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In order to overcome this situation, Prime Minister Rama's tweet suggested that Prime Minister Kurti and President Vučič be held in a conference by the Euro-Atlantic community and not leave without completing "all the points of the normalization agreement"...
Lesson for helpers in the issue of the current crisis in Kosovo-Serbia relations, including Prime Minister Rama: goodwill and commitment do not necessarily replace knowledge
The Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, in the wake of addressing the relations between Kosovo and Serbia - the last one in Brussels in meetings with the leading personalities of the EU - has demonstrated his commitment to help prevent the escalation of violence, namely that all problems to be resolved through the negotiation process of the Franco-German platform. At the same time, Prime Minister Rama demonstrated that commitment to solving a problem, even when expressed in abundance, does not necessarily adequately replace knowledge about the problem.
In the tweet before the meeting with Ch. Michel, Prime Minister Rama wrote:
"I will convey to our friend the great concerns about the critical situation in the region and my conviction on the necessity of a conference without a time limit, where, closed within the walls of a welcoming structure under the auspices of the Euro-Atlantic community, the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia must conclude all the points of the normalization agreement. Unfortunately, lately both sides have their eyes on the front of domestic politics and polls fueled by nationalist rhetoric. While they have turned their backs on the vital dialogue for the future of the entire region and relations with the democratic world".
The tweet contains the simplicity of the reviews which I find difficult to pass the test of superficiality. And, the superficial one that first stands out to me is the interpretation that the driving engine of the actions of the prime minister of Kosovo and the Serbian president are the polls and that the vocabulary and action of both sides in the current crisis in the north is determined by the measurement of public opinion of the week. preliminary.
I think it's the complete opposite. So, I think that Prime Minister Kurti and President Vučić are consistent in their positions and that they are acting in what they think is the state-national interest. Prime Minister Kurti believes that the rule of law of the Republic of Kosovo should extend to the entire territory of the country, and President Vucic believes that the rule of law of the Republic of Kosovo, which he and his state defines as so-called, cannot extend to territories where Serbs constitute the majority. The fact that these two interests are antagonistic, and not now, but for a long time, brings as a consequence this next crisis; the crisis is not the product of polls.
So, even the current cycle of crisis stems from the fact that the negotiation process has so far failed to resolve the antagonism, that is, to end the conflict, which was supposed to end with the end of the war in 1999. It has been going on for 24 years, so , war by other means, as an inversion of Von Clausewitz's statement, that war is a continuation of politics by other means. And, as much as this is the crisis that marked the NATO-Russia friction in 1999, it is today the point of friction between Russia and NATO at the moment when Russia considers its war of occupation in Ukraine as a war against NATO.
Simplifying or demonizing the two leaders of Kosovo and Serbia, and establishing symmetry ("both sides, the other") will not serve to describe this somewhat more complicated explanation, but it may serve best to justify a the negotiation process, namely the European foreign policy. Therefore, with this description of Kurt and Vučić, it would probably be possible to absolve a lack of ability of the EU policy to overcome the antagonism with an agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. If 100 days after reaching the Ohrid "agreement" things have gone for the worse and not the better, then it turns out that the readers of the polls, Kurti and Vucic, should be responsible for such a thing.
And what if they are not?
In Ohrid, Prime Minister Kurti had serious remarks on the prepared document. President Vucic stated earlier (several times in writing) that he was unable to sign any document.
These are the words of J. Borrell, in Ohrid, on March 19 of this year:
"I have to admit that we initially proposed a more ambitious and detailed proposal for the Annex. Unfortunately, the parties did not reach an agreement on this detailed proposal.
This was on the one hand because I think that one side, Kosovo, lacked flexibility in essence, and on the other hand because [of] Serbia's stated principles not to sign even though they were fully ready to implemented.
To avoid these circumstances, we made a number of creative proposals for both signature and content, but the parties were unable to find a mutually acceptable solution as ambitious as we proposed.
Therefore, the Annex and the Agreement are considered approved through my statement that will be published".
So Borrelli announced that an agreement had been reached which the parties had not reached between themselves, and that whatever the parties had not reached between themselves, it would become an agreement the moment he announced it. In a simple analogy, this would be like going to the bank, asking for a loan of one million euros to fix a house, for which there is no cadastral evidence of existing, but the bank must give a loan, because the customer guarantees with his words that that house exists.
In order to overcome this situation, Prime Minister Rama's tweet proposes that Prime Minister Kurti and President Vučič be held in a conference by the Euro-Atlantic community and not leave without completing "all the points of the normalization agreement". This is actually an idea that has been circulating for several months, if not a year, in some "Euro-Atlantic" diplomatic circles. The problem, of course, is as usual in the details, especially if the announcement is made in Brussels.
The first is the dilemma of continuity. So, if it has to be closed in the conference and not come out, will it be done on the basis of the proposals made by Borrell which he considers Agreement? If so, then Borrell's relief will continue and in this case the "Euro-Atlantic community" (American, German, French, British diplomats, etc.) should serve as Borrell's reinforcement.
The second detail is discontinuity. If a conference is needed until the agreement is reached, then Ohrid's improvisations do not come into much use. Then you will hear what Prime Minister Kurti and President Vucic have to say and how much they have tried to accommodate the interests of the states.
And the third is on the frame. If there is a conference, and if, as Prime Minister Rama has rightly pointed out, this should be called by Germany and France (together with the USA and the EU) as the authors of the Normalization plan, then the only stable point of negotiations is the original Franco-German plan, which was handed over to the parties and the EU, and the latter devalued it to this degree of crisis.
And in summary, if they want a conference, shouldn't it be prepared quietly by the senior diplomats of the "Euro-Atlantic" capitals and with basic documents instead of the Rama-Borrell microphone in Brussels?
In his statements, Prime Minister Rama gave the public a bit of the sharp edge of his reprimanding language when it was necessary to evaluate what Kosovo is doing or not doing in relation to the worsening of the situation in the north of the country; it sounded as if the forty wounded KFOR soldiers were beaten by Kurti himself, Sveçla and Vetëvendosje sympathizers and not by a paramilitary organization connected to the security structures in Serbia.
Perhaps it could have helped more if it had been spared from the tone and content of the statements. For several years, several things have been done, which did not help or showed consistency of positions, from advocating for the separation of Kosovo and the joint presidency of Kosovo-Albania, reprimanding Kosovo for not entering the open Balkans and dealing with the entry or not of a the mayor of Kosovo in his office.
With the same commitment to Kosovo, if it was worth anything, softening the volume of public statements would perhaps help for something new, the creation of space to listen.
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