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US Ponders Freezing Kosovo's Status until 2020
29 October 2007 The US State Department is discussing a new approach to Kosovo that
would leave its political status frozen, while pumping huge sums into
its economy.
By Krenar Gashi and Berat Buzhala in Pristina
Billions of euros injected into Kosovo’s budget and a
12-year freeze on its political status, followed by a referendum, form
the main planks of a potential settlement for Kosovo under discussion
by US diplomats.
A senior source within the State Department has
described for Balkan Insight and Kosovo’s Express daily, parts of a
draft proposal for Kosovo that is currently in preparation.
“The
US has two options: to recognise, together with a few other countries,
Kosovo’s independence and to cause thereby many global and regional
problems; or to drop formal independence for some years, relaxing
tension in the region and boosting Kosovo’s economy”, the source said.
Balkan Insight has not been able to verify the contents of the proposal from other sources.
The
new US initiative comes at a time when Kosovo’s complex status
resolution process has reached an apparent deadlock, and there are no
signs of a compromise around the corner.
Kosovo Albanians rely on the US to support their demand for independence, while Serbs depend on Russia to oppose it.
Facing
this unenviable situation, State Department officials are considering a
possible alternative option, the source said, without stating by whom,
or at what level of seniority, the draft document has been commissioned.
“A
freeze on Kosovo’s political status until 2020 means a period in which
to boost Kosovo’s economy…as it is also foreseen that the EU and the US
would inject up to €7 billions a year into Kosovo’s budget, as a
pay-off during this period”, the source went on.
“No country
would normally be interested in helping Kosovo to such a high level,
however this is what we call a ‘white peace’…Nobody would win
politically; not the Albanians, the Serbs, Russia or the West”, the
source said.
Kosovo has been administered by the UN since 1999,
when NATO’s campaign of air strikes forced the Serbian authorities to
withdraw from the territory, although formally it remains part of
Serbia.
The first phase of negotiations on Kosovo’s status
between Pristina and Belgrade during 2006 failed to produce agreement.
As a result, the UN tasked former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari,
who had been chairing the talks, to draft his own proposals.
Ahtisaari’s
plan, which recommended internationally-supervised independence for
Kosovo, did not receive the endorsement of the UN Security Council, due
to objections from Russia. As a result, the international community
initiated a new phase of an additional 120 days of negotiations, which
are at present showing no signs of delivering a breakthrough.
Last
week the “Troika” of mediators from the EU, Russia and the US, which
has been overseeing the current phase of talks, presented the two sides
with a list of 14 principles as a basis for resolving Kosovo’s status.
Read the principles at: http://www.birn.eu.com/en/108/15/5350/
Wolfgang Ischinger, the EU representative on the Troika, said last week that both parties should give up their initial stances.
“The
two sides have to realise they cannot get 100 per cent of their
demands. They have to realise that if they settle for just 50 per cent,
it is a much more desirable outcome for both than no agreement at all,”
Ischinger was quoted in the British The Financial Times daily on Friday.
The State Department proposal currently being drafted does not oppose the Troika principles or Ischinger’s statements.
According
to the source that revealed the draft document, Kosovo’s status over
the next 12 years would be similar in some ways to that of Hong Kong
which enjoys extensive self-government under Chinese sovereignty,
though, unlike Kosovo, it is not under international administration.
The draft envisages the holding of a referendum to determine Kosovo’s long-term status on January 5, 2020.
The
source also said that Kosovo would become a Free Trade Zone, offering a
light taxation and custom regime that would attract foreign investment.
In the meantime, Kosovo would be allowed to join the International
Monetary Fund and other international financial institutions.
The
source added that the initial idea behind this proposal had already
been communicated to the Kosovo Albanians’ negotiating team.
However, Veton Surroi, a member of the Kosovo team, and leader of the ORA party, said that he was not aware of such a document.
“Based
on the contacts that we have with American diplomacy, I can say that
this proposal doesn’t, as such, exist”, Surroi said on his return from
Vienna on Sunday.
Asked whether the Kosovo negotiating team
would agree to a 12-year freeze, Surroi said only that “Kosovo’s
assembly should set the independence date before Christmas”.
Meanwhile, many in Kosovo believe that the proposal currently being considered would multiply problems and cause confusion.
Lulzim
Peci, head of the Kosovar Institute for Policy and Research
Development, KIPRED, believes that “the public will be divided once
this proposal is formally introduced”.
“Besides that, none of
Kosovo’s politicians are mandated to choose between accepting such a
proposal and declaring independence unilaterally”, said Peci, and added
that “a decision of that kind should be made through a referendum”.
Shpend
Ahmeti, an economist with Kosovo’s Group for Policy Analysis, GAP, said
that the amount of money mentioned in the draft document seemed
enormous.
“It is hard to believe that this plan can talk about
this amount of money. In a planned donors’ conference for Kosovo, the
total amount that we expected to be raised reached only €2 billion, and
that was for a period of three years”, Ahmeti told Balkan Insight.
Peci
believes that if funds on this scale were invested into Kosovo’s
economy over the next 12 years, they would help Kosovo reach a level
similar to that of the more developed EU countries in the region, such
as Slovenia.
“Other countries would, by contrast, suffer from
such a boost to Kosovo’s economy, considering that even countries, like
Bulgaria and Romania, that recently joined the EU, are not receiving
that much support from the [EU budget’s] cohesion funds”, he said.
Ahmeti
is also worried. “We should bear in mind that Kosovo lacks a clear
vision for pursuing a fast rate of economic development”, he says.
Yet
the possible distortion that such a huge provision of funds may cause
to the economy of Kosovo and the region is only one of the problems the
draft proposal may encounter – if it ever becomes US policy. Of more
immediate interest are the likely reactions of the opposing sides,
especially the Kosovo Albanians who believe Washington has already
promised them independence now, and not in 12 years’ time.
Krenar
Gashi is BIRN Kosovo Editor. Berat Buzhala is editor-in-chief of the
daily newspaper Express. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication
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The opinions expressed in Balkan Insight are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.
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