A Word on Kosovo’s First Ten Years

On 17 February 2018, Kosovo celebrated ten years of independence. Ten years in the life of a state is a very short time indeed. The independence party, as President Hashim Thaçi promised, lasted ten days but there were few real reasons to celebrate. Sure, problems with electricity and water have largely been solved, but providing Kosovo’s people with better prospects has proven difficult. Given what I think is a close to total failure to deliver on the real potential that came with independence, it makes sense to take stock of what has been accomplished since then while keeping in mind the legacy of the period between 1999 and 2008, which in many ways determined Kosovo’s often grim trajectory.

I was in Kosovo on independence day 2008 and four things were absolutely clear then. One, it was undeniable that Kosovo’s independence was deserved. The US and the Europeans tried to convince everyone that Kosovo was sui generis and that the Kosovo solution would never be a precedent for future conflict resolutions, clearly missing the point. The series of events inflicted upon the Albanians in much of the twentieth century meant that Kosovo could never be part of Serbia or Yugoslavia again especially after the forced expulsion of the Albanians in the winter and spring of 1999. Plus, in the negotiations for Kosovo’s final status, Serbia rarely put anything meaningful on the table and when they did, it was usually too late.^[1] Second, the Albanians wrongly assumed that independence would solve their problems. Third, nobody had any idea what was inside the Ahtisaari Plan that made Kosovo’s ‘supervised’ independence possible. Finally, and this was the most depressing part, as I listened to the empty messages of Kosovo’s then rulers (Hashim Thaçi of the Democratic Party of Kosovo as prime minister and Fatmir Sejdiu of the Democratic League of Kosovo as president), it was totally obvious that they were simply not up to the job of delivering a new era, or maybe they feared that independence would not be good for business. Kosovo did get a new and generic flag that nobody liked, a wordless (so as to avoid controversy) national anthem and a very uncertain future. Most citizens had been raised on a diet that independence would solve all their problems; the days and weeks after proved how wrong their assumptions had been.

Since many members of the Kosovo elite then continue regrettably to form the elite still now (Hashim Thaçi is now the president), it is clear that ten years of on-the-job training did not work. As a result, Kosovo still languishes between real and artificial state or between normal and abnormal state. Even before the 2018 celebrations started, Kosovo was delivering bad news. The on and off again new border deal with Montenegro, which the EU has inextricably linked to visa liberalization for Kosovo, is on hold, and the government is openly stalling. The agreement has the support of the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Democratic Party of Kosovo. The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and Self-Determination have opposed the deal for giving away 8,000 hectares of Kosovar territory.^[2] In October, in a real first, a country (Suriname) revoked its recognition of Kosovo. Belgrade rejoiced while the Foreign Ministry in Kosovo said it was illegal. In November, Vetëvendosje leader Albin Kurti and three others were arrested in a vulgar and provocative way (Kurti had been jailed before by the Serbs in 1999) in front of the parliament for their role in setting off tear gas in the parliament during discussions over the controversial agreements between Kosovo and Serbia, and Kosovo and Montenegro.

In December 2017, prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, reprising his role as action man prime minister running around trying to fix everything that is broken, more than doubled his salary, along with a number of other senior officials, so he could buy better clothes. Since nobody other than Albanian prime minister Edi Rama actually invites the Kosovo leadership anywhere, the money could have been put to better use. In January, the parliament made moves to block a special court set up with European Union (EU) and US encouragement to try major crimes, including those committed during and after the war. While the court was made legal through an approved constitutional amendment in Kosovo, effectively blocking it would isolate Kosovo even more than it already is. And Kosovo is extremely isolated. More worryingly, in January, Oliver Ivanović, the most important leader of the Serbs in the north, was assassinated outside his office in Mitrovica. Ivanović’s murder, given the sensitive state of talks between Belgrade and Prishtina and as a key proponent of engagement with the government in Kosovo, could spell problems. One thing is clear; the main beneficiaries of Ivanović’s death are criminals on both sides of the Ibar River who know that zones of ambiguity, like the space north of the Ibar, are far better for business.

Recent setbacks are made worse by longer term problems apparent since 2008. Half the population is unemployed or living in poverty or both. Youth unemployment is among the highest in the world. Kosovo’s population plunges as people seek a better future somewhere else, foreign direct investment, never stellar, is declining, and there is not much left to sell anyway. Kosovo imports almost everything it consumes. The institutional climate is weak, particularly in the judiciary where the EU has most of its financial and human resources. Successive governments entrenched clientelism by spending money like mad on the civil service, increasing salaries and engaging in corrupt infrastructure projects that neglected Kosovo’s real needs in education and healthcare. Kosovo’s grandiose and expensive highway projects reflect the tendency given the amount of money spent and the meagre number of kilometers added. Albanians and Serbs alike could be forgiven for thinking the clocks had really stopped ticking. No government has yet really articulated a vision for Kosovo’s future in a meaningful way that situates Kosovo in the Balkans and in Europe more generally. A grim report card made worse by the fact that Kosovo got more cash per capita from the EU than any other developing country. None of this is to say that Kosovo did not deserve its independence; only that Kosovo (and its donors) could have done far better.

