Europeanising the ‘Kosovo Question’: Serbia’s Policies in the Context of EU Integration

The issues of Kosovo independence and European Union membership have dominated Serbian domestic politics and foreign policy since the fall of Slobodan Milošević in 2000. Despite the lack of formal EU conditionality on the Kosovo issue, Serbia’s insistence on its uncompromising ‘no recognition’ of Kosovo policy has been detrimental to its EU candidacy aspirations.

This article examines Serbia’s Kosovo policies in the context of EU integration, in particular the divergence between Serbia’s stance towards Kosovo and its aspirations towards EU candidacy. Considering the negative effects that the Serbia–Kosovo relationship has had on regional cooperation and Serbia’s EU integration, this article considers why Serbia appears to have failed to ‘Europeanise’ its Kosovo policies, i.e. to normalise relations in a way that would be more favourable to accession. In doing so, it examines Serbia’s Kosovo policies since 2000, and the ways in which domestic actors have deliberately manipulated and complicated the question of Kosovo and Serbia’s EU membership.