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Abstract:
This article challenges the dominant view that the European Union (EU) acted as a neutral broker in the negotiations over the Kosovo status issue. It also questions some of the critical arguments that the EU behaved as a neo-colonial power. The article suggests that EU policy towards Kosovo was shaped by a ‘victors peace’ approach but it was non-strategic, that is, it was not based on a long-term assessment of how best to foster reconciliation in the region while at the same time safeguarding the EU’s economic, political and security interests. In fact, although a consensus had emerged in 2004–2005 that appeared to favour an imposed solution around the concept of ‘supervised independence’, this was rivalled by tensions cutting across the traditional ‘Europeanists’ and ‘transatlanticists’ divide. The latter got the upper hand as the Kosovo status issue soon became caught up in the ‘second Cold War’, which is the controversy between the United States and Russia over North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement and the deployment of the anti-missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. In the short-to-medium term, the EU has, unintentionally, entrenched divisions among local actors, contributed to the proliferation of external security missions with competing objectives and most EU Member States have undermined international law by recognizing Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence.
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