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Richard Grenell hits back at Belgrade: "Recognition of Kosovo? Ridiculous! The Balkans need work, not flags...
The statement by Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump's former special envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, has dropped like a bomb on the diplomatic scene in the region. From Belgrade, he called efforts to make mutual recognition between Kosovo and Serbia a political priority "ridiculous", emphasizing that citizens on both sides of the border need jobs and economic development, not empty symbols.
"Young people don't eat flags and diplomatic certificates. They want jobs. The idea of talking about recognition now is lost in their reality," Grenell said in his direct language, which has often embarrassed both Pristina and Brussels.
This is not an isolated opinion, but a reflection of the new American strategy in the Balkans, where the word "recognition" has been moved to the bottom of the agenda, while the economy has been placed at the top.
Washington has decided to leave the political labyrinth of the Ohrid Dialogue to the European Union and to deal with concrete projects on its own: infrastructure, energy, trade. The 2020 Washington agreement was no coincidence: it set out the removal of trade barriers, the construction of roads and energy connections between the countries, avoiding any terms related to recognition. The US knows that stability in the Balkans is not achieved with ceremony, but with asphalt, energy and investments that keep the youth in the country.
There are deeper reasons. Belgrade is still closely tied to Moscow, and any American push for recognition of Kosovo would give the Kremlin the perfect weapon to ignite Serbian nationalism. Instead, Washington is using “economics as diplomacy,” neutralizing Russian campaigns and making Serbia dependent on regional projects that include Kosovo.
After the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East, the US does not have the luxury of spending years on a rigid political process; it seeks quick and tangible victories.
For Kosovo, this is a wake-up call. Full recognition is no longer a short-term priority for Washington. The real focus is on projects that connect Pristina with Tirana, Skopje, and European markets. If Kosovo's leaders do not read this message correctly, the risk is that the country will remain isolated in the flag game, while young people continue to leave en masse. Grenell's statement is more than a provocation: it is a cold guide to the new diplomatic reality in the Balkans, where America has decided to talk about kilometers of roads and megawatts of energy, not about ceremonial signatures on paper. / Pamphlet
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