The alarms have gone off again in Kosovo. The Kosovar Albanian police repressed last Friday the protests that broke out in the northern town of Zvecan, inhabited mostly by Kosovar Serbs, against the swearing in of an elected mayor of Albanian origin. Serbia, which does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state, has kept its army on combat alert since that day, and the demonstrations in the region have not ceased, in a dangerous escalation of tension between the two communities. NATO, which maintained a peacekeeping force (KFOR) with 3,700 soldiers in the area, has decided to deploy another 700 to try to avoid new clashes.
Both the EU and NATO have called to calm the situation and have asked the Kosovar leaders, Albin Kurti, and Serbian leaders, Aleksandar Vucic, to resume dialogue. Below are the main keys to a conflict that keeps the international community in suspense, fearful that the ethnic clashes that caused thousands of victims in the 1990s could be revived.
1. What has been the trigger for the latest clashes?
Kurti’s government promoted local elections in the north last year that were boycotted by the Serb majority in that area. In protest at the call, more than 600 Kosovar Serb public officials – including mayors, councillors, police officers and judges of Serb origin – resigned in November 2022. Kurti, under pressure from the European Union, postponed the elections. Finally, they were held last April, with a participation of only 3.5% of the voters in the face of the Serbian boycott. Despite this tiny percentage, Pristina validated the elections, where mayors of Albanian origin won in municipalities with a Serb majority. Last Friday Pristina sent three mayors to the municipalities of Leposavic, Zubin-Potok and Zvecan to be sworn in.
In Zvecan (7,300 inhabitants), the inhabitants tried to prevent the mayor’s access to the town hall and the Kosovar police did their best to suppress the protests and make way for the alderman. On May 26, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic ordered his army to go on combat alert and deploy units closer to the border with Kosovo.
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2. What are the main underlying problems of the conflict?
Kosovo declared its independence unilaterally in 2008. More than 100 countries recognized the new state (Spain is not among them). But Serbia never accepted the decision and continues to consider Kosovo a province of its own. Since then, 1.8 million inhabitants have lived in an area smaller than that of Murcia, of whom 90% are of Albanian origin, around 6% of Serb origin and the rest belong to other minorities. The population of Serb origin, estimated at around 100,000 people, is concentrated in four municipalities in the north, where it is the majority: Mitrovica, Zubin Potok, Liposavic and Zvecan.
Attempts to agree on autonomy for the Serb-majority area or to apply Pristina’s administrative decisions in the northern region have so far failed and periodically led to clashes.
In this context, there are two issues that have prevented progress in the agreements between Belgrade and Pristina in recent months. On the one hand, the problem of registrations, which are Serbs in the north and Kosovar Albanians in the rest. And secondly, and more importantly, the creation of a confederation of Kosovo Serb municipalities.
The Pristina government attempted to implement a law in 2021 to remove all Serb license plates from Kosovo. That feint sparked protests in the north, with roadblocks. The European Union mediated, but Pristina tried again in March 2022. And the blockades tightened again. Finally, the EU managed to appease the crisis temporarily. As for a confederation of municipalities, the Kosovar Serbs maintain that this body was already approved by the parties in agreements in 2013. But the Kosovar president, Albin Kurti, flatly refuses to grant such greater autonomy.
At the bottom of all divisions lies the question of sovereignty. The Spanish expert on the Balkans Miguel Roán warns: “As long as the two parties do not give in, there will be no lasting peace agreement in the region.”
3. What international support do Serbia and Kosovo have?
Kosovo’s main international ally is the United States, followed by the European Union (although not all its members recognize its independence, including Spain). And Serbia’s is Russia, followed by China. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has made both Washington and Brussels strive to strengthen their relationship with Serbia, a country of barely seven million inhabitants, but key to the stability of the Balkans and eastern Europe.
The EU has worked hard to keep the prospect of Balkan integration alive. But the prerequisite is that Kosovo and Serbia sign an agreement to normalize relations. That pact has been impossible up to now, despite the efforts of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, who has met on several occasions with both leaders.
Faced with images of police repression in Zvecan, the US and the EU condemned Kurti’s decision to send ethnic Albanian mayors to northern Kosovo. They insisted that this movement only serves to increase the tension. But Kurti has ignored Washington and Brussels. The Kosovar president remains firm for the moment that the elected mayors take office in the northern towns.
Borrell asked Kurti this Wednesday to ease a “dangerous and unsustainable” crisis. And the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, also blamed Pristina for the current tension. Moscow, for its part, has expressed its solidarity with Serbia and its “concern” about the events in Kosovo.
4. What is the internal situation of the Serbian president and how does it affect the Kosovo crisis?
At the beginning of May, there were two shootings in Serbia that caused 18 deaths in just two days. Thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the proliferation of weapons among the population. The demonstrations were massive, were criticized by the government and became anti-government. The Serbian Aleksandra Tomanic, director of the NGO European Fund for The Balkans, explains from Belgrade about the context of the protests: “The media, television and the press are controlled by the State. And they spread hate towards neighbors, minorities, political opponents, etc. War criminals are regular guests at gatherings. And, for a few years now, even the public space of the entire country has been flooded with ultranationalist messages glorifying war criminals”.
Prominent analysts in the area believe that the escalation of tension in Kosovo is linked to those anti-government protests that are taking place in Serbia. Tomanic maintains: “In the last two days, nationalist demonstrations in support of the Kosovo Serbs have been called in Belgrade. With them, Vucic tries to counteract the effect of the protests against the Government. His goal is to silence criticism.
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