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As parliament approved a new Kosovo government
today, here are a few thoughts on its fate. It will be led by the
LDK and command a narrow majority based on several minority parties
as well as several smaller parties that have been in the opposition
during the short life of the VV/LDK coalition.
The main purposes of this government are
necessarily
Get the country as safely as possible
through the Covid-19 epidemic;
Deal with the negative economic fallout;
Respond to the Americans and Europeans,
who are demanding re-initiation of the stalled dialogue with
Belgrade.
This is a formidable agenda, though Kosovo appears
to have escaped the worst of Covid-19. Even a strong, single-party,
majority government (with the required minority participation) would
have a difficult time meeting the requirements. A multi-party
coalition with a thin majority led by the second-place* finisher in
the last election is going to have a much harder time. VV
(Self-Determination) in opposition will redouble the difficulties
again, both in parliament and in the streets.
What this does is to empower the President
relative to the government. His machinations with the Americans led
to the vote of no-confidence in Albin Kurti’s short-lived rule. The
President will now claim the lead role in the talks with Belgrade
that Kurti tried to deny him–Thaci surely has no interest in leading
on Covid-19 or the economy. The LDK will have promised they will not
contest his leadership in the talks with Belgrade, as the price of
their getting the prime ministry. The Americans will support him,
because they have him over a barrel and willing to do just about
anything to avoid indictment by the Special Tribunal in The Hague.
Never mind that both the Constitutional Court and the parliament
have said that talks with Belgrade should be the responsibility of
the government, not the President.
Richard Grenell, the US envoy for the
Serbia/Kosovo talks, claims he is only interested in improving
economic relations between Belgrade and Pristina, not land swaps as
I and others have claimed. That is not a credible smokescreen.
Already slated for a role in the campaign, he wants to deliver a
Rose Garden ceremony for President Trump in the runup to America’s
November 3 election. No economic agreement would make the grade. He
needs a land swap not only for its own sake, as it reaffirms the
ethnic nationalist principles of the Trump Administration, but also
because he thinks it can be sold as a big plus for peace and
stability in the Balkans, settling an issue neither Clinton could
resolve.
That is not true: it will settle nothing. A land
swap will sooner or later result in instability in Serbia, Kosovo,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and possibly Macedonia. It will also
strengthen Russian President Putin’s hand in Georgia, Moldova, and
Ukraine. But whatever is agreed in the Rose Garden need not last
long–just until November 3. The civil aviation agreement Grenell
claims to have negotiated has already evaporated, without anyone
noticing. The likelihood that neither the Serbian nor the Kosovo
parliament will approve a land swap, or that it will be accepted in
referenda in either country, won’t matter after the US election. The
damage will have been done: wherever the new borders are to be
drawn, people will be moving–some voluntarily and some
involuntarily–to the “right” side for their own ethnic group. Those
who don’t move will be chased out.
So I see this new government–with apologies to
Avdullah Hoti–as ill-fated. It will try to open the way to a deal
that Kosovans, Americans, and Europeans will regret. The only
winners will be Putin and his minions, as well as Serbian President
Vucic. By now, even President Thaci should be having his doubts.
Here is the interview I did yesterday with RTK,
before parliament approved the new government:
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