http://www.oxan.com/worldnextweek/2008-06-12/Kosovo.aspx
OXFORD ANALYTICA (UK) June 14-20, 2008 Kosovo: who's in charge? Kosovo remains suspended in frozen conflict. And confusion over the respective roles, responsibilities and mandates of the various international players scrambling for influence in the newly independent province has contributed to growing uncertainty and instability. Pristine is staring at a jumble of parallel institutions and acronyms that could persist for years. The EU police and justice mission in Kosovo, EULEX, was due to take the baton from the UN's UNMIK mission this week, when Kosovo's first state constitution enters into force. Yet the UN and EU are still seeking to gain Serbian -- and thus Russian -- acquiescence to the mission. Partition fears Serbia and the Kosovo Serb minority reject EULEX as illegal. Belgrade has said that it would accept an EU mission, but only as a pillar of UNMIK in Kosovo. The relationship between EULEX and UNMIK is in need of clarification, and the lack of UN Security Council (UNSC) authorisation for the EU mission will surely be mirrored in a lack of clarity in events on the ground. Belgrade has also proposed a partnership with UNMIK that would effectively give it rights to run services in areas populated by the 120,000 remaining Serbs, something the Albanians fear borders on partition. It claims the UN has agreed to hand over control of police, customs, justice, control of the Serbia-Kosovo border, transport and telecoms, and protection of Serbia's cultural heritage to Belgrade as part of UNMIK's reconfiguration. EU: leadership vacuum Internationally, the EU has long played second fiddle to the United States and UN in Kosovo. The mission is intended to change this, but it will mean asserting the kind of leadership the EU has lacked in the past. On the ground, EULEX will need to deal with the many overlapping legal systems currently in operation across the country and manage the threat of the country's partition. About 40% of Serbs in Kosovo live north of the Ibar river under the de facto authority of Belgrade. The only Kosovo institutions in operation there are the Mitrovica courthouse and prison. The EU has repeatedly emphasised that its EULEX mission will extend across the whole of Kosovo. Yet its decision to set up a separate office in the north has sent an ambiguous message, interpreted by some as a tacit recognition of the different status of the north from the rest of the country. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Kosovars do not even consider the EU a major player in Kosovo. Yet its political elites are determined to forge close ties with Brussels and the declaration of independence was closely coordinated with the needs of some EU member states. The EU's line has been to emphasise that Kosovo does not represent any kind of precedent in international law and to emphasise its commitment to the western Balkans. Yet this week will expose the EU's traditional reliance on international law as a justification for its missions, and also made it easier for opponents of Kosovo's independence to contest the legitimacy of EULEX.
