government meeting on 26.11.
And still offers something Albania and its Northern neighbours: economic links. And thus a real Alternative to Serbia, of which Kosovo is not yet economically almost dependent. However, after Serbia had not helped that Kosovo is a member of Interpol, turned the Kosovar government short-hand on the inch screw for Serbian Goods and to imports practically ceased. All alerts and warnings international mediators and experts, in Spite of holding the Kosovar government in the decision and cuts off the date for Kosovo vital trade flows from Serbia. Albania now fills the gap.
A few days after the beginning of the customs dispute in Kosovo’s town of Peja (Serbian: trusted Pec) in mind, the governments of Kosovo and Albania: Under the Motto “one people, one language, one dream” came on the 26. November. The two cabinets agreed on far-reaching joint political, economic and cultural objectives: working Together in the Region and to Europe, with two heads, but with one voice – that the pathetic, and a clear message of the meeting, the politicians are archived at the group picture with the Symbol of the Albanian double headed eagle manifest. In Serbia odious Symbol.
This shoulder-to-shoulder with Albania represents a new dynamic in the Region: Kosovo is not only politically, but also economically almost independent from Serbia. Bear the brunt of the North Kosovo Serbs, who are now cut off from Serbia, but the integration into the Kosovo structures refuse to stay. The ethnic border within Kosovo deepens.
The interests of the Russians and the Americans
It is not quite excluded, that the developments of the last few weeks over the medium term, the de facto partition of Kosovo and in the longer term, to a de facto Confederation of the Rest of Kosovo with Albania. Analysts and politicians in the Region are already playing with this scenario. For Serbs, a traumatic idea. The “poorhouse of Kosovo”, although economically of little importance for Serbia, however, the field of blackbirds is historical heartland of Serbia, and fixed in the collective memory of the Serbs anchored – more emotional than rational.
Fantasy or reality soon: options for the land swap
Also the military sabre-rattling fits to the charged Situation: Serbia threatens with war, should Kosovo decide to really on Friday the establishment of its own army and troops to the North. Even if, in Kosovo, 4000 soldiers of the international KFOR are stationed troops to secure the borders, and the peace, is not to exclude a Serbian action for the protection of the Serbian population in the North, so at least the threat of the Serbian Prime Minister, Ana Brnabic. “I hope that we never have to use our army”, formulated deliberately ambiguous. Thus, the boundary shift would negotiate on the Vucic and Thaci politically, in fact, taken place.
A major military escalation, however, is rather unlikely, because Kosovo is under the direct protection of America and here with the military base “Bondsteel” one of the biggest US bases outside of the USA operates. The new US Ambassador has expressed, in contrast to other NATO representatives already having a positive impact on the army’s founding. Rather mild attitude of the Secretary-General of Nato, Jens Stoltenberg. The establishment of the army he wants to take this opportunity to provide the NATO Engagement in Kosovo on the test. More alarming sound, the sounds from Moscow. The establishment of a Kosovo army could lead “to the most serious consequences not only for the Serbian population in the Region, but also for the security of the entire Balkans.”