Kosovo’s first international mission—the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) launched at the end of the war in 1999 with United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1244—failed to instill a sense of accountability or respect for democracy.^[3] The choreographed dance between local and international officials in a non-stop blame game grew tiring, and ordinary citizens entered a deep existential crisis. Kosovo’s state building process, which started with UNMIK in 1999, was supposed to be a joint exercise, but it ended up being a largely top down approach facilitated by the UN. Given the current state of affairs in Kosovo now, UNMIK could only be deemed a failure. Its presence became almost of a colonial nature, and its staff, in love with the perks of a mission that was technically a development one but without the hardships, largely looked down on the Albanians. The much heralded ‘standards before status’ mantra never worked and the internationals happily blamed the Albanians for their path-driven inability to govern.

Faced with an untenable situation, Kosovo after the March 2004 riots, which had manifested themselves in a demand for independence and a vile attack on remaining Serbs and their churches, entered a new phase. Pushed by the US who were growing tired of European intransigence, the Europeans started talks on Kosovo’s final status. In 2007, Martti Ahtisaari presented what was known as the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement.^[4] Although the plan did not formally recommend independence, in a covering letter, Ahtisaari called for a period of supervised independence under the EU. The Serbs, who were always at least one step behind with meaningful suggestions, lost badly but they have since gained the upper hand in negotiations. So, in 2008 Kosovo went from one kind of protectorate under the UN, to another kind of protectorate under the EU in the form of EULEX, a European mission aimed at providing assistance in broadly conceived rule of law issues. EULEX was the largest and most expensive mission ever undertaken by the EU within the framework of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Locals hoped that finally big fish would go to jail. The Ahtisaari Plan, which more or less became Kosovo’s civic constitution, was hardly understood by anyone and almost impossible to implement given the lofty goals for multi-ethnicity, to say nothing of the costs. The fact that the Albanian side agreed to it when it was not a particularly good deal rested on the notion that independence would be obtained at any price.

The price was high as the Ahtisaari Plan and the agreements that followed have eroded Kosovo’s sovereignty and ultimately better served the interests of Belgrade and some, although not all, of the Serbs in the north. What the government in Prishtina failed to recognize in 2008 was that the plan was not the end, but only the beginning of the expansion of Serb rights in the north for the sake of the EU’s quest for normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. What the people of Kosovo also failed to recognize was that their politicians did not actually care what happened in the north as long as their other interests were protected. In fact, one could even argue that UNMIK and EULEX emerged as enablers of the worst habits of Kosovo’s leaders as both stood by while the elite plundered the place.

But Ahtisaari was not trying solve rule of law issues. He had to solve only one problem: the Serbs in Kosovo and for good measure the other minorities residing there. Kosovo’s negotiators knew they had to convince Ahtisaari that they could cope with the Kosovo Serbs if they were to get independence. Of the whole team, it is likely that only writer and publisher Veton Surroi, representing essentially Kosovo’s civil society, knew what he was doing. The Ahtisaari plan, ignoring the success of the Ohrid Framework Agreement for Macedonia in 2001 in some bizarre quest for a new approach, created an asymmetric state that was, at least on paper, a multiethnic and even post-national state. Gone were minorities, a word that became taboo as everyone became a community. It was a total liberal fantasy based on a moment in time that simply passed. A postmodern state structure was handed to a place that had never even been a modern or even premodern state. The Albanians were denied even a period of nation building that was only started by the late President Ibrahim Rugova in 1989 and abruptly shelved in 2008.

The plan seems extremely naive given the rise of neoliberalism and the return of the nation state. It seemed to be based on how people expected the world to look like in the years ahead as borders melted away and liberal cosmopolitanism triumphed instead. But things changed dramatically in the years ahead—the nation state proved more resilient than some expected, and new and compelling authoritarian role models emerged in the populism of, say, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Aleksandar Vučić in Serbia, or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey. The plan allowed the minority Serbs to possess substantial autonomy and, through loads of qualified majority voting, a fundamental role in governing the new Kosovo. They could not hold the state hostage like the Serbs in Bosnia, but they could play a rather outsized role given their small numbers. Kosovo remained, only on paper, a unitary and sovereign state, but it could not have an army. The Serbs would have reserved seats in parliament. Although not clear at the time, the Serb strategy was to avoid becoming a minority in Kosovo. The Ahtisaari Plan thus laid the foundations for a Serb entity that looked somewhat like the Republika Srpska in Bosnia as they would territorialize their rights in the years ahead. Plus, Belgrade retained influence in all kinds of ways, both legal and illegal.

