The EU and the USA want to finally resolve the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia: Meeting in Ohrid on March 18

In February, according to the EU, Belgrade and Pristina accepted a compromise proposal that Brussels and Washington had been working on for months. German journalist Thomas Bry analyzes whether this is a path to a solution or a new failure.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has always used the ongoing dispute between Serbia and its former province of Kosovo as a model for his attacks on Ukraine. The West, he says, allowed Kosovo - which in the meantime is almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians - to secede from Serbia 15 years ago. That is why he must now allow Russia to return areas that historically belong to it, such as Crimea or eastern Ukraine, says Putin. That is why the West is now in a hurry to finally, after several decades, resolve the Kosovo conflict, in order to get the alleged argument out of the hands of the ruler of the Kremlin.

The result of Western efforts was the German-French compromise proposal from November 2022, which was published as an EU position at the end of February 2023. The most important provisions of that eleven-point document are: the two sides mutually recognize the national documents and symbols of the other side. Serbia abandons the blockade of Kosovo's membership in international organizations, including the United Nations. Kosovo enables the creation of a disputed "community of municipalities" for the Serbian minority for ten years and guarantees the special protection of numerous medieval Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries on its territory.

This plan is also supported by the United States of America. Leading diplomats from Brussels and Washington have been making pilgrimages to the capitals Belgrade and Pristina for weeks to encourage Serbia and Kosovo to accept these proposals. And if the media from the two Western Balkan countries are to be believed, Western envoys have threatened political and economic isolation if their latest proposal is rejected again, as has often happened in the past.

Borelj's breakthrough

The key event took place on February 27, 2023 in Brussels: Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti sat at the same table, moderated by an EU mediator. In the end, the EU's high representative for foreign policy, Josep Borelj, announced a breakthrough: that both sides accepted the EU's proposal. This opened the door for a final solution to this permanent European conflict, said Borelj.

But, after returning from Brussels to Belgrade and Pristina, nothing could be heard about the alleged promises at the EU headquarters. Serbia will never allow Kosovo's membership in the United Nations, guaranteed President Vučić. The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Kurti, swore in the parliament in Pristina that the creation of a Community of Serbian Municipalities with autonomy and self-government, as well as special protection for Serbian cultural treasures, is out of the question.

Albanian and Serbian positions are mutually exclusive

The behavior of Kurti and Vučić is neither unexpected nor surprising, because when it comes to the Kosovo issue, Pristina and Belgrade take viewpoints that cannot be reconciled in any way. Much like the Palestinians and Israelis in the Middle East, the two peoples claim the same territory. "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia" is Belgrade's argument, pointing to historical buildings and medieval battles. Albanians see themselves as an autochthonous people in Kosovo - and they have long been the absolute majority of the population there.

Even more important is that, especially in Serbia, the issue of Kosovo has been the most important topic of all political forces for decades. Thus, the president of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević, who was later charged as a war criminal at the International Tribunal in The Hague, used the Kosovo conflict for his political rise. Later, the democratic politician Vojislav Koštunica wrote Serbia's right to Kosovo into the constitution. Until now, the last democratic president of Serbia, Boris Tadić, made the issue of Kosovo the center of his political activity. That is why it is not surprising that for President Vučić this is also the basis of his rule.

There is no Western criticism of Vučić

Given that the West, according to its own prejudices, needs the president of Serbia to compromise with the Kosovo Albanians, Brussels refrains from even the slightest criticism of Vučić's increasingly authoritarian system of government. Its main characteristics are the exclusion of all independent state institutions, instrumentalization of the judiciary, censorship of the media and domination over the economic system through loyal followers.

"Myths of the past, and above all the myth that Kosovo is a holy Serbian land, only serve to prevent us from thinking about the current situation," criticizes Serbian journalist Milojko Pantić. And opposition columnist Dejan Ilić says: "Vučić has been running away from any obligation for years, lives off the crisis and creates various spectacles, so that none of Serbia's problems are solved." Ilić concludes from this: "If he resolves the Kosovo crisis, he will no longer be needed".

Similar behavior can be seen on the side of Kosovo. Even as a student leader, Prime Minister Kurti spoke with the goal of separating Kosovo from Serbia and establishing equality with Serbia. Because of this, he was in Serbian prisons for years, and these views are obviously his political mission.

Final in Ohrid

With the mediation of the EU, Vučić and Kurti will meet again on March 18 in Ohrid, North Macedonia. Then both sides would have to clearly state whether they are really ready to leave their current positions, as Brussels claims. For now, it remains a secret what it should look like. Vučić, for example, would have to give the green light for Kosovo's membership in all international organizations - and yet prevent Pristina's membership in the United Nations.

Kurti would have to enable the creation of the Community of Serbian Municipalities - although he is against any institutional and territorial form of that community, and he wants to limit the protection of minorities to the protection of individuals only. And as for the special protection of Serbian monasteries and churches, the Kosovo opposition is already scathingly saying that in the future it will be necessary to show a passport in order to visit these cultural monuments.

Given such a situation, it will obviously require great diplomatic skill to reconcile the incompatible. After the experiences of the past decades with Western policy towards the Balkans, there is a fear that once again a compromise could be reached in which everyone finds their interests, but which does not change anything when it comes to real problems.