EU splinter group emerges on Kosovo
01.04.2007 - 09:22 CET
EUOBSERVER / BREMEN - A small group of EU states has splintered from
the EU and US position that the UN should swiftly give "supervised
independence."
Slovakia, Romania and Greece raised objections to the so-called
Ahtisaari plan for Kosovo independence at an informal meeting of EU
foreign ministers in Bremen, Germany at the weekend, with diplomatic
sources also saying that Spain and Italy harbour reservations about the
Kosovo blueprint.
"I have underlined - as has been already expressed by the Slovak
parliament - that in further negotiations we have to take into
consideration the legitimate interests of both parties, Belgrade and
Pristina," Slovak foreign minister Jan Kubis told EUobserver on
Saturday (31 March).
"When we talk about splitting countries up, the map of Europe could
change every year," Spanish foreign minister Alberto Navarro said, AFP
reports. Slovakia and Italy are members of the UN's 15-strong security
council group that will decide Kosovo's fate.
The German EU presidency played down the split, which concerns EU
states lying close to Serbia or with separatists of their own, as in
Spain. "I know there are differences between member states," German
foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. "I don't conclude that
support for the Ahtisaari plan is falling away."
UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari last Monday recommended the UN should give
Kosovo the right to a flag, an army and a constitution as well as the
freedom to apply for membership of international institutions like the
UN and EU, amid a string of safeguards for ethnic Serbs living in the
region.
An EU "special representative" would retain veto powers over certain
Pristina government decisions, with 13,000 NATO troops and up to 1,500
EU police and judicial officers to help keep the peace in a scheme set
to cost the international community €1.5 billion between 2008 and 2010.
The EU and US have officially backed Mr Ahtisaari's plan, with US
diplomat Nicholas Burns calling for a UN security council resolution by
late May. But Serbia and Russia have rejected the idea, with EU top
diplomat Javier Solana adding that China may also have "difficulties"
when it comes to the UN vote.
The EU splinter group's position appears to have points in common with
the Serbian and Russian line, that any Kosovo solution must be a
negotiated one with both Belgrade and Pristina's approval.
Russia has called for a UN fact-finding mission composed of the 15 UN
security council ambassadors or their "number twos or threes" to visit
Kosovo to see if ethnic Serb rights are being upheld in line with
previous UN resolutions, such as the right of return for Serb refugees
who fled during conflicts in the late 1990s.
About 1.8 million ethnic Albanians and 200,000 ethnic Serbs live in
Kosovo, with the biggest Serb community found in the northern Mitrovica
region and the rest living in isolated pockets, such as the small
community centred around the 16th century Serb orthodox Gracanica
monastery, near Pristina.
Level of mistrust is 'huge'
"I have been to some of these places," Russia's ambassador to the EU,
Vladimir Chizhov, told EUobserver on Friday. "There are about 60 people
living [in Gracanica] and Swedish [NATO] soldiers are taking them to
the local market, every day, with armoured personnel carriers...The
level of mutual mistrust is huge."
"What is particularly dangerous is to have a superficial solution, that
could see the real conflict boiling underneath and that could explode
again at some point," he added, saying that Moscow sees the Ahtisaari
plan as a "basis for further negotiations, a bad basis" but not as the
basis of a new UN resolution.
The Russian diplomat suggested the EU and US are moving too fast in a
strategy that risks "serious destabilisation" of the Western Balkans.
"Everybody agrees the status quo cannot last forever. But look at
Northern Ireland, how long it took Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams to sit
at the same table - 30 years, and they speak the same language."
Mr Chizhov also said that Serbia may accept limited autonomy for Kosovo
that would give it the right to join some international institutions,
such as the International Monetary Fund, but not to have a seat at the
UN or its own army.
"I would prefer Kosovo to serve as a positive precedent, should a
solution be found of a tense autonomy, something short of independence,
a confederation or whatever," he said. "[The EU] should be careful not
to rock the boat so much that it turns upside down."
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