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Kosovo could take a step closer to membership in the Council of Europe on April 16, when its Parliamentary Assembly will consider a report recommending its membership.
A vote will be held in Strasbourg and if two-thirds of national parliamentarians, representing the organization's 46 member states, give the green light, the matter will go before the Council of Europe's foreign ministers exactly one month later, and they will make the final decision.
Membership in the Council of Europe - a goal of Kosovo since declaring independence from Serbia in 2008 - would mean, among other things, the representation of its parliamentarians in the organization's Parliamentary Assembly. Kosovars could also present their cases to the European Court of Human Rights. The country would also join the European Broadcasting Union, paving the way for its participation in the annual Eurovision song contest.
The chances are that two-thirds of the votes will be reached. A report on this issue was approved on March 27 by the Committee for Political Affairs and Democracy of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which stated that "Kosovo's aspirations to join the Council of Europe should receive a positive response."
Now, 12 of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe do not consider Kosovo an independent state - less than the blocking minority.
They include Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the five EU countries: Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
They do not have any common ground, but most of these countries are against the independence of Kosovo either because of their internal territorial disputes, or because of their issues with minorities, who could potentially seek independence.
However, not all representatives of these countries can vote according to the political views expressed from their capitals about Kosovo.
Ukrainian representatives, for example, will have "one free vote" and other countries may follow suit.
There are likely to be plenty of representatives who will choose to abstain - which would pave the way for a green light for Pristina. It is also significant that the author of the report, Dora Bakoyannis, is the former Foreign Minister of Greece and the sister of the current Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
Consequently, the possibility cannot be excluded that the Greek delegation - despite the formal position of non-recognition of Kosovo - will support its membership in the Council of Europe.
So there will be a numbers game in Strasbourg.
MPs from Hungary's ruling party, Fidesz, are likely to vote against Kosovo, despite Hungary's recognition of Kosovo. This reflects Budapest's increasingly close ties with Serbia.
In the meantime, the group of what the Council of Europe calls "prominent lawyers" can help, who have studied the issue of Kosovo's eventual membership from a legal point of view.
They have affirmed that the evaluation for citizenship, after all, is a political decision, and they have emphasized that the presence of Kosovo in international organizations does not bring any executive competence, that the authorities of Kosovo exercise jurisdiction over the territory and population of Kosovo, that Kosovo has international relations and that the International Court of Justice has determined that the declaration of Kosovo's independence was not contrary to international law. So, there is a legal basis for membership.
There are several reasons for this. First, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe shortly after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. With Moscow out of the organization, Serbia has lost one of its biggest allies in the war. Then there is the fact that Kosovo has already joined several bodies related to the Council of Europe, such as the Venice Commission and the Development Bank of the Council of Europe.
Related to this development is the dialogue for the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia, mediated by the EU, which continues at various diplomatic levels since 2011.
It is fair to say that this dialogue is now at an all-time low, due to a number of incidents that have occurred in the past year, including Pristina's decision to use Kosovo license plates, the mass resignation of Kosovo Serbs from the police and other public offices, local elections without the participation of Serbs and the attack - linked to Belgrade - on the Banjska Monastery, which resulted in the killing of a Kosovo Police officer.
But, before that, it seems that a great progress has been made with the Ohrid Agreement, which Kosovo and Serbia verbally reached in March 2023.
In one of its points it is stated that "Serbia will not oppose the membership of Kosovo in any international organization". Two other provisions are also important in this context: that Kosovo "will undertake to ensure an appropriate level of self-management for the ethnic Serb community in Kosovo" and "will guarantee the security of the properties of the Serbian Orthodox Church within the borders of her".
There are two things to know about this agreement. First, it has not been signed by either party, even though the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, has at least expressed his willingness to do so. So the legality of the agreement is questionable. Second and more importantly, there is no agreement on what should be implemented first.
Kosovo, in a certain sense, has moved first. This happened when its Government decided in March to hand over ownership of 24 hectares of land to the Monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Deçan, in the western part of Kosovo.
The Constitutional Court of Kosovo ruled in favor of the monastery as early as 2016, but successive governments of Kosovo have refused to implement that decision.
This turn has pushed Bakoyannis to recommend Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe.
However, Kosovo has two other tasks to perform: the establishment of the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority and the handling of the issue of property expropriation in those municipalities. According to Bakoyannis's report, both of these issues should be a "post-accession commitment" of Pristina. And the question is whether the wider international community agrees with this.
If the matter goes to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, real politics, then, will be made around the decision of the Committee of Ministers next month. As in the Parliamentary Assembly, the decision could be taken by a two-thirds majority, but it would be unprecedented - ministers have, until now, always reached a consensus on accepting new members.
Serbia has already hinted that it will do everything possible to prevent Kosovo's membership, and it may succeed.
One scenario could be that no final decision is taken at all in May.
The so-called QUINT, made up of France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States, wants to see a real draft law, presented by Kosovo, on the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities before agreeing that the issue to be on the agenda at the ministerial meeting.
They see this as their last chance to pressure Kurt to agree on this issue, as membership of the Council of Europe is the last western carrot offered to him. EU membership is still a dream.
For the establishment of this association, Kosovo and Serbia agreed in 2013, but the Constitutional Court of Kosovo has questioned the legality of the agreement, both for the executive powers that the Association would enjoy, and for its ethnic composition, as it seems that there can be no non-Serbs employed there - which, it is argued, would be unconstitutional.
So Kosovo could be given a boost this week during the vote in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, but the final decision by the 46 foreign ministers could be delayed for at least a year if more progress is not made in the coming weeks. / REL
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