ICG: Kosovo, Serbia Need Accord to Enter EU
Pristina | 26 August 2010 | Petrit Collaku
Serbia and Kosovo both have an opportunity to resolve disputes and unblock the path towards European Union integration, the International Crisis Group has said in its latest report.
The report released on Thursday comes a month after the International Court of Justice, ICJ, advised Kosovo's 2008 declaration of independence was not illegal.
The ICG said on its website: "There is ultimately no alternative to a comprehensive bilateral accord if either country is to realise its European institutional future."
The ICG warned that if there were no negotiations in the coming months, the conflict over the future status of Kosovo would freeze further for several years because the parties are 'entering the election cycles' which would encourage nationalist opinion and deflect from domestic corruption and government failures.
Marko Prelec, the Crisis Group's Balkans Project Director, said: "If Serbia really seeks meaningful progress, it will have to put its cards on the table and treat Kosovo as an equal; and Pristina should carefully consider what Belgrade has to offer."
The report says the main problem remains the Serb-dominated northern part of Kosovo and that three solutions for the North are conceivable: the Ahtisaari plan, expanded autonomy and a land swap.
The Crisis Group stressed that the Ahtisaari plan has been insufficient to secure the North's integration or Kosovo's international recognition.
Pristina might offer additional rights to the North, but there are no signs that Belgrade or the Northern Serbs would accept even this expanded autonomy.
Instead, the group says partition could pave the way for Serbia to recognise the remainder of Kosovo as independent.
The report says that the most controversial outcome that might emerge from negotiations would be a land swap of ethnic Serb Northern Kosovo for the ethnic Albanian portion of the Presevo Valley in Serbia.
"Pristina will not accept partition but gives some hints it might consider trading the heavily Serb North for the largely Albanian-populated parts of the Presevo Valley in southern Serbia," it states.
Neither Pristina nor Belgrade proposes this openly, but officials speak about it quietly in contact with the Crisis Group, the report reads.
"Many in the international community would be unhappy with this option, but a consensual land swap by equals in the context of mutual recognition and settlement of all other major issues should not be opposed," it said.
The ICG claims that if Serbia is to obtain positive consideration from Brussels for its EU candidacy application, it should pledge to work with Pristina to secure rule-of-law in the North, establish good neighbourly relations by co-operating on a host of technical issues to improve people's daily lives and stop blocking Kosovo's participation in regional institutions.
"A divided international community has few levers with which to exert pressure", says Sabine Freizer, the Crisis Group's Europe Programme Director.
"At the present time, the best policy for Kosovo's friends is to facilitate an opportunity for the sides to engage in a frank and open dialogue that can lead toward the fullest settlement achievable, without coercion and without agendas imposed or limited from outside," he said.
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/30187/
http://www.newsnow.co.uk/h/World+News/Europe/Western/Balkans
