EU's Balkan Envoy Says Serbia-Kosovo Stalemate Risks 'Outbursts Of Instability'

PRAGUE -- The European Union’s special envoy for efforts to normalize relations between Serbia and its former province Kosovo has warned of the danger of “outbursts of instability” for years to come if those Balkan neighbors can’t overcome their current impasse and unilateral actions continue.

In an extended interview with RFE/RL’s Kosovo Service at the Globsec security conference in Prague on August 30, Miroslav Lajcak said the clear task for both sides is to implement their commitments from last year’s so-called Ohrid Agreement within the decade-old “dialogue” to avoid “hostile or even violent” actions and responses.

He lamented a lack of momentum on EU enlargement in the past but also repeated Brussels’ stance that a lack of progress on normalization directly hinders Serbia’s and Kosovo’s respective EU membership bids.

“[W]e either have normalization, which will bring stabilization, open the way for regional cooperation, which is struggling right now," Lajcak said, "or we will continue with the actions which are not coordinated, with prompt reaction which is again not coordinated, and could become hostile or even violent, and we might be kept busy for years with this repetition of, I would say, outburst[s] of instability. And this obviously prevents the region from progressing on the European path.”

He suggested Serbian and Kosovar societies “are not ready for normalization” but said the unresolved problem of Serbian-Kosovar relations goes well beyond those two countries and is “very much a regional and European issue.”

Serbia does not acknowledge the independence of its predominantly ethnic Albanian former province since Pristina declared sovereignty in 2008, a move officially recognized by more than 100 countries but not by Russia, China, or a handful of EU member states. A bitter ethnic war punctuated by NATO intervention in 1999 preceded UN interim administration ahead of Kosovo’s independence.

During two leadership stints since 2020, Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s government has conducted a mounting campaign of “reciprocal” measures to pressure Belgrade to recognize Kosovo’s statehood and official institutions.

The Serbian and Kosovar sides reached agreement in the resort town of Ohrid on normalization steps in early 2023, but key elements of the deal remain unfulfilled, including Pristina’s pledge dating back to 2013 to establish a legal foundation for an association to represent majority-Serb municipalities in Kosovo.

But two subsequent flareups of violence in northern Kosovo – unrest that injured dozens of NATO KFOR peacekeepers in May 2023 and the killing of a Kosovar police officer by a group of commando-like Serbs at an Orthodox monastery in September 2023 -- alarmed the international community and lent urgency to the dialogue.

More recently, Pristina has clamped down on the use of Serbian currency at banks and postal outlets, as well as other aspects of daily life for thousands of Serbs who resist Kosovar central authority, prompting the United States and the European Union to urge against “unilateral” and “uncoordinated” steps by either side.

Kurti says Kosovar authorities are establishing rule of law and public order.

Serbian President Aleksandr Vucic has accused Kosovo’s government of trying to terrorize and intimidate the local Serb population.

“If you ask me, the problem is that the two societies are not ready for normalization,” Lajcak told RFE/RL. He said his four-year term “has been probably more dedicated to crisis management than to promoting of normalization.”

In July, the EU Council extended Lajcak’s mandate by five months, to January 2025, at the request of outgoing EU foreign policy head Josep Borrell.

Lajcak downplayed suggestions that Borrell’s successor, former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, would do without such an envoy to the delicate Serbia-Kosovo dialogue.

“The job is not done and, therefore, the job must continue,” Lajcak said. “And I believe that there should be an [EU special representative] assisting the high representative until the Ohrid Agreement is implemented.

“But one important element that I will, of course, stress also to my successor and to the new high representative is that this process must be visibly and directly linked to the European integration.”

Serbia was awarded EU candidate status along with other hopefuls in 2012, while Kosovo remains a “potential candidate” with its participation in other multinational organizations, including the UN, blocked by its partial recognition.

Lajcak said the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine had sparked an “awakening” within the European Union of the risks of stalled enlargement since Croatia’s accession in 2013, and he insisted the “dynamic has changed already.”

“Paradoxically, this awakening came as a consequence of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's aggression against Ukraine when the European Union also decided to invite Ukraine and Moldova to join,” Lajcak said. “So this is a huge new opportunity for the Balkans. The door that has been closed for 10 years is now open.”