In a DW interview, Balkan expert Konrad Clewing warns against making the same mistakes in the Western Balkans as in Ukraine. He advocates Kosovo membership in NATO.
Konrad Clewing from the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies
Deutsche Welle: Mr. Clewing, at the weekend there were renewed tensions on the Serbian-Kosovar border, which caused concern around the world. The trigger was that the government of the Republic of Kosovo wanted to implement new entry rules for citizens of Serbia. These rules stipulated that Serbian identity documents and car license plates must be supplemented by Kosovan certificates upon entry. The government in Pristina is thus referring to the principle of reciprocity in relation to Belgrade. Because Serbia does not recognize documents from the Republic of Kosovo and demands that Kosovar license plates be pasted over. The government of Kosovo has now initially postponed the implementation until September 1, 2022, thus averting an escalation for the time being. Do you see an increased security threat in Kosovo and the Western Balkans?
Konrad Clewing: In the short term there is indeed no particular threat because the NATO-led military mission KFOR is certainly able to stabilize the situation for the time being. But I see a big problem in the fact that KFOR's task description, which comes from the UN resolution of 1999, does not include the defense of Kosovo's external security as a task at all. The core orientation of 1999 is to create a peaceful environment and freedom of movement within Kosovo. In the long run, however, these two points are not enough to settle the possible conflict between Serbia and Kosovo. And that is why one should strive to find a truly profound and stable solution to Kosovo's external security needs. And I only see that in the perspective of NATO membership.
Protest against the new entry rules : Trucks block a road in Rudare, Serbia leading to the Kosovan border
So far, Germany has given priority to supporting the EU perspective for the entire Western Balkans, which also requires the elimination of neighboring conflicts. Isn't this perspective and the EU-controlled dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo sufficient to permanently resolve the conflict between the two countries?
Unlike NATO, the EU does not provide a security system for its members. In my view, the EU-coordinated dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo is not the appropriate measure to permanently settle the dispute between the two countries. Because this is a question of security policy: Is Serbia allowed to negate and fight the state existence of Kosovo? Or is Kosovo allowed to carry out border controls and require its own (editor's note: Serbian) citizens to accept and use and possess Kosovar papers, at least for dealing with the Kosovar state? I think this requirement is not unrealistic and not wrong.
However, the federal government and the EU want these measures to be implemented in agreement with Serbia. Is that realistic?
I think that's naive. This fundamental issue cannot be resolved amicably between Serbia and Kosovo as long as Serbia does not want to recognize Kosovo. As the motherland of the Kosovo Serbs or as the protecting power of the Kosovo Serbs, Serbia has a right to ensure that the Kosovo Serbs' existence is not threatened by actions of the Kosovan state. But what Kosovo wants to implement here is not a threat to its existence. However, it is presented as such by Serbia.
The dispute between Serbia and Kosovo leads to blockades of the border crossings Jarinje and Bernjak
A really big press campaign has been going on in Serbia for weeks. It was a huge media topic that Kosovo was supposedly preparing for the expulsion of the Kosovo Serbs on August 1, 2022. This is actually a grotesque accusation and one can also see from it that Serbia is really not to be treated like an ordinary democratic state in its internal and external propaganda and in media control, but rather very similar to the Russian situation in matters of the Russian public and how Russia operates unabashedly with lies on the part of the state. This creates panic among the Kosovo Serbs and uses them to make them compliant with the Serbian government. The situation right now this weekend should really be a warning sign for the German government not to fall back into those old lines of not taking things seriously as a threat.
Does that mean that Germany, similar to what happened before in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, takes Serbia's interests too much into account?
Germany and the West as a whole are caught up in a kind of wishful thinking that the revisionist claims – in this case Serbia's against Kosovo, in the other case Russia's against Ukraine – shouldn't be taken too seriously. If anything, they would perhaps refer to small parts of the country, like Crimea in the case of Ukraine, or North Kosovo in the case of Kosovo. And it was precisely on this basis that people always acted as if Serbia had to be assigned a central role in the Balkans. I think this policy is naive and should be changed as a matter of urgency.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz visits Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on July 10, 2022
Would a NATO membership of Kosovo will not lead to the population of Serbia, which is in any case mostly skeptical about the West, turning more to their unofficial protecting power, Russia?
I don't see this danger as great if Serbia continues to get EU prospects, or maybe even more so than before. In my scenario, Kosovo would go into NATO and thus have a security guarantee towards Serbia. And under this condition, it is no longer so necessary for Serbia to officially recognize Kosovo, which is unlikely to happen because Serbia will then no longer be able to do anything that threatens its existence unofficially and in security matters anyway. And if you offer Serbia and the region a real European perspective, I don't think it can be in any Serbian interest to clearly choose Russia.
Konrad Clewing is a Balkan expert at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies in Regensburg. He studied history and economics in Munich, Vienna and Zagreb from 1986-1992. After completing his doctorate in Munich, he became the editor of the Southeast Institute (SOI) in 1997 (until 2007). From 2006 to the end of 2011 he was Deputy Director of the SOI and jointly responsible for the scientific orientation at the new location in Regensburg. Since 2006, together with the respective director of the institute, he has been the editor of the Southeast Research and Southeast European Works, and since 2010 he has also been co-editor of the Handbook on the History of Southeast Europe. Since 2018 he has also been coordinating the contributions of the IOS as part of the digiOst series.