Kosovo’s future
The day after independence

Nov 22nd 2007
The Economist print edition

The next Balkan headache for the European Union

FOR months the future of Kosovo has been uncertain. In March Marti
Ahtisaari, a former Finnish president, presented a plan for conditional
independence to the United Nations, which has run the province since the end
of the war in 1999. Russia stepped in to stop this, and has since treated
Kosovo as a bargaining card with the West. The crude message was that, even
though Kosovo is surrounded by the European Union and NATO, a resurgent
Russia can still get its way there. Now it looks as if this may have
backfired.
Kosovo has a population of 2m, 90% of whom are ethnic Albanians who have
long demanded independence. Serbia’s leaders say they cannot have it, since
Kosovo was always a Serbian province and not a Yugoslav republic before the
country fell apart. Serbia has proposed various models of autonomy, drawing
on such examples as Hong Kong and the Swedish-populated Aland Islands,
formally part of Finland. But Kosovo’s Albanians have rejected them all. A
final bout of diplomacy intended to reach a compromise has, predictably,
failed so far to find one.

The diplomats will present a report on their work to the UN on December
10th. Russia and Serbia want the talks to go on after that. But their
chances of success are diminishing. "The intriguing thing," comments Mr
Ahtisaari, with not a little hint of satisfaction, "is that the Russian
attitude has reinforced the unity of the EU. I don’t think that was their
original intent."

Kosovo’s Serbs were told to boycott the election on November 17th by their
leaders, and only 40-45% of Kosovar Albanians turned up to vote. The
election was won, with 34% of the vote, by Hashim Thaci, a former political
leader of Kosovo’s guerrillas who fought against the Serbs in 1998-99. After
the poll he said Kosovo would declare independence immediately after
December 10th. But privately he told Western diplomats he could wait until
spring; he then said nothing would be done before consulting the Europeans
and Americans.

Many countries wonder if Kosovo’s independence is a good idea. Some fear a
precedent for separatists, from Abkhazia to Catalonia. At one time, the
European Union looked set to be divided over recognition. But a likely
German decision to say yes, plus what seemed a scary bid by Russia to
exploit Kosovo to divide the EU, has converted many doubters. Only Cyprus is
likely to resist to the bitter end. Slovakia and Greece seem resigned to
accepting Kosovo’s independence.

This is a big success, says Ivan Krastev, a Balkan analyst, "but the
problems will come later. It must be understood that EU unity cannot expire
on the day after the recognition of Kosovo." What this implies is a large EU
commitment to the region, beyond replacing the UN mission in Kosovo with an
EU one. It is not clear that all European governments are prepared for this.

Several things need to be done in the wake of Kosovo’s probable
independence. The most delicate are careful handling of the Serb breakaway
northern bit of Kosovo and the reinforcement of pro-European voices in
Serbia. The second may involve some unpalatable decisions, such as setting
aside the condition that Serbia’s advancement towards EU accession must be
conditional on the arrest of Ratko Mladic, a Bosnian Serb general wanted by
The Hague war-crimes tribunal.

Another place causing concern is Macedonia, where recent violence involving
ethnic Albanians has set nerves jangling. Macedonia hopes to be invited to
join NATO next April. That would warn off predators in what by then may be a
newly independent Kosovo. But it may not happen, for Greece threatens to
veto a Macedonian invitation as part of its 15-year-long campaign to get it
to change its name.