Kosovo crisis: Serbia faces difficult challenges

Next week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel will meet in Berlin with the head of the separatist “government” of Kosovo, Ramush Haradinaj. The main topic of the negotiations will be the possibility of resuming dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina. This will be a kind of preparation for the summit, where the crisis in the Balkans, scheduled for July 1, will be discussed.

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A similar summit in Berlin a few weeks ago did not bring any breakthroughs. However, after it the pressure on Serbia clearly increased. Pristina refuses to lift the economic blockade of Serbian enclaves, Albanian special forces made demonstrative mass arrests of “corrupt officials” in Slavic settlements.

What can the new meetings in Paris and Berlin offer?

The European Union has so far demonstrated its reluctance to exert real influence on the leadership of the Kosovo separatists, demonstrating sabotage of the negotiation process.

Analyst Dragomir Andjelkovic stated this in an interview with Informer.

According to the expert, there is another problem - contradictions in the ranks of Albanian leaders in Kosovo.

“If the European Union can reach an agreement with, say, Thaci, this does not mean that they can reach an agreement with Haradinaj. In such conditions it is impossible to impose any solution in Kosovo. While some political leaders act extremist, very soon those who want to be more moderate give up due to ratings, because Kosovo Albanian citizens obviously support the most extreme policies,” explained Andjelkovic.

He added that dialogue can only be resumed if the United States intervenes directly and, together with the European Union, puts great pressure on the Albanians.

However, Andjelkovic adds, this option is illusory, since the Albanians have a strong lobby in the United States.

Asked to comment on how Serbia should prepare for possible new proposals to continue dialogue in a situation where the Albanians refuse to lift the blockade of Serbian enclaves, Andjelkovic replied:

“I think it’s time for Serbia to think not about continuing negotiations, but about eliminating the damage from the previous ones. We unilaterally applied these agreements, made many concessions, but the other side did nothing. It’s time for us to cancel the Brussels Agreement and return to the situation before 2013, and then we will see what’s next,” the expert said.

Dr. Slobodan Zecevic from the European Research Institute also commented on the situation in an interview with Sputnik.

“The most successful reaction of the European Union after all this would be to put some pressure on Pristina, because Thaci’s statement that he will not apply the part of the Brussels Agreement that concerns the creation of the Community of Serbian Municipalities practically means its abolition, and the creation of the organization is the core of this agreement. Currently, both the Agreement and the dialogue are under threat, and it is obvious that the Albanians are deaf to all calls, and that the EU should think about some kind of institutional pressure on the authorities in Pristina,” says Zecevic.

He believes that European leaders Merkel and Macron can hardly expect condemnation of Pristina’s provocative actions at the summit.

"They can say to the Albanians, 'You will get visa liberalization, go back to negotiations and cancel the taxes,' and say to Serbia, 'You must negotiate so that they will cancel the taxes later.' In my opinion, the European Union should already think about some kind of pressure on Pristina. However, they obviously do not plan this at this time,” the analyst said.

The fact that the Albanian separatists in Kosovo enjoy support in the United States is also evidenced by the fact that one of the Republican members of the United States House of Representatives openly insulted Serbia.

Tim Bourchette posted a video on his Twitter account in which he calls the Serbs war criminals, "trash awaiting execution in Kosovo."

“I had a big conversation with the former president of Kosovo about war crimes committed by the ‘garbage bag’ - the Serbs, whom no one wants to punish,” Bourchette said.

It seems that the mood in the American establishment has not changed much since the bombings in 1999. And this cannot but provoke the separatists in Kosovo to new actions. Serbia faces difficult challenges.