FLASH
Shkruar nga Pamfleti
The establishment of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities - a call of the international community for Kosovo - seems to be turning into a kind of condition for it to join the Council of Europe.
After receiving the green light in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on April 16, the Committee of Ministers of this organization is expected to make the final decision on Kosovo on May 16. Until then, Kosovo must continue to convince at least two thirds of its 46 members why it should be among them.
And positive steps in this direction seem to be precisely those that lead to the formation of the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority. The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, said on Tuesday that "in the context of Kosovo's path to membership in the Council of Europe, France attaches importance to Kosovo's rapid and irreversible progress towards the formation of the Association".
The Ambassador of Germany in Kosovo, Jorn Rohde, also said that Kosovo should take concrete steps, which mean "sending the draft statute of the Association to the Constitutional Court for review", in order to convince skeptical governments to vote. in its favor for membership in the Council of Europe. The establishment of the Association has been a constant request of other countries of the QUINT group, which, apart from France and Germany, also include the USA, the United Kingdom and Italy. Radio Free Europe asked the Government of Kosovo if it plans to send the draft statute to the Constitutional Court before May 16, but until the publication of this article, it did not receive an answer.
On April 17, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Kosovo, Kreshnik Ahmeti, said that the establishment of the Association is not a prerequisite for Kosovo's admission to the Council of Europe, but added that it is part of the list of commitments within the report of the rapporteur for Kosovo in the Council of Europe , Dora Bakoyyanis, which Kosovo has undertaken to implement after joining the Council of Europe. The President of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, said in an interview for the Voice of America, on April 23, that sending the draft statute of the Association to the Constitutional Court is the duty of the Government of Kosovo.
Meanwhile, those familiar with political and diplomatic issues in Kosovo agree that the country must take "positive steps" to avoid jeopardizing its membership in the Council of Europe.
Belgzim Kamberi, from the Institute for Social Policy "Musine Kokolari" in Pristina, says that the request or suggestion of the Western partners is clear: The Government of Kosovo should decree the draft statute for the Association and send it to the Constitutional Court for review.
"If it is sent [to the Constitutional Court], then, in fact, it can be said that the process of establishing the Association has been unblocked... So far, this process has been blocked from the perspective of political decision-making", says Kamberi for Radio Europe Cheap.
According to him, the practice so far has shown that the Foreign Ministers in the Council of Europe generally support the decisions of the Parliamentary Assembly. But, in the case of Kosovo, he says, considering the expectations that some countries have regarding the establishment of the Association, the vote on May 16 may not be on the agenda of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe at all.
"So that it does not appear that they are voting against the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly, there is a risk that it will not be included in the agenda at all, as a form of indirect rejection", says Kamberi.
Valon Murtezaj, professor of Diplomacy at the IESEG University in Paris, says that every step that the Government of Kosovo can take towards the establishment of the Association must be coordinated with the requirements of the main partners, from whom it expects support for membership in the Council of Europe .
"If these are the expectations of those who will vote - and the Government knows best what the expectations are - then it should be decided on the basis of the balance between the expectations and the likelihood of success in voting", says Murtezaj for Radio Free Europe.
According to him, the next step that Kosovo can take before the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Council of Europe, on May 16, is: sending clear guarantees to the relevant countries that the rights of non-majority communities will be implemented, as well as signals of it is clear that the entire legal corpus related to human rights will be advanced.
"It would be painful for Kosovo to lose its membership after all this successful journey to date", says Murtezaj.
In an interview given to REL, on April 18, Gerald Knaus, from the European Initiative for Stability, said that his advice for Kosovo would be to "send the draft statute for the Association of Serb-majority municipalities to the Constitutional Court" before the vote. in May. Knaus's organization recently published a document on Kosovo's path to the Council of Europe.
Kosovo applied to join this organization almost two years ago - on May 12, 2022. On March 27 of this year, the Committee on Politics and Democracy of the Council of Europe approved the report of the rapporteur for Kosovo, Bakoyyanis, who said that the country has fulfilled the conditions to become a member with full rights of the organization, while it considered the Association as an internal issue of Kosovo.
Then, on April 16, Bakoyyanisi's report passed to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, while the final decision will be taken by the Committee of Ministers, exactly one month later. Consisting of 46 member states, 27 of which are members of the European Union, the Council of Europe is the continent's leading organization for human rights.
Serbia recently announced that it has set up a working group to prevent Kosovo's membership in this organization. This, despite the agreement it has with Kosovo, not to oppose its membership in international organizations./REL
Lini një Përgjigje