Turnless, visionless dialogue

Nearly nine years have taken place since the dialogue, which had been baptized as “dialog between Belgrade and Pristina, started in Brussels with the relief of the EU”.

There are many assessments for this dialogue, from those that “is historical” and that “historical progress has been achieved by”, to those that this dialogue has not only brought the desired results, but has created more problems than it has solved.

But not after nine years, the European Union as “facilitator” of dialogue has failed to provide clear answers to a simple question: what is it about, and what is not the dialogue?

Since his departure, the answer to this question has also been key to understanding the purpose. The Kosovo side stated that the goal of dialogue is to recognise Kosovo on the part of Serbia and normalisation of reports as two sovereign states, Koha Ditore writes today.

Serbia's goal was to prove it constructive and ensure a kind of normalisation without the need for Kosovo to be recognised as an independent state either by it or by others who do not want to recognise it. While the EU, at least as it had written in the basic document for membership negotiations with Serbia, wanted to mediate in a process that would lead to “the normalisation of reports through a comprehensive, legally binding” and set this as a condition for Serbia in the process of European integration.

Since the start of the dialogue, the question that “for what is not dialogue” was important to clarify that Kosovo's status was a closed issue, that Kosovo had declared independence under an international proposal, was recognised by the great majority of EU states, this independence was confirmed as not violating any international law nor Security Council Resolution 1244. So, for good reason, Kosovo stated that in this Brussels status dialogue, Kosovo's status and its borders will in no way be the subject of dialogue.

But Serbia did not think so. She approached the dialogue as if Kosovo had no status. And, as the EU on such issues decides by consensus and there were five states that still did not recognise Kosovo. Serbia used this to successfully create the impression that nothing is complete and that Kosovo's status is not final, nor are its borders.

“embigusity theory”

The first architect of the dialogue was British Robert Cooper, at the time senior EU official working on the senior representative's team, Catherine Ashton. He first came up with a theory that in diplomacy books may look good for “constructive integrity”.

This, he said, was explained by the deliberate creation of opportunities for parties to make the same sense, often contrary. Thus, under his leadership in the EU team that facilitated the dialogue, the impression was created that not only is it not a weakness but it is a major priority that the EU has no clear stance on Kosovo's status and that there is no complete unity among member states for recognising Kosovo's independence.