Global Policy Forum

By Simon Tisdall

Kosovo is fast becoming "the black hole of Europe" and could descend into renewed violence within weeks unless the EU takes urgent action, senior diplomats and international experts warned in Brussels this week. But continuing EU indecision over the breakaway province's demand for independence from Serbia, coupled with the ethnic Albanian majority's failure to embrace reform and respect Serb minority rights, are paralysing plans to launch "final status" talks this year.

Five years after Nato ejected Serbian forces and imposed an international administration, the UN and the US are still lacking an exit strategy. Serbia, meanwhile, wants its territory back. In an attempt to show willing, Olli Rehn, the EU's enlargement commissioner, met Kosovan leaders in Pristina this week. Mr Rehn said the EU would raise the issue when President George Bush visits Europe next month. But according to Erhard Busek, who heads the international stability pact set up after the 1990s Balkan wars to promote democracy and development in south-east Europe, the EU must take the lead. "Kosovo is a European issue and we Europeans have to get our act together," Mr Busek said. "If Kosovo goes wrong, we in Europe will be first to face the consequences of migration and organised crime."

With unemployment approaching 60%, a disastrous lack of foreign investment, and with 50% of the population aged 25 or under, "there is a huge social problem - a timebomb in the making". Chris Patten, the former EU external relations commissioner, said economic stagnation, interethnic tension, and the potential for violence were linked and threatened the entire region. "There has been considerable progress in south-east Europe since 1999, but there is a danger of the whole process unravelling in Kosovo unless we grasp some nettles," Lord Patten said. "Time is running out," said Gareth Evans, a former Australian foreign minister and president of the International Crisis Group (ICG), an independent conflict prevention organisation. A timetable leading to independence next year had to be rapidly set in train, he said.

An ICG report published this week said alternatives to independence such as Kosovo's reabsorption into Serbia and Montenegro, partition, or unification within a "greater Albania" would only increase regional instability. Pointing to last March's surge in violence, it said too much time had already been wasted. "The political capital of the UN mission in Kosovo is all but exhausted. Reintroduction of violence into the equation has raised the very real possibility the process may be decided by brute force rather than peaceful negotiation," it said. "The Kosovo Albanian political establishment cannot be relied upon to act as a moderating force if, by mid-2005, the international community does not begin a process which clearly appears to be leading to some form of independence."

Yet unless ethnic Albanians make a genuine commitment to reform and overcome their "victim mentality", an independent Kosovo could become just another failed state. Serbia's military and police have "contingency plans" to exploit new violence against Kosovo's Serbs by intervening in support of partition or unilateral secession, the ICG report warned. Lord Patten observed that Kosovo and Serbia's hopes of Nato and EU membership were "intimately related". EU financial carrots were on offer if Belgrade cooperated, he said.

But Misa Djurkovic, political adviser to the Serbian prime minister, Vojislav Kostunica, said Serbia was not trying to delay final status talks and opposed partition. "Serbia is strongly committed to a multiethnic Kosovo and to EU integration, but attempts to blackmail it are unacceptable," Mr Djurkovic said.

While they all oppose independence, Serbia's leaders, like their EU counterparts, are divided about what to do next. And an explosion could come within weeks if, as is widely predicted, Kosovo's prime minister, Ramush Haradinaj, a former Kosovo Liberation Army commander, is indicted by The Hague war crimes tribunal. If charged, Mr Haradinaj has promised to go peacefully. His supporters are unlikely to follow suit.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C íŸ 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.