In the coming months, a fundamental decision will be made that will challenge the capacity of the international community, particularly Europe, for conflict resolution. The issue is Kosovo's status -- the last unresolved piece of the bloodstained Balkans puzzle. For Serbs and Albanians alike, Kosovo is a place haunted by history. But the world must not allow their freighted narratives about the past to cloud our actions to build a better future.
In the 1990s, following its atrocities in Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic's Serb regime abolished Kosovo's long-standing autonomy, suppressing the rights of the province's overwhelming Albanian majority. Instead of simply watching in horror, as it did at the start of the Bosnian war, NATO decided to intervene before Milosevic's forces could again devastate one of the constituent ethnic groups of the former Yugoslavia. Security of the EU and Europe's moral responsibility after the crimes of World War II were at stake.
Following NATO's intervention, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1244, placing Kosovo under UN administration. Since 1999, the international community's policies with regard to Kosovo have had wide international support, including from Russia.
Now the time has come to resolve Kosovo's status permanently. Otherwise, the stability that the UN has brought to Kosovo, and the region, will not last. Unemployment is now running at over 40 percent in Kosovo and breeds political volatility. Without access to sovereign lending from the World Bank or the IMF, Kosovo's economy will continue to stagnate.
Resolving Kosovo's status is also a necessity for the province's Serb minority, who continue to live in uncertainty, not knowing whether to look to Belgrade or Pristina for protection of their rights. It would free both Serbia and the EU to move forward on Serbia's domestic reforms and international integration.
The UN Special Envoy for the Kosovo Future Status Process, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, has now, after 14 months of intensive negotiations with Belgrade and Pristina, presented his settlement proposal to the Security Council. Ahtisaari's bold proposal, which recommends Kosovo's independence with initial supervision by a strong international civilian and military presence, is the only viable option for the international community, and for Europe in particular.
Reintegrating Kosovo into Serbia is not tenable. Since the end of the conflict in June 1999, Serbia has not exercised any governing authority over Kosovo. Under UN administration, legitimate Kosovar institutions for managing domestic affairs have been created. With these institutions in place, Kosovo's people expect greater self-government.
Sadly, Belgrade's vision of Kosovo returning to Serbian rule -- albeit with autonomy -- ignores these realities. Indeed, Serbia has no viable strategy for integrating Kosovo's 2 million people into Serbian political institutions and public life.
The UN simply cannot solve Kosovo's structural problems, namely the need to develop a viable economy and to begin engagement with the EU -- the most powerful motor for reform and economic development in the region. But this does not mean that the international community and the EU should now leave Kosovo to its own devices.
Relations between Kosovo's Albanian majority and Serb minority remain uneasy. So it is imperative that strong safeguards are put in place to protect minorities, particularly the Serbs. International supervision of Kosovo's independence by a strong international civilian and military presence will be critical to ensure that it fulfills its obligations under the settlement proposal.
What is now required is the will to adopt and implement Ahtisaari's plan. In the coming weeks, the Security Council will decide Kosovo's status, but it is the EU that will have to coexist with both Kosovo and Serbia.
In fact, Kosovo's fate is intertwined with the EU's own. A strong and stable Kosovo will require a cohesive and united Europe. If the EU is divided on an issue lying at its geographic heart -- and at the heart of its interests -- its credibility as a foreign policy actor on matters beyond its borders will suffer dramatically. And only a united EU can bring Russia on board for a harmonized policy towards the Balkans.
This means that the EU cannot leave Serbia to its own devices, either. The EU must make it clear that it is ready to support Serbia -- and the region as a whole -- in realizing its European aspirations. European security is hinged on Serbian integration, just as Serbian aspirations hinge on the EU.
But the price of the EU's support cannot be changed; the major war criminals Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic must be delivered to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Today, as yesterday, the first step towards Serbia's European integration is full cooperation with the tribunal.
Serbia has a bright future with the EU, but getting there requires that it break with its own past -- on both Kosovo and the atrocities of the Milosevic era.
Joschka Fischer was German foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005, and he is now a visiting professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.
Copyright: Project Syndicate/Institute of Human Sciences
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under