FAZ: Monastery supposed to pave Kosovo way to Council of Europe

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) has written an article about recent developments involving the Decani Monastery and the possibility of Kosovo being part of the Council of Europe.

German newspaper article has titled “A Serbian monastery is supposed to pave the way to Council of Europe”

Kosovo's “government is interfering on behalf of a Serbian Orthodox monastery in an ongoing dispute for more than a decade. The reason is that Kosovo wants to join the Council of Europe”, that German newspaper writes.

In a conflict more than ten years over ownership of the land of a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Kosovo, the Kosovo government has intervened in the name of monks.

The “centred in the dispute were 24 hectares of forest and agricultural land near the Decani Monastery in western Kosovo. The monastery belonged to the ground under some of the highest decisions of the Kosovo court. However, although the Supreme Court (2009) and the Constitutional Court (2016) had confirmed the church's claim on land, the earth registration office, under the change of Kosovo governments, refused to make records of the land registry in favour of the church on political issues. Reason”, writes this newspaper.

According to this newspaper, this disregard of its Constitutional Court has also recently hampered the chances of success in Kosovo's application for membership to the Council of Europe, which the Balkan state has submitted in May 2022.

On Wednesday, however, the Kosovo Foreign Ministry has announced to the Council of Europe that the Land Record Office has made records of the land register in favour of the government's instruction monastery. At the same time, the Kosovo General Consulate in Strasbourg sent the Council of Europe a copy of the new land register”, the paper writes.

The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes that it is expected that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe now votes for Kosovo to be admitted to the Council of Europe.

If that happens, the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers may make the final decision on accession.

The head of the Kosovo government, Albin Kurti, has made it clear Wednesday that without interference on behalf of the monastery, the road to Kosovo would have been blocked towards membership in the Council of Europe. Although he still considers the Constitutional Court's decision as strange and unjustified “”, there is no way to accept it, much more that membership in the Council of Europe would be a historical “surplus for Kosovo. The road there could be paved in the next three months.