Croatians, Montenegrins awaiting national minority status in Kosovo

The Montenegrin and Croatian communities are awaiting constitutional reforms in Kosovo to gain national minority status. Kosovo authorities, over the years, have promised Zagreb and Podgorica that Croats, respectively, who live in Kosovo, will soon receive that status.

But beyond the political will, it was problems with ensuring constitutional changes that such progress for these communities was impossible.

Currently, minorities familiar with the Constitutions in Kosovo are the Serb, Bosnian, Turkish, Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian and Gorani communities.

All these communities, they have guaranteed their representation in the Kosovo Assembly and other institutions on both levels.

In the event of the involvement of both Croats and Montenegrins in the Constitution, the mosaic of the communities of the Republic of Kosovo would increase, and would therefore need to ensure their representation in institutions, as well.

During the visit to Kosovo, Montenegrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic has demanded that the Malaysian community in Kosovo be recognised by the Constitution, which would be recognised as a national minority.

For this, Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj had promised the Montenegrin prime minister regulation of the Malaysian community's status in Kosovo.

Such was promised by Kosovo institutions in 2012 to the Croatian community.

Former president of the Republic of Kosovo, Atifete Jahjaga, in 2012 during a visit to Croatian citizens, in the town of Janjevo, has said they have agreed with Kosovo's prime minister that the Croatian community is a constitutional community, defined by the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo, and that it will have a reserved seat in the Assembly.

But what are the judicial conditions that must be met to gain minority status?

Cameron Krvenshi, the lawyer, says Kosovo's judicial infrastructure in the sense of respecting the rights and freedoms of national minorities or communities is broad, but recognition of the status of new communities in Kosovo requires amendments, both constitutional and legal in Kosovo.

The creation of more communities in Kosovo now requires the creation of legal infrastructure, which must support these rights because their representation, of the current communities in Kosovo, becomes due to the legal infrastructure existing in Kosovo, which should be done with changing other laws, which should guarantee their participation, especially when it comes to participation in troops, which are designed to promote and protect the rights of communities and their members in Kosovo, and which are guaranteed by legislation at <1x>, explains Krs.

He adds that any change requires participation of other minorities, as defined in the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo, in the sense of voting.

The recognition of the Malaysian community as a national minority in Kosovo, Kreveshi points out, has been largely committed to political will, and, according to him, if that political will exists, then must be translated legally, which would then create obligations for the Republic of Kosovo in relation to recognition of their status.

“In terms of criteria to create a community, this is entirely a political will of policymaking in Kosovo. If the same have the political will to recognise by status a new entity, which will be recognised as a community in Kosovo, which, because of language, origin, or other differences, differentiates with other communities, which are members of the Republic of Kosovo”.

“The constitution of the Republic of Kosovo has an interesting formulation, which recognizes Albanians and other communities, and now, in so-called so-called members of the majority, then others coming in line, must be known to other communities, which by political will, we should recognise as members of the Republic of Kosovo, with a special package, known as the” communities, says Krshi.

To recognise with the Constitution the status of a community, Constitutional Law Professor Mazum Baraliu tells Radio Free Europe that ethnic conditions, historical conditions of secular sustainability, cultural criteria and other standards must be met.

However, he adds, in Kosovo the Malaysian and Croatian communities do not meet the standards required for status with the Constitutions.

The Malaysian community and neither do Croatians meet the conditions from the aspect of the single percentage to be in the Constitution. What has been done with the Constitution of Kosovo, with all due respect to every community and their ethnic and historical definitions and their rights, in Kosovo the minority has been recognised as such, which rarely you find, if not at all”, Baraliu says.

Baraliu points out that under the standards and criteria that must be met, a community as a national minority can be recognised, but not as he says, according to the wishes of anyone.

With the Kosovo Constitution in the Parliament, 20 seats for minorities are reserved, out of which 10 are for the Serb community and 10 for other communities.

Would the involvement of these communities in the Constitution mean re-advancing the seats in the Assembly and changing the symbols of Kosovo?

Cameron Krvenshi explains that such changes would require an extraordinary change of legal infrastructure in Kosovo in proportion to any right that a community has in sense both the use of language and in the sense of the exploitation of symbols and all other rights belonging to laws in Kosovo.

This also implies the rights they should enjoy in relation to their representation in the Kosovo Assembly and other mechanisms”, says Krvenshi.

Meanwhile, Slobodan Vujicic, chairman of the Association of Montenegrins of Kosovo, says in a proposal for Radio Free Europe that 10 years ago they submitted the first formal requirements for Kosovo to resolve the Montenegrin community's constitutional and legal position, as well as their adequate representation in the Kosovo Assembly.

However, he adds, for the past 10 years in general, the Malaysians' position has improved, but we are still not nearly equal to other communities in Kosovo.

He says the Malaysian community in Kosovo would have to be recognised as a national minority.

The Malaysian Union is autochthonous and is present in Kosovo's spaces for 7 centuries. In addition to a number of memorial monuments, our facts confirm the Ethnological Museum in Pristina. Over the centuries, the Malaysians have left powerful seals on the development of Kosovo society, on the progress of civilisation, the education of citizens, on the liberation of Kosovo, and the construction of institutions”, says Vujicic.

According to the census in 1981, there were 28 thousand and 27 ethnic Malaysians in Kosovo. But, according to Vujicic, shortly before the war -- long and after the war -- the largest number of Malaysians have fled to Montenegro, Serbia and any third country.

The remaining Malaysians, after the war, and because we have not become a constitutional category, continued assimilation is becoming. If it doesn't start as soon as we implement the agreement on integration and affirmation of the Malaysian community, we are threatened by total extinction, or by some kind of ethnocid,”, Vujicic says.

Individuals belonging to communities in the Republic of Kosovo have the right to enjoy individually or together with others, fundamental human rights and freedoms that are defined in the international legal obligations binding for the Republic of Kosovo. These rights and freedoms are guaranteed by the Constitutions, with laws, regulations and other state policies. /rel