By VETON SURROI
Prime Minister Rama does not have to be a mediator between the “Euro-Atlantic community” and Kosovo. The Albanian language, technically, does not constitute any added value in communication between the “Euro-Atlantic community” and Kosovo.
I listened to the presentation of the Prime Minister of Albania, Edi Rama, on June 13 of this year, with quite a bit of regret and concern, while he explained the cancellation of the meeting of the two governments, that of Albania and Kosovo, scheduled for June 14 in Gjakovë. From this press conference, what caught my attention was not so much the warning of the cancellation of a ritual event, which has taken on the dimension of a more or less folkloric manifestation, but the concepts presented by the Prime Minister of Albania, which I think represent a departure from the interest of Kosovo, its democracy, regional stability and Euro-Atlantic orientation.
Being involved in the creation of the concepts of the democratic movement of Kosovo and in the previous negotiation processes, I will try to express the conceptual differences with those manifested by Prime Minister Rama. I will try to do this by summarizing the prime minister’s explanations in a few key sentences.
1. “Kosovo created by the ‘Euro-Atlantic community’ will now be sanctioned by it…”
It seems to me that this is the mistake in the premise of Prime Minister Rama, from which the other deductions emerge. He repeated several times that Kosovo is a creature of the “Euro-Atlantic community” and this sentence presupposes the will of the “Euro-Atlantic community”, which is imposed on an undefined population of its own will. In fact, it’s the opposite. Kosovo was created as a state by the will of its citizens, within a painful and evolutionary process that began with the imposed autonomy within Serbia in 1945, its construction as an equal unit within the Yugoslav Federation in 1974 and the declaration of independence in 1990. The state did not fall from the sky with the NATO bombs in 1999. It was the product of a collective will, which held together during the violent dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and finally found the decisive support of the “Euro-Atlantic community”. . Bombs don’t create states, people do.
The situation in which Kosovo finds itself today is only a continuation of the negotiation process; once to that of securing citizenship within Yugoslavia in the period 1945-1974 and then to that which formally began in 1990, between the peaceful democratic movement and the Euro-Atlantic community, for the construction of independence.
The entire current, extremely complicated constitutional-legal system of Kosovo is built on a permanent negotiation process between Kosovo and the Euro-Atlantic community and Serbia and the Euro-Atlantic community. This process has occasionally involved the UN Security Council, so Kosovo’s statehood has also had its own global implications.
The difference with Prime Minister Rama is so great that it leads to completely opposite conclusions. In the (almost biblical) interpretation of the prime minister, Kosovo is expected to be sanctioned by the Creator. In the interpretation of Kosovo, the country faces pressure from European diplomacy due to dissatisfaction with Kosovo’s behavior in a negotiation process, in the next negotiation process. In that negotiation process, the EU is not the Creator, it is a party.
2. “The problem is of Kosovo, but it is also of the Albanians, of the Albanian nation”
Prime Minister Rama explained several times his personal involvement in the Kosovo issue these days as taking responsibility, because the consequences of the actions in Kosovo are felt by all Albanians.
It is a little difficult for me to understand what consequences the citizens of Kumanova, Korça and Ulcinj have with the dilemma of whether or not the elected mayor of Leposaviq should leave office or the dilemma of what powers the eventual Association of Municipalities with Serbian majority in Kosovo. Because, basically, when all that noise and smoke about this current “crisis” in Kosovo is removed, these are the issues that have been put into discussion.
So, no, it is not a matter for the citizen of Kumanovo, Korça or Ulcinj.
The last time when the plight of Kosovo was that of all Albanians was during the war, when the citizens of Kirçova, Korçë and Ulqin opened the doors of their houses to welcome the refugees. But, with the presence of NATO in Kosovo, I do not believe that the prime minister of Albania is talking about war.
Consequently, in this aspect, no, the plight of Kosovo is not that of the entire Albanian nation. How the evolving relations of Albanian rights will be regulated within the Ohrid Agreement has been a matter of responsibility for Macedonian Albanians. How Albania will come to an agreement with Greece regarding its maritime line can hardly be determined in Gjakovë and Skenderaj. How the state of Kosovo will regulate its relations with non-majority communities belongs to Kosovo anyway.
Yes, then, even if these problems are for the Albanians of Kirçova, Korçë and Ulqin, is this part of the mandate of the prime minister of Albania?
3. “The problem is of Kosovo, but it is also of the Albanians, of the Albanian nation” (2)
In 1990 and 1991, the Albanian political movement in the former Yugoslavia determined that Albanian politics, unlike the Serbian and Croatian ones, would be pluricentric, multicentric. So, unlike Belgrade and Zagreb, the Albanians of the former Yugoslavia would not consider any city, Pristina at that time or Tirana of tomorrow, as their political center.
I know this because I personally participated in the creation of this strategic decision.
Today we have undirected political thought and action in the states of the Albanians in the Western Balkans, whether they are majority or minority. It is a great victory of democracy within the Albanian whole in the Balkans.
