Divided EU Stalls Debate on Kosovo

09 05 2007  Unable to reach consensus, EU again delays debate on Kosovo, hoping it can bridge differences later.

By Gjeraqina Tuhina in Brussels

Unable to reach unity on the issue, the European Union will again remove a debate on Kosovo’s final status from the agenda of the next EU foreign ministers’ meeting planned for May 14, Balkan Insight has learned.

 

 

“We will not discuss specifics about Kosovo in the upcoming ministerial meeting because we still don’t have a breakthrough,” a source from the EU Council said.

 

 

The EU member states have so far proved unable to reach a common viewpoint on a United Nations plan for independence for Kosovo, supervised by the EU itself.

 

 

While publicly officials insist that there are no divisions in the EU over Kosovo, open scepticism by some member states indicates the EU has difficulties reaching consensus.

 

 

Martin Kothaus, the spokesperson of the German EU presidency in Brussels, also confirmed that Kosovo would not be on the agenda of the meeting. “Discussion about Kosovo is taking place in New York; there’s nothing we can discuss here”, Kothaus said.

 

 

Martti Ahtisaari, the UN envoy for Kosovo, revealed his blueprint for the province’s future on February 2. It envisions an internationally-supervised statehood for the disputed land, 90 per cent of whose 2 million population is Albanian.

 

 

The government in Belgrade – and Kosovo’s small Serbian minority – have flatly rejected Ahtisaari’s proposal, demanding new negotiations. Russia, which holds a veto in the UN Security Council, has said it will oppose any deal that Serbia does not endorse.

 

 

Ahtisaari enjoyed the broad support of the EU for his efforts during 14 months of talks. However, divisions surfaced in March when his final document called for Kosovo’s “supervised independence”.

 

During an informal meeting in Bremen, Germany, one week after Ahtisaari’s document was made public, EU countries failed to endorse the plan and agreed only to continue to support the envoy’s “engagement”, even though the status talks were officially over.

Despite the efforts of key European factors in Brussels, unity was not achieved after the Bremen meeting, either. As a result, the Kosovo issue was completely removed from the agenda of the last ministerial meeting in April.

 

 

While the content of Ahtisaari’s plan focusing on the protection of the Serbian minority in Kosovo is not disputed, the word “independence” has sent alarm bells ringing in the capitals of several European countries that have large and restive minorities of their own.

 

 

Slovakia and Romania – both states with large Hungarian minorities – have been at the forefront of resistance to the UN envoy’s plan.

 

 

Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia, recently said Ahtisaari`s plan was unacceptable for Bratislava and the content would have to be changed. Slovakia is also a non-permanent member of UN Security Council.

 

 

Jan Skoda, spokesperson for the Slovak ministry of foreign affairs, said Bratislava would not be changing its position fast. “We stress our appreciation of the efforts made by Mr Ahtisaari during his mission but we don’t support his plan”, Skoda told Balkan Insight.

 

 

Romania is less hard-line in its opposition. Adrian Cioroianu, Romania’s foreign minister, told Balkan Insight on May 9, that Bucharest would accept any final resolution of the issue by the UN. “Our main and only concern is that the Kosovo solution should not become a precedent for other frozen conflicts,” he said.

 

 

An EU source said that while divisions among the 27 EU member states were obvious, Brussels was trying to cover them up, not because it wanted to mislead the public but to “disarm” Russia, which openly opposes the approval of new resolution on Kosovo based on Ahtisaari’s document.

 

 

Javier Solana has taken a similar line. “If Europeans are united, we can have influence on other members of the Security Council that are not convinced completely that Ahtisari’s proposal is the best one”, he said last week during a speech in the European parliament.

 

 

“They are trying to find a convergence because they realise how fundamental it is for EU to stand on the same position,” Lucia Montanaro-Jankovski of the European Policy Center, a Brussels based think-tank, said. “It’s considered that the more divided the EU is, the less their position will have influence.”

 

 

Some EU officials insist – at least publicly – that Europe is not as disunited as it looks. Olli Rehn, European commissioner for enlargement, said member states were merely debating, rather than being divided on, Kosovo.

 

 

Rehn said earlier this week that he was proud of what he called “a very responsible debate on Kosovo among foreign ministers in the last couple of months”.

 

 

Gjeraqina Tuhina is an RTK correspondent from Brussels and Balkan Insight contributor. Marian Chiriac BIRN`s Romania country director also contributed to this report. Balkan Insight is BIRN`s online publication.