Tuesday

19th Mar 2024

Kosovo leadership confronts EU authorities

  • Anti-EULEX graffiti in Pristina (Photo: jonworth.eu)

The president and prime minister of Kosovo have walked out of talks with EU representatives in the first serious bilateral rift since Kosovo declared independence last year.

The meeting in Pristina on Thursday (27 August) was designed to soothe ethnic Albanian fears over a new police co-operation agreement between the EU's police mission to Kosovo, EULEX, and Serbia's interior ministry.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

The co-operation protocol will help EULEX and Serb police share information on cross-border organised crime and is a pre-condition for Serbia to obtain visa free travel to the EU in 2010.

Kosovo leaders said that EULEX' direct dealing with Serbia undermines their attempt to establish a sovereign state.

"The Kosovo leaders reiterated in the meeting their firm position against the protocol and emphasised that from today any debate and discussion on this issue is completely closed. Kosovo does not take any obligation and responsibility for issues which it has not decided in a sovereign way," the office of Kosovo president Fatmir Sejdiu said.

The statement came out after Mr Sejdiu and Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci broke off talks with EULEX chief Yves de Kermabon and the EU's civilian representative to Kosovo, Pieter Feith.

The police protocol has stoked anger in the majority ethnic Albanian population in Kosovo.

On Wednesday, the ethnic Albanian Vetevendosja ("self-determination") movement attacked EULEX vehicles in events leading to 21 arrests.

"We want the Republic of Kosovo to join the EU. But what we need are economic experts, doctors, scientists to help us develop. Not EU policemen to rule over us in a completely unaccountable way," Vetevendosja leader Albin Kurti told EUobserver.

Mr Kurti said Serbian police were involved in the killings of ethnic Albanian civilians in the 1990s: "They are criminals. They killed 12,000 people and only a dozen or so of those responsible are in prison."

Serbia's minister for Kosovo, Goran Bogdanovic, gave provocative comments to the Serbian Vecernje novosti newspaper on Thursday.

"With this document [the police protocol], the EU is confirming Serbia's integrity even on the areas that our country does not have full control over," he said.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008 with the backing of the EU institutions and the US. Twenty two out of 27 EU states have recognised its sovereignty. But Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania have not.

The EU visa free deal will cut along ethnic lines in the Balkans.

The agreement is to embrace the majority Orthodox Christian countries, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia. But it will exclude the majority Muslim Kosovo and Albania.

Bosnian Muslims will also be stuck with visa requirements. But most Bosnian Serbs will benefit from the EU deal because they hold Serbian passports.

Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access

70 percent of northern Gaza is facing famine, new data shows. There is one shower per 5,500 people, and 888 people per toilet. 'How can you live in these conditions?" asked Natalie Boucly of UNRWA at the European Humanitarian Forum.

Analysis

Scepticism surrounds Russian space nuke allegations

If there is one point of agreement between the US intelligence community and the space policy community, it's the seemingly low confidence in recent warnings about Russia readying a nuclear weapon for orbit.

Opinion

Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers

The UN could launch an independent international investigation into Navalny's killing, akin to investigation I conducted on Jamal Khashoggi's assassination, or on Navalny's Novichok poisoning, in my role as special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, writes the secretary-general of Amnesty International.

Latest News

  1. Borrell: 'Israel provoking famine', urges more aid access
  2. Europol: Israel-Gaza galvanising Jihadist recruitment in Europe
  3. EU to agree Israeli-settler blacklist, Borrell says
  4. EU ministers keen to use Russian profits for Ukraine ammo
  5. Call to change EIB defence spending rules hits scepticism
  6. Potential legal avenues to prosecute Navalny's killers
  7. EU summit, Gaza, Ukraine, reforms in focus this WEEK
  8. The present and future dystopia of political micro-targeting ads

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us