Serbia doesn't even notice the 100% tax, S dealt with a small country like Kosovo

The Kosovo government has become combative, imposing taxes on Serbian products and pledging to form the army, but is addressing the wrong target.

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Evidently it has not reached Kosovo. Within hours of Serbia blocking Kosovo's bid for membership in Interpol, Kosovo has returned it with a 100% tax on Serbian products, up from 10% previously. Touché!

Only this isn't Touché. Kosovo's sword is intact and rusty, its weapons are empty.

Kosovo cannot arm “imports from Serbia”.

Serbia earns less than 500m euros annually from the sale of goods in Kosovo, from a total export value of over 13 billion euros annually.

In other words, Serbia earns about one euro at every 26 euros from exports from Kosovo.

Italy and Germany jointly receive more than a quarter of Serbian exports, followed by Bosnia, Russia, Romania, Montenegro and Slovenia. Kosovo comes in tenth place.

The loss of Kosovo's market is important for Serbia, but not important enough to make it abandon one of its main policies -- the non-recognition of Kosovo's independence.

The fact that Serbia remains the biggest exporter in Kosovo simply implies how small Kosovo's economy remains. [Its total exports annually is about 300m euros. ]

Meanwhile, Serbia's refusal to recognise Kosovo is a charter Serbia will hold.

It can only be played in exchange for the golden prize of EU membership. It will not throw it into this phase, only to help some Serbian producers.

Meanwhile, Serbia takes the position of the damaged side. The EU is condemning Kosovo, not Serbia, for breaking its membership conditions in the regional free trade zone, CEFTA.

Customs taxes are not the only badly thought move for Kosovo. The next largest plan, to change the mandate of the current security force, KSF, in a regular army, is much crazier.

This has angered Serbia, Serbs in Kosovo as well as NATO. The alliance has condemned the move without question.

An unfriended coup such as Kosovo should ensure that the price of EU and NATO hostility at the same time is worth paying.

Is it worth having an army? It is controversial whether a state of Kosovo's size needs or can face an army.

Many small states in Europe have physically abandoned their armed forces, with the exception of decorative goals.

Luxembourg, which is much smaller than Kosovo, but much richer, could easily afford a good army if it wanted. He could pay an army, just as Italian states had done in the time of Renasenas/Result.

Instead, this country maintains a symbolic force of about 340 members just to set up a cermonal guard outside Duke's palace.

The idea that a small, unfinanced Kosovo “minus” may be useful to ward off an invasion is strange.

Such an invasion could come only from Serbia, other neighbours are friendly, but neither will it.

Having NATO physically in Kosovo, Serbia will not risk a physical confrontation, or a second guerrilla war on hostile ground.

What the nominal existence of the Kosovo Army will do, however, is to create new possibilities for disagreements with Serbia, which Belgrade can exploit and provoke NATO which will clearly not equip or finance.

Kosovo Deputy Minister for the Kosovo Security Force Agim Ceku spoke ordinary for the “donations” possible weapons.

He has to clarify who donors are. Even friendly Turkey can think twice of the arms donation in Kosovo against the expressed NATO advice it belongs to.

Of course, Kosovo is looking forward to retaliating Serbia for the unscrupulous use of the CEFTA agreement, for throwing goods into Kosovo and for its overall blocking tactics.

But the best revenge way for Kosovo would be for consumers to buy products from elsewhere, from their producers, or from other CEFTA states.

By striking Serbia with product tax, Kosovo looks like a regulation-breaker that cannot be trusted to act responsibly.

This turns Serbia away from responsibility, which is why Belgrade has not taken a mutual act, and the fact that Serbia does not buy almost anything from Kosovo.

The government's basic error in Kosovo -- not because opposition parties are different -- is obsession with obtaining citizenship decorations instead of substance.

Like a king who worries that there is no crown when the real problem is there is no kingdom going after second-class goals.

Set up a big store to be “known to” from the small states of Pacific and Central America, whose favour is surprise! For sale, and can easily be bought by Serbia or Russia.

Trying to overcome Serbia or Russia to get their attention is a luxury Kosovo cannot afford.

What really would return to Serbia would be the creation of a better functional economy and educational system so that young people would not leave the country ? and so some foreign companies can transfer production there.

Today, major companies in Europe are busy moving operations from the west with expensive labour to the east, to countries such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania.

When Jaguar Land Rover announced that he was moving the entire production from Great Britain to Slovakia this year, he barely made headlines; many other companies are taking the same route.

When did anyone hear that a large company is carrying operations to Kosovo? If not in the production sector, start-up, technology or tourism, then in what sector are true signs of economic growth seen?

The answer is, almost nowhere. What is even more disturbing is that political parties in Kosovo do not seem concerned.

It was typical of Kosovo's policies that the opposition party, Vetevendosje, appeared less interested in the economy (non-existence) last year than the loss of some meadows in Montenegro as part of border solutions.

Kosovo should be real and prohibit behavior that is not impressing anyone and just irritating partners.

If it wants to impose taxes on Serbian products, it should leave CEFTA. If it is determined to form <x0ushtri” ʹ in opposition to NATO and Serbia, it would be good to make sure it can equip it.

In the meantime, I can ask myself why Serbia, with a fourfold population of Kosovo size, earns 45 times more of its exports than Kosovo.

This may be a more helpful theme to concentrate on than on forming an army.

Marcus Tanner is editor of Balkan Insight and author of the “Albanian mountain Queen Edith Durham and the Balkans” [Tauris].