If the Ahtisaari Plan was step one on the road to postmodern failed statehood, things did indeed get a lot worse. Since the UN Security Council did not sanction the plan, ambiguity prevailed in a number of ways. Obviously, Serbia would not recognize Kosovo but neither would Bosnia. More worryingly, there were five EU member states—Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Spain, and Slovakia—that also refused recognition. This abetted in some ways Belgrade (and Moscow too), but in real terms hampered from the start the EULEX mission since it had to be status neutral. Moreover, UNMIK, supposed to be replaced, stayed on in a much reduced form. Kosovo went from one international mission to two. In short, with no approval from the UN, Belgrade had the upper hand and was able to block Kosovo’s further integration into local and international fora.

Stage two in degradation was the ‘snowflake deal’ of 2012. Desperately seeking a seat at regional discussions where Kosovo was still represented by UNMIK, Kosovo cut another bad deal. The EU facilitated an agreement that got Serbia closer to candidate status and got Kosovo to the tables. The downside was that Kosovo got a new name to be used in regional meetings. It was no longer the Republic of Kosovo but Kosovo^*. The asterisk then referenced UNSCR 1244 and the International Court of Justice opinion of 2010 which stated that the 2008 independence declaration did not violate international law, essentially reiterating for some that Kosovo is part of Serbia, and for others that it is independent. Kosovo’s negotiators had a hard time selling the deal but tried to convince people that Serbia, by accepting it, had almost recognized Kosovo. This was not true. Edita Tahiri, one of Kosovo’s lead negotiators with Serbia, said the asterisk was really just a snowflake that would melt away. Nobody believed her and the asterisk is still there.^[5]

With Kosovo now at some tables but not others, the EU worked towards agreements that would later be judged as historic by a self-congratulatory EU, but they were not. Two were stipulated in Brussels in 2013 and 2015. In 2013, the EU, with Aleksandar Vučić, a seemingly pro-European leader in power as prime minister, began a normalization process designed to end or at least limit Belgrade’s influence in northern Kosovo and set the two states on a new path. The EU thus oversaw further de-centralization and empowerment of the Serb municipalities there. It allowed the municipalities extensive powers and the right to form an association. What it meant in practice was that Serb rights were territorialized further, which had been a key demand from Belgrade. No longer did Belgrade seek to possess the north, but merely to control it. The new agreements granted Serbia an immense role in the affairs of the Kosovo Serbs. For the 2013 deal, Serbia later got candidate status for the EU and Kosovo signed a Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA).

The August 2015 agreement, which was later challenged by Kosovo’s Constitutional Court, formalized the Association of Serb Municipalities and added a new and unexpected layer of governance to Kosovo which had not been foreseen by the Ahtisaari proposal. The new body consisted of a charter, a president, vice president and assembly, essentially executive powers, and was to oversee education, healthcare, economic development, and urban planning in Serb-dominated areas. It was attacked with vigor by Vetëvendosje as a sell-out, which it was, since none of it was foreseen by the Ahtisaari Plan.^[6] The party subsequently tear-gassed the parliament in October 2015 and again in March 2016 when the issue came up for discussion, which, as noted, put Kurti and others in jail. They were later convicted, received suspended sentences of up to 18 months and were released under very strict conditions.^[7]

With the Brussels agreements, the Serbs seamlessly avoid becoming a minority in Kosovo. But it is worth noting that the Serbs living in the north were never consulted and not all of them were prepared to cooperate with the government in Pristhina just because Belgrade and the EU said so. But they had a stark choice: stick with the ‘Kosovo is Serbia’ mantra, or accept Kosovo as their state. Some argued that the agreements merely advanced the criminal interests of both sides which had been cooperating since the war. For the historic agreement, Serbia started accession talks with the EU. Kosovo got its own international dialing code—383—but still was the only country in the region without a visa free regime in the Schengen Zone. Albania’s prime minister, Edi Rama, lamenting the slow pace of Kosovo’s integration, in April 2017 said that if the EU continued to close its doors to Kosovo and other Western Balkan states then other unions could not be ruled out.^[8] The trend in developments in northern Kosovo, along with Ivanović’s assassination, suggested to some that a partition deal, along the lines of what the late Zoran Djindjić floated in 2000, was back on the table. The international community would accept such a deal as long as both Belgrade and Prishtina agreed. In exchange, Serbia would recognize Kosovo.

