Kosovo could stop Serbia's EU membership

In an authorial writing published today at the Council of Europe's portal for International Relations, Walker.eu, former Swedish Foreign Minister and the good knowledge of politics in the Balkans, Carl Bildt, writes about the EU's strategy for enlargement with Western Balkan countries.

He cites three groups of states that, according to the strategy, will join the EU starting in 2025.

Bildt writes for the problem of demarcation between Kosovo and Montenegro.

Overall, the demarcation of Kosovo's border with Montenegro has also become a major problem. An agreement has been reached between Podgorica and Pristina, following the 1974 Yugoslav Constitution line, but it has not been possible to ratify in the Kosovo Parliament due to strong opposition”, he writes.

According to him, the EU has set conditions for visa-free travel of Kosovo citizens dependent on the ratification of this agreement, but so far this has not changed the situation.

“However, the most critical of all outstanding issues concerned relations between Kosovo and Serbia. The Commission says that an effective and inclusive “of Belgrade-Pristina relations is urgent and requires a comprehensive and normally binding agreement on normalisation”, as preconditions for Serbia and Kosovo to advance to their “European solutions”.

This will not be easy, Bildt writes.

Serbia's “Political education is still not ready to accept Kosovo's formal recognition as an independent state, zencing with UN membership, while public opinion in Kosovo is unlikely to accept anything less. The EU itself is divided on this issue, with five member states not recognising Kosovo's independence”, he estimates.

Bildt estimates that the EU dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade has been slow in recent years.

Displacement towards a comprehensive agreement will likely require a much higher level of EU engagement than has been seen so far.

The former chief of European diplomacy also cites Russia's influence in the Balkans.

“Set up all issues on the table, comprehensive agreements between Kosovo and Serbia are likely to be the most difficult. It should be added that Russia is unlikely to refrain from expressing its support for the Serb stance on the issue, thus making the matter even more difficult”, he stresses.

From the two states of “advanced”, Serbia is clearly the most important, he writes, broadcasts news.net.

“Opening 12 out of 35 chapters in the accession process and closing only two of them. But even more demanding that this process is a fact that a veto right has now been established by Croatia and Kosovo for Serbia's EU accession”, Bildt estimates.

According to him, by dragging feet for any process on the Danube border, Croatia can slow down the process, and Kosovo can do the same by stalling talks on the normalisation of relations with Serbia.