The appearance of Prime Minister Rama, therefore, presents a surprise. As the prime minister of a neighboring country of Kosovo, the door is not opened for him to comment on how the government of Kosovo should negotiate with the EU. As the head of a state with an Albanian majority, it is also not that he has been asked for help to address one or another negotiation problem.
The definition of the problem that “Kosovo’s problem belongs to the Albanian nation” can be tried, but it does not undo the structuring for solving the problems. The current “problem” of Kosovo is the attempt to end the conflict through a (weakly mediated) negotiation process with Serbia. Negotiations are conducted by negotiators, they are not sports competitions in stadiums with bright lights. Nor are they processes where Albanians from all Albanian regions sit cross-legged in a meadow and determine what will be the historical end.
The “Albanian people” is not an amorphous mass. They are citizens who live in their countries, with democratically elected institutions (somewhere more or less). These and only these institutions should solve the citizens’ problems.
4. “Albania is acting not like a UFO, but as part of the ‘Euro-Atlantic community'”
Prime Minister Rama brought out another argument for his action in this case, besides that of “national responsibility”. He took it out of the responsibility of the “Euro-Atlantic community”. So, Albania took the last actions either because it has an Albanian (primary Albanian?) responsibility, or because it has a Euro-Atlantic responsibility.
Besides the internal contradiction of these two concepts (responsibility of “Albanianism” and “Atlanticism”), some other contradictions emerge here. Initially, there is no “Euro-Atlantic community” against Kosovo. In that community, which Mr. Rama describes, there are countries like Spain that do not recognize Kosovo’s independence and countries like Great Britain that do. In that community are countries like the USA, which liberated Kosovo, and Cyprus, which believes that Kosovo is Serbia.
One of the main problems of the “Euro-Atlantic community” with Kosovo, in fact, is that it is not a community of one attitude towards Kosovo.
Second, the messages of the “Euro-Atlantic community” arrive in Pristina without the need for translation into Albanian. The Kosovo authorities are fully informed about the opinion of Washington, Brussels, Berlin and Paris.
Prime Minister Rama, therefore, does not have to be a mediator between the “Euro-Atlantic community” and Kosovo. The Albanian language, technically, does not constitute any added value in communication between the “Euro-Atlantic community” and Kosovo.
5. The draft of the Association is “top”, made by the greatest international experts
Prime Minister Rama sent a draft statute of the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority, “drafted by the greatest international experts”, to Berlin, Paris, Brussels and Washington.
Since Kosovo did not ask for such a thing (and initially did not offer it to Kosovo), and since in the end any solution that will be reached in the negotiations is implemented in the legislation of Kosovo, with the same competence it was able to send the plan to Paris and Berlin peace for Myanmar, the agreement on the sea line between Slovenia and Croatia and also for the end of the war in Ukraine.
The text which he described as “top” and made by the greatest international experts means having knowledge of the constitutional system of Kosovo and knowledge of international legal expertise. I am not convinced that Prime Minister Rama has this kind of knowledge, nor is he expected to have it. As it would not be expected of him to know the entire evolution of the “positive discrimination” measures for the non-majority communities negotiated by Kosovo since Rambouillet in 1999 until Vienna in 2007.
He should be expected to know that in the negotiation process, in which Kosovo is the problem, it is not the drafting of a legal draft text for one or the other solution. The problem is the process itself, which is not serious and therefore degrades into cyclical crises, transforming then into a crisis management process.
Prime Minister Rama has also entered this vortex, addressing the next cycle with a draft of his own.
6. “You have to be an idiot not to see that Serbia has been brought to a situation where Kosovo has a firm away from recognition by the countries of the Euro-Atlantic community, the Association in exchange for a seat at the UN”
In fact, the number of idiots of this description is very large, the vast majority. The negotiation process is not “Association in exchange for a seat at the UN”. They know this in Pristina, Belgrade, every capital of the Euro-Atlantic community and in every capital outside this community.
The negotiation process is designed so that after the “basic agreement” the “comprehensive agreement” is reached. Even if all this is achieved, the seat in the UN would depend on China and Russia, and with this, on the end of the war in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, along the way, the “Franco-German” negotiation process has been deformed so much that it remains a quagmire, from which the demand for one and only thing always emerges, the Association of Serbian Municipalities (or as it should be said, municipalities with a Serbian majority).
However, the current crisis is not why there is no draft statute for the Association. The current crisis is that there is a lack of a basic agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, an agreement that ends the conflict between Kosovo and Serbia, that is, an agreement where additional rights of the Serbian community in Kosovo would eventually be negotiated.
7. “The Franco-German plan is a masterpiece. The other deal is not so good”
The prime minister of Kosovo offered to sign this agreement twice and the president of Serbia refused. From the last meeting in Ohrid in March of this year until today, the president of Serbia has denied that he signed or verbally accepted the Franco-German plan. Consequently, the Kosovo-Serbia Basic Agreement does not exist.
But there is the Franco-German plan, in its version presented by advisers to Chancellor Scholz and President Macron. And, since it is a “masterpiece”, the greatest help that Prime Minister Rama can give to regional peace is to write a simple message to Prime Minister Scholz and President Macron: “Your plan may be alive, but the Agreement has not been born still”.
