Kosovo leadership confronts EU authorities
<mailto:[email protected]> ANDREW RETTMAN
Today @ 09:25 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - The president and prime minister of Kosovo have walked
out of talks with EU representatives in the first serious bilateral rift since
Kosovo declared independence last year.
The meeting in Pristina on Thursday (27 August) was designed to soothe ethnic
Albanian fears over a new police co-operation agreement between the EU's police
mission to Kosovo, EULEX, and Serbia's interior ministry.
The co-operation protocol will help EULEX and Serb police share information on
cross-border organised crime and is a pre-condition for Serbia to obtain visa
free travel to the EU in 2010.
Kosovo leaders said that EULEX' direct dealing with Serbia undermines their
attempt to establish a sovereign state.
"The Kosovo leaders reiterated in the meeting their firm position against the
protocol and emphasised that from today any debate and discussion on this issue
is completely closed. Kosovo does not take any obligation and responsibility
for issues which it has not decided in a sovereign way," the office of Kosovo
president Fatmir Sejdiu said.
The statement came out after Mr Sejdiu and Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci
broke off talks with EULEX chief Yves de Kermabon and the EU's civilian
representative to Kosovo, Pieter Feith.
The police protocol has stoked anger in the majority ethnic Albanian population
in Kosovo.
On Wednesday, the ethnic Albanian Vetevendosja ("self-determination") movement
attacked EULEX vehicles in events leading to 21 arrests.
"We want the Republic of Kosovo to join the EU. But what we need are economic
experts, doctors, scientists to help us develop. Not EU policemen to rule over
us in a completely unaccountable way," Vetevendosja leader Albin Kurti told
EUobserver.
Mr Kurti said Serbian police were involved in the killings of ethnic Albanian
civilians in the 1990s: "They are criminals. They killed 12,000 people and only
a dozen or so of those responsible are in prison."
Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic, gave provocative comments to
the Serbian Vecernje novosti newspaper on Thursday.
"With this document [the police protocol], the EU is confirming Serbia's
integrity even on the areas that our country does not have full control over,"
he said.
Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 with the backing of
the EU institutions and the US. Twenty two out of 27 EU states have recognised
its sovereignty. But Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania have not.
The EU visa free deal will cut along ethnic lines in the Balkans.
The agreement is to embrace the majority Orthodox Christian countries, Serbia,
Montenegro and Macedonia. But it will exclude the majority Muslim Kosovo and
Albania.
Bosnian Muslims will also be stuck with visa requirements. But most Bosnian
Serbs will benefit from the EU deal because they hold Serbian passports.
http://euobserver.com/9/28592/?rk=1
