Bugajski predicts risks facing Balkans if Kosovo divides

“First, because only sovereign states can exchange territories, Serbia and Kosovo should recognise each other as independent countries and not block access to international institutions. Second, popular approval in both countries must be secured through parliament or a public referendum. Third, international mediation would be essential to implementing any territorial agreements. And fourth, citizens affected by land swaps would have to help shift to the elected state”.

But, according to him, even if all these conditions have been met, border changes in the Western Balkans are full of risks and will be interpreted throughout the region as legitimising national homogenisation.

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The partition show is bothering this Balkans this summer.

Following some provocative statements by Serbian and Kosovo politicians and amid relative silence from Washington and Brussels, assumptions are growing that a territorial plan is being planned between Belgrade and Pristina.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has confirmed that the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue will include talks on “border corrections” a term meaning exchange of territories and not just demarcation agreements, as recently linked between Kosovo and Montenegro.

Some Serbian officials have repeatedly presented the territorial opportunity to normalise relations between the two states, but so far the issue is not considered seriously.

In a move that sparked rumours on secret negotiations, Thaci said talks with Belgrade should be considered in joining Kosovo's Presevo Valley, a part of southern Serbia with majority Albanian populations.

Thaci clearly wants to bring Presevo into question and not face the unilateral surrender of northern Kosovo, in which Serbs form the majority in four municipalities.

The United States and the EU have consistently opposed any border change, viewing movements such as dangerous in a still unstable region.

But rumours are now growing that Washington and Brussels may seek to resolve the Serbia-Kosovo dispute with a territorial option and have thrown a bubble to see what Belgrade and Pristina can agree to without direct international mediation.

In recent statements to the media, the US ambassador to Kosovo and the European Commission spokesman did not rule out territorial revisions, simply stating that Belgrade and Pristina needed to reach a solution.

At the same time, Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic claimed he had discussed a possible division during a visit to Washington. Only German Chancellor Angela Merkel openly dismissed any border changes during a recent meeting in Berlin with the Bosnian prime minister.

Historically, divisions are nothing new, whether through post-war adaptations by victorious parties, or according to democratic plebiscites or intergovernmental agreements.

As Yugoslavia collapsed into wars and elections, Moscow was unable to keep the Soviet Union together by force, and Czechoslovakia was friendlyly separated from Prague and Bratislava.

In any case, however, the new countries were former federal companies that owned clear administrative boundaries and elected governments. Kosovo's possible partition would legitimise a new principle ] dividing states that emerged from the rest of the communist federations.

Such a process would require at least four conditions to be fulfilled peacefully.

First, because only sovereign states can exchange territories, Serbia and Kosovo must recognise each other as independent countries and not block access to international institutions.

Second, popular approval in both countries must be secured through parliament or a public referendum.

Third, international mediation would be essential to implementing any territorial agreements.

And fourth, citizens affected by land swaps would have to help shift to the elected state by them.

But even if all these conditions have been met, border changes in the Western Balkans are full of risks and will be interpreted throughout the region as the legitimacy of national homogenism.

With the principle of multiethnicity, which was apparently leaving, requirements for monotheism would escalate and potentially reveal several countries. Western institutions and NATO forces can find themselves unprepared for the wave of instability that could later include the region.

In Kosovo itself, the Serbian Orthodox Church strongly opposes any loss of territory, especially since most Serbian religious sites and over 60% of the Serb population are not located in northern municipalities.

Radicalised Serbs and Albanians could fuel violent protests to expel other ethnicity from their assigned territories. And a similar process can be presented in the Presevo Valley if it agrees with a land swap.

Territorial revisions will also increase support in Kosovo for joining Albania. Such a moment could spread rapidly in Macedonia, where at least one quarter of the population is Albanian. Threats to Macedonia's territorial integrity would intensify ethno-nationalistism, potentially destroy the name agreement with Greece, and bring Bulgaria and Albania into an expanding conflict.

Meanwhile, the Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina could seek the implementation of Kosovo's precedent for joining Serbia; the Croatian population may demand that Western Herzegovina be absorbed by Croatia; and the Bosniak population could campaign for Serbia's majority Muslim region in Sandzak to join Bosnia.

Montenegro will also be caught in the middle of this storm, with Bosniaks, Serbs and Albanians demanding all those seeking the division of the country in which they form the local majority.

And all of this is unlikely to happen in a peaceful political and political climate, but it could be filled with violent incidents to prove that separation was necessary.

Although such a scenario sounds like a Balkan reward for the Kremlin and may contribute to justifying its division of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, it would be premature for Moscow to celebrate the division of every Balkan state. Such developments would underline that the Russian Federation itself, containing 85 federal entities, could be territorially divided according to ethnic, religious or regional principles. Paradoxically, partitioning of Kosovo or Bosnia could serve as a prototype for Russia's future breakup. /psis.al/