uesday 3 October 2006
Whose Kosovo is it anyway?
The Serb government's restated claim over Kosovo was more a symbolic gesture than 'war talk'.
David Chandler
The announcement by the Serbian government that there will be
a national referendum on a new constitution, which will declare Kosovo to be
part of Serbia, has caused a flurry of international criticism. The
international press portrayed the Serbian governments statement as a sign of
Belgrades belligerence and as an indication that the Balkan state is still
trapped in the language of ethnic nationalism (1). Yet once the rhetoric and
reality are disentangled, it is clear that neither of these conclusions is
correct.
The new constitution recognises Serbia as a separate and
independent state after the dissolution of the federal Yugoslav state and
Montenegros independence in June. It asserts in its preamble that the province
of Kosovo is a constituent part of Serbias territory (2). It would be strange
if it did not. Despite being under United Nations administration, Kosovo is
formally part of the Serbian state according to international law. Many
international declarations and agreements with the Serbian government, and
previously with that of Serbia-Montenegro, expressly mention Serbian sovereignty
over Kosovo in the preamble.
However, while there is no problem if international
institutions or Western states pay lip service to the legal fiction that Serbia
has sovereignty over Kosovo, it is considered a controversial act for the
Serbian government to do the same. It is held to be particularly controversial
for the Serbian parliament to make declarations over Kosovo now, because
Belgrade is currently engaged in negotiations over the provinces final status
with the government in Pristina.
Serbian prime minister Vojislav Kostunica claims that the
parliaments consensus of support for the constitution underlines the truth
that Kosovo has always been and will always remain a constituent part of
Serbias territory, and says Serbia will defend Kosovo with all democratic and
legal means (3). However, the Serbian parliaments near unanimous support for
asserting its sovereign claim over Kosovo is purely a symbolic
one.
Opinion polls show that only 12 per cent of the Serbian public
believe that Kosovo will remain part of Serbia (4). Far from the Serbian
government asserting itself over Kosovo, the symbolic declarations of Serbias
unity and of the importance of Kosovo are a direct reflection of the
parliaments weakness and irrelevance when it comes to questions of concern to
the Serbian people.
Kosovo is not the only issue where the Serbian government has
little real say. The process of government policymaking has increasingly been
subordinated to the requirements of the European Union. Even the newly revised
constitution was essentially part of the external programme set down by Brussels
requiring the revision of the constitution in line with European standards
(5). The Serbian parliaments role has become one of merely rubber-stamping
legislative reform proposals stemming from Brussels and coordinated by the
Serbian governments EU Integration Office, responsible for preparing and
amending government legislation (6).
The irony is that the inequality of power and influence
between international institutions, such as the UN and the EU, and Balkan
states, such as Serbia, has created a context in which the rhetoric on all sides
loses its relationship to reality. Nowhere is this more the case than over the
final status of Kosovo.
Serbia has formal sovereign rights over the Kosovo province,
yet cannot exercise them. Kosovo looks set to gain its sovereignty at the end
of the current negotiations, yet this sovereignty will be equally constrained,
with elected officials subordinate to internationally appointed interlocutors
from the EU and NATO (7). The Kosovo question reveals the lack of content behind
traditional conceptions of sovereignty in the
Balkans.
This is highlighted in the negotiations allegedly taking
place between Belgrade and Pristina over the future status of Kosovo. In fact,
there are no direct talks between the Serb government and the Kosovo-Albanian
one; this has been formally prevented by the UNs chief negotiator, Martti
Ahtisaari, who has insisted on the UNs intermediary role (8). Not only are
external agencies developing the proposals for the future status of Kosovo; they
are also the key actors in the negotiating process.
The key negotiations on Kosovos future status are taking
place between the US, the UN and the EU. The government in Belgrade has little
say over Kosovos future and the UN is in the advanced stages of preparations
for handing responsibility for Kosovo over to the EU (9). Despite the rhetoric,
the Serbian government is not even planning to use the referendum on the
constitution to strengthen its hand in the negotiating
process.
The outcome looks likely to change little in Kosovo, for
either the Serbs or Kosovo-Albanians, as the UN Mission will effectively become
that of the European Union. The future quasi-independent status of Kosovo will
enable international institutions to run Kosovo at arms length, rather than
taking direct responsibility for protectorate powers as it does at
present.
It seems that in the near future Kosovo will take over
Montenegros title of being the newest sovereign state in the Balkans (10).
However, the increase in sovereignty in the region has not been accompanied by
any increase in political independence. The existence of sovereignty without
policymaking independence has undermined the public sphere, reducing parliaments
in the region to stages for formal gestures and reducing politics to empty
rhetoric. When international administrators and policy advocates mistake this
rhetoric for strength and influence, they are not just mistaken in their
understanding of the region; they are also seeking to exaggerate the role of
local actors to evade responsibility for their own actions in the
Balkans.
David Chandler is professor of international relations at the
Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster, London. His
latest book is Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building. He is speaking
on the panel discussion Empire of Regulation or Lawless World? at the Battle of
Ideas festival of debate in London in October 2006.
(1) See, for example, Nicolas Wood, Serbia reasserts claim to
rule over Kosovo, International Herald Tribune, 1 October 2006; Serbia claims
Kosovo sovereignty, BBC News, 30 September, 2006
(2) Parliament unanimously adopts Serbias new Constitution,
Serbian Government Office, Belgrade, 30 September
2006
(3) Douglas Hamilton, Kostunica sets Serbia on course for
early polls, Reuters, 30 September 2006
(4) Serbs see Kosovo lost, despite wishful thinking,
KosovaReport, 29 September 2006
(5) Council Decision of 30 January 2006 on the principles,
priorities and conditions contained in the European Partnership with Serbia and
Montenegro including Kosovo, Official Journal of the European Union (L 035,
07/02/2006 P.0032- 0056), p.5
(6) See, for example, the short- and medium-term priorities,
set out in the 97 page table, Plan for the Implementation of the European
Partnership Priorities (adopted on 7 April 2006), Serbian
Government
(7) See, for example, the conclusions of the report of the
International Commission on the Balkans, The Balkans in Europes Future, 12
April 2005, pp.19-23
(8) Only direct talks can produce solution for Kosovo,
Serbian Government Office, Belgrade, 25 September
2006
(9) This was signalled in the EU Thessaloniki Declaration of
June 2003 and confirmed with Kosovos adoption of European Partnership
agreements in June 2004. See A European Future for Kosovo, Communication from
the Commission, Commission of the European Communities, 20 April
2005.
(10) On Montenegros independence, see, for example, Neil
Clark, Montenegro had more independence as part of Yugoslavia than it will as
an EU-Nato protectorate, Guardian, 23 May 2006
reprinted from: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/1766/
