Kosovo closed for Balkan Open

(PERISKOPI) 

There are many, especially in the political West, since today, Edi Rama, Aleksandar Vucinqi and Zoran Zaev will see carriers of the initiative burying the region's bloody past and opening the future of development and understanding.

Of course, there are just as many that the Balkan Open project will interpret as Yugoslavia's revival; hence, as formally peaceful, inter-ethnic and inter-state initiative which, however, will speak Serbian at the end. These, most of them, you find in the region not so much in the West.

The clash and polarisation among these jars will deepen further after today's signing of the Memorandum in Skopje. As of now, we can expect a turbulent autumn in the region, considering that leaders of Balkan Opin pledged that Mermorandum implementation will begin as early as October 2021.

However, as with the period of Yugoslavia's birth (that is in 1918 or 1945), it is now known who will be favoured by the international political community/Western HINA and who will end up in the margins of history.

Today's statements by Rama, Zaev and Vuciqi for co-operation, understanding, peace, employment and development are music for the ears of Western capitals from Brussels to Washington. In addition, despite all challenges of World Post-war II, an anti-fascist West goal never died down: the irresistent support of the above-ethnic and super-state trade initiatives and free movement.

In short, in the eyes of the West today, Rama, Zaev and Vuciq are the new heroes of the coming Balkans. For him, it's important if they're the wrong people when they say all the right words and, especially, if they do all the right actions tomorrow. Anyone who thinks the international community will oppose the Balkan Opin initiative because of its leaders' biography, does monumentic nonsense. For international/Western logic more important is doing the job than the head of the job. This, as for definition of political pragmatism.

But today it was found that even the founders of Balkan Oppen are familiar with this. When asked about non-participating governments during the joint media conference, they all unanimously claimed that they would unite during the time, since Sãons are wherever they go...

Indeed, if Open Balkana will start implementation after three months with the support of Brussels and Washington's support, what will be the fate (and the response) of Kosovo governments, Montenegro and Bosnia? Further rejection?

Hard to believe.

If, by example, by means of BalkanApe, the implementation of open borders between Serbia and Albania, would the Republic of Kosovo be able to take that into account that its government refuses the Novi-Sadite initiatives? On the other hand, Serbia's path to Albania also runs towards Montenegro: do you think the government (currently pro-Serb) in Podgorica will also be able to do so?

Hard to believe.

In fact, for good or for bad, it is almost impossible to believe that Balkan Oppen will not live. Not why the fate of this initiative depends on its founding leaders, but precisely why it does not depend on them. Rama, Zaev and Vuciq are its host, but not its inventors. They are the heads of jobs in a modern Brussels and Washington project that for the Balkans only have one obsession: overcoming ethnic and ethnic borders as a political and economic category in the region.

If the EU is a major Yugoslavia, then the Balkan Open will also be a small Yugoslavia, Prime Minister Edi Rama replied today with equal irony to the question of negative analogy with stories (kon)federalizing in the Balkans.

In many superficial ways, this can be seen as true. But there is a difference: to this day, the EU survived ethnic, national and ʹsolving challenges of member societies. Yugoslavia, no. To Western logic, that's enough. Something that works doesn't need a change. So, according to this logic, if Open BalkanA is to be implemented within the principles that the EU established, it could work. So simple, for the West.

And what do you think will happen to the refusal governments in Pristina, Podgorica and Sarajevo? Nothing spectacular, we would say. After a long period of time, they will join the Balkan Opin, perhaps seeking to meet some cosmetic requirements for his modification. This, just so it doesn't seem completely stupid and timed. These governments have no demographics, no economics, no political influence to withstand rhetorical magic of understanding, cooperation, employment and development, especially when it combines with unremitting support from there where the sun rises for Albanians.

Why, then, is this whole drama and farce of non-participation especially on the part of the Kosovo government? Since Serbia has not recognised Kosovo? This reasoning sounds even more meaningless considering that most Balkan Opin member states know its citizenship. Logically, a Kosovo turnout would make it even more difficult to perform its non-recognition on Serbia's part. On the other hand, as it looked today, everyone spoke on behalf of Kosovo except Kosovo. She had moved to the level of an anonymous region that was located somewhere between Albania, Macedonia and Serbia.

So, what did we get with non-participation? Or, what will we gain if we continue not to participate, which is seen to be the complete political and social trend in Kosovo? International support? Enhanced Sovereignty? Foreign investment?

It's not just hard to believe. That is already impossible to believe. There is hardly anyone who can convince us that the participation of two Albanian states in the Balkan Open would be more harmful than the participation of only one. On the contrary.