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I spoke this morning via Skype to a conference in
Pristina on the Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue: Nomalization or an
Aggravated Status Quo. These were my speaking notes, which I did not
follow religiously:
1. Thank you all for accommodating me by Skype.
I’ll miss the pleasure of your company but appreciate the
opportunity for my views to be heard.
2. As I hope you all know, I am an opponent of
land and people swaps in the Balkans, for many reasons:
They would be an admission that neither
Belgrade nor Pristina is able to treat all their citizens properly
and equally under the law, which is the main requirement of NATO and
EU membership.
They would lead, sooner or later, to massive
displacement of Serbs from south of the Ibar River and Albanians
from Serbia proper.
Germany, the Netherlands, and other EU members
will not approve accession for partitioned countries.
I don’t believe any of the deals I’ve seen
could be welcomed by Presidents Vucic and Thaci or approved in
parliament in either Belgrade or Pristina, and certainly not in a
referendum in Kosovo.
A land swap would destabilize Bosnia and
Herzegovina, where Milorad Dodik has been clear about his intention
to lead Republika Srpska to secession if Kosovo is partitioned.
A land swap in the Balkans would strengthen
Russian claims to the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia,
the secession of Transnistria, Donetsk and Luhansk as well as the
annexation of Crimea.
UN membership for Kosovo would only be possible
if Washington were to concede on those issues, which it has no
interest in doing.
3. Land and people swaps are a zombie idea: it
wanders the earth looking for its next victim and is difficult to
kill because it is dead already.
4. So why so much attention to a zombie idea and
so much urgency about concluding an agreement?
5.Presidents Thaci and Vucic are both ethnic
nationalists, not liberal democrats. Ethnic nationalists have a hard
time dealing with numerical minorities. If they are equal, what use
is being part of the supposedly privileged minority?
6. But President Thaci long resisted the idea of
partitioning Kosovo. Why did he change his mind?
7. Best to ask him of course, but my explanation
is this: he saw that Belgrade was making progress with the idea in
Washington, where there is also an ethnic nationalist
administration.
8. John Bolton was opposed to Kosovo independence
and would be pleased to wreck a Clinton protégé, which Kosovo
certainly is.
9. So when Bolton said he would entertain
partition ideas if Vucic and Thaci could agree, President Thaci
became concerned that he would be outflanked and end up with a
one-sided proposition: northern Kosovo would go to Serbia without
any gain for the Albanians.
10. So he invited the Presevo Albanians to
Pristina and made it clear that no one-sided proposition would pass
muster. It would have to be reciprocal.
11. That was a reasonable thing to do, but it does
not mean that there really is an acceptable proposition, even a
reciprocal one.
12. How can Vucic give up the territory in
southern Serbia that Thaci wants, in defiance of concerns about the
security of Serbia’s main route to the sea? How can he survive
abandonment of Serb communities and religious sites south of the
Ibar?
13. How can Thaci give up North Mitrovica, which
was majority Albanian before the war, as well as Trepca and
Gazivoda, his country’s main natural resources and water supply
respectively?
14. So people come up with fantasies about 99 year
leases, foreign management, and extra-territorial status that are
simply too elaborate and risky to convince a serious person that
they would last. The zombie emperor is wearing no clothes.
15. I’d like to finish with a question: why the
urgency? I understand why Belgrade might feel some pressure for an
early solution, as its EU accession is fewer years in the future
than Kosovo’s.
16. But Kosovo should know that once Serbia enters
the final stages of accession it will have to do whatever the EU
member states ask. And one of the things they are certain to ask is
complete normalization of relations with Pristina.
17. I fear, however, that some people in Belgrade
and Pristina may feel some urgency because of President Trump’s
promise of a Rose Garden ceremony.
18. They are unquestionably a nice occasion but
let me be clear: a Rose Garden ceremony does not ensure impunity.
19. I’d be happy to see Presidents Vucic and Thaci
cut a deal sooner rather than later. Kosovo might even want to offer
concessions on payment of World Bank debts and the planned roles of
the Kosovo army, as well as protection for the Serbs south of the
Ibar.
20. But to sell your sovereignty for a bowl of
porridge, or a Rose Garden ceremony, would be a historic and
unforgivable mistake.
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