Why does Kosovo accept a series of very bad deals? Firstly, they lack a team of negotiators that has the skills required. The elite in power also is used to a different kind of deal making that made them especially ill-suited for international diplomacy even with new clothes. This has been true since some of them showed up at Rambouillet in 1999. Second, according to popular consensus, the governing elite is easy to blackmail because of the fear of looming indictments. Behave, do as we say, or else, is how locals see things playing out. And finally, the international community has decided to get the geopolitics correct first before dealing with other issues, so they have preferred interlocutors free from the burdens of ideology. The only party that rejects the new order is Vetëvendosje (Self-Determination). Even though it is the largest party in parliament, it is totally shunned by the international community for its militancy and nationalism, particularly its promotion of unification with Albania. Isolating the party has been a mistake as Vetëvendosje is the only party that could have actually started a process that would have altered Kosovo’s road to nowhere. Now, as dreams really do come true for the ruling elite, Vetëvendosje is on the verge of a major split, which leaves Kosovo without a serious opposition, and the war parties destined to govern. By failing to engage Vetëvendosje, the international community once again enabled the criminals and mediocrities. In Kosovo, the nationalists are in fact the good guys in that while their nationalist tendencies may be destabilizing, they do offer policies that would engage young people and end the state capture that has dominated since 1999. In any case, like so many protest movements in the Balkans, Vetëvendosje split in 2018 handing an undeniable gift to the traditional governing parties.^[9]

So, where does that leave Kosovo now? One can hardly point to concrete achievements, and blame goes both to locals and internationals. The US has had the most influence there for obvious reasons—NATO’s intervention in 1999 and later decisive support for independence—but never really cared what happened in the longer term. The decisive influence of US ambassadors convinced locals that Washington was calling the shots on-the-ground. What the locals failed to realize was that the Ambassadors were likely getting no instructions from DC leaving them as total free agents. The EU’s inability to take the lead and really fix Kosovo is the bigger failure though, as while the US can simply walk away the whole idea of the EU as a transformative power is called into doubt. As UNMIK transitioned into EULEX, the bad habits on both sides persisted. EULEX’s rule of law gains, outside of police services, were marginal at best. If it involved politics, they took a back seat to the prevailing will of the ruling elite who always tried to block reforms. Locals lost faith as high level criminals stayed out of jail despite EULEX’s promise to pursue war crimes, terrorism, corruption, and interethnic crimes.^[10]It seems that hope may lie with what transpires in the Special Court.^[11] To recall, the court was very much an outgrowth of accusations that came from Dick Marty’s report for the Council of Europe and the work of journalist Michael Montgomery.^[12] Both identified war crimes, and Marty brought forth the accusation that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) engaged in organ trafficking. Operational in early 2017 after two years of negotiation with the Kosovo authorities, the Hague-based court planned to try crimes committed between 1 January 1998 and 31 December 2000. Given the legacy of botched trials and widespread witness intimidation in the past, many argue that the Court is a required step if Kosovo can ever obtain legitimacy. For others, since it was set up largely by outsiders with no parallel institution for Serbia, the Court is just another restriction on Kosovo’s sovereignty. Others condemn it is maligning a just liberation war that seeks only to indict the KLA and is therefore by definition anti-Albanian. The Court insists that only individuals are to be judged, not the KLA. Regardless, across all aspects of Kosovo society, the Court is perceived negatively in the way that the ICTY was perceived by Croats and Serbs as essentially incapable of offering fair trials. Some of the leadership have tried to block it and received stern warnings from the EU and US. Blocking the court would isolate Kosovo even more. If the Court does adhere to its mandate, the so-called war parties—Hashim Thaçi’s PDK (Democratic Party of Kosovo) and Ramush Haradinaj’s AAK (Alliance for the Future of Kosovo)—are possibly doomed. There lies the silver lining. Maybe. The analytical consensus for the entire Western Balkans, inside and out of the area, is that the quest for stability has taken precedence over democracy and that authoritarians lurk in the entire region. An optimist may say that by getting the geopolitics right first, by normalizing regional relations first, the door is open for democracy-building later. A pessimist sees state capture, massive corruption, and brain drain, which are very hard to reverse. Moreover, the liberal democratic momentum is weakening. The cosmopolitan vision of the past is long gone with new role models, not Václav Havel, but Victor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Balkan leaders tend to argue for EU membership based on negative attributes: reform us or we create problems for you. The EU’s frustration with the slow pace of reform is obvious. New initiatives, just like courts, come and go. There was the Berlin Process of 2014 that urged and supported more regional integration projects. In February 2018, the European Council announced another revitalization of the flagging process with six new ‘flagship’ initiatives designed to provide a ‘credible enlargement perspective’ for the Western Balkans.^[13] The fate of the EU’s enlargement policy and indeed its foreign policy does hinge on what happens in the Western Balkans. A failure in tiny Kosovo does call into question the whole enterprise just as much as Brexit does.