FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The cancellation of a joint meeting between the two governments due to the tense situation in the Serb-majority north of Kosovo has further damaged the already strained relations between Albin Kurti and Edi Rama.
On Tuesday evening, in the library of the city of Gjakova in western Kosovo, the final steps of the preparations for the organization of the ninth annual joint meeting between the governments of Kosovo and Albania were still ongoing.
"Everything was ready. Even yesterday afternoon, when the press release from Albania was published, the work was still going on. We worked until around 10:00 p.m.," said Angel Berisha, director of the library, to BIRN.
The meeting was to take place on Wednesday. But in a last-minute twist, late on Tuesday, the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, announced that he had decided to cancel the meeting.
Rama asserted that the meeting could not be held "under the circumstances of Kosovo's difficult relations with the entire Euro-Atlantic community", referring to international criticism of the way developments from Kosovo were handled in the northern municipalities with a Serbian majority.
Just a few hours earlier on Tuesday, the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, had announced that the plans continued.
It's the latest in a series of feuds between Rama and Kurt that experts say will further damage their relationship - and which has now turned into a very personal battle.
Kurti and Rama "don't trust each other, each thinks that the other's agenda does not match the common agenda and each party seeks personal merit, first in relation to electoral support in each country and second in relation to the international factor, for to be more reliable", Afrim Krasniqi, director of the Institute of Political Studies in Tirana, told BIRN.
"Neither Rama nor Kurti have the credentials of a strong leader because they represent two fragile states and two fragile democracies, both of which are in vital need of support from the EU and the USA", added Krasniqi.
Kosovo "humiliated" in times of need
A poster "Together in Gjakova" placed in the library of the city of Gjakova where the ninth annual meeting between the governments of Albania and Kosovo was planned to be held on June 14, 2023. Courtesy photo by the director of the library, Engjëll Berisha Thirteen agreements that
among others would have to do with the field of education, security and health will be signed on Wednesday between Albania and Kosovo.
Nexhmedin Spahiu, a political analyst based in Kosovo, said on Tuesday in BIRN's Kallxo Pernimë show that "a very big humiliation has been done by Rama not only for the government, but also for Kosovo, in a situation where Kosovo needs support ".
"This is a sanction... from Albania", said Spahiu, describing it as "a slap in the face".
Rama told the media in Tirana that he had asked Kurti to accept a lower-level meeting between them and the foreign and defense ministers of the two countries, but Kurti had not agreed.
" We are on the verge of putting the plan in motion, we are on the verge of putting into question, I don't want to say sanctions, but the austerity measures of a state that was created by those who are in conditions of losing patience", said Rama for the media in Tirana.
In fact, increasing pressure on Kurti's embattled government, the EU on Wednesday announced a package of "reversible and temporary measures" against Kosovo, citing its failure to restore calm in the Serb-majority north.
EU spokesman Peter Stano told the media that some of the measures include "suspension of high-level visits, contacts and events as well as our financial cooperation with Kosovo".
Krasniqi told BIRN that while he considers the decision of the government of Tirana and Prime Minister Rama to cancel the joint meeting of governments wrong, in itself, this is not a crisis in the relations between the countries.
But the quarrel between the two leaders "has transformed the crisis into a protagonism at the individual level, which is harmful and in fact ineffective", said Krasniqi.
Kosovo outraged by Albania's intervention in the Serbian issue
The flags of Albania and Kosovo in the main square of the capital of Kosovo on Wednesday, June 14, 2023, despite the cancellation of the joint meeting of governments. Photo: BIRN
The government of Kosovo did not welcome an attempt by Rama to break the deadlock between Pristina and Serbia for the creation of an Association of Municipalities with a Serbian Majority in Kosovo.
On June 8, Rama presented France and Germany with a proposal for what he said was a document drawn up "some time ago" by American and European experts and which he said was created "just in case this situation".
On Tuesday, however, in Pristina, Kurti said that the Constitution of Albania itself obliges Albania to protect the rights of Albanians outside its territory, not to propose to Kosovo a solution for the Association of Serbian Municipalities.
" I was offered to write the draft statute of the association, but in that case I asked for an agreement on the basic principles, because I cannot deal with letters and texts when we do not have a prior agreement. I have no doubt that Rama believes that his proposal is good and being so, I propose that Rama present it to the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, for the Albanians in Preševo, Bujanoc and Medvegja", Kurti told the media in Pristina .
He added that he had not read the proposal himself.
Krasniqi told BIRN that Rama's proposal was wrong because "it has not been consulted with the institutional factors in Albania, the president and the Parliament, nor has it been made known formally or informally to the government of Kosovo or the institutions of Kosovo".
"This is neither in the tradition nor in the constitutional responsibility of Albania", he said.
Krasniqi said that both Kurti and Rama are making mistakes in handling the situation, with Rama giving Albania responsibilities it doesn't have and Kurti making unstable decisions regarding relations with Kosovo's western allies.
According to Krasniqi, " Albania has no role in this story, adding that 'its attempt to take a negotiator or moderator role in relation to Serbia in the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia is tense for Tirana and does not give results and it seems that it is more calculated for the needs of the day ".
At the same time, "The way Kosovo is handling the current crisis and the way Kurti, in the name of sovereignty, is jeopardizing relations with the main powers, which are the main factor supporting the interests of Kosovo and Albanians in the region, is also strained, not long-term and not strategic and brings much greater consequences than the crisis between the leadership of Tirana and Pristina", he concluded.
Lini një Përgjigje