Finding a way out of the Kosovo crisis

On Monday (10 December) the United Nations deadline for reaching an agreement on Kosovo expires. Unless a miracle occurs - one that would have to include a deep-rooted identity replacement for both Serbia and the Albanian majority in Kosovo, coupled with a hint of inspiration in the EU foreign policy establishment - no agreement will be reached and the region will officially be in crisis.

The sceptical may suggest that the Balkans have been in crisis some 17 years (not to mention previous decades), which is quite true. But the situation is different this time, and dangerous. To date it has usually been a case of relations between two or more of the local sides deteriorating into confrontation, often followed by conflict - for which the international community then found some expensive ‘maintenance ceasefire mechanism’, such as the Dayton accords or UN Security Council resolution 1244 in the case of Kosovo. This time the crisis is engineered as much by the international community as by the sides involved.

Consider two aspects of international engineering. The first regards the de facto independence of the province under the 1244 UN protectorate, achieved courtesy of the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia, which was not authorised by the Security Council. Never before, or since, had NATO or any other international alliance intervened militarily against a regime that was violently harming its own citizens. It could have been a wonderful precedent for taking on the despots of the world. But as the miserable people of Zimbabwe, Burma or Darfur know, it was a single, one-off event.

In the clear line between uniqueness and precedent lies the second aspect of the international engineering on Kosovo. The rhetoric, led by the US, is that the situation in the province - rather than the intervention in it - was and is ‘unique’ and that moving it to de jura independence will therefore not set a precedent. Russia objects to this, largely because it fears regions within its own orbit will follow suit and because it is another card to play in antagonising the west. As a result it is sticking to the Serbian position, which rejects any independence for Kosovo and is threatening to veto any UN resolution accordingly. The future of the province has unfortunately become hostage to the appalling diplomacy between east and west, mixed up with such issues as missile defence, Iran, the absence of OSCE election observers in the Russian elections and the whims of Gazprom vis-à-vis European fears for energy security.

Perhaps a stop-gap will be found on 10 December, another last-ditch maintenance solution, to gain a particle of time. But unless one of the sides - Balkan and international - changes its position, no amount of time will change the inevitable crisis of Kosovo unilaterally declaring independence, thereby effecting an open confrontation with Serbia and splitting both the international community and the EU, since at least four member states object to such a move. Because the EU intends to replace the UN administration in Kosovo regardless of the legal status of the province, having a split Council of Ministers to direct the new administration could be disastrous. Worse still, the precedent of a unilaterally independent Kosovo could influence the Republika Srpska in Bosnia to do likewise, leaving the EU leadership and framework there in ruins.

The EU must go the extra mile and find a new path. This should commence with the notion of agreed partition, which is not an international precedent, rather than imposed independence, which is. Partition holds within it the inter-alia acceptance of independence - but on agreed terms. To achieve it, mutual confidence-building measures, both between the sides and between each of the sides and the EU, are necessary. Vague promises of Union membership can no longer suffice and threats of a reversion to violence by either side are absolutely unacceptable.

The EU is a unique international creation. It gave its agreement to a unique intervention into Kosovo - which is slowly leading to disaster. If it is to uphold its unique authority in the region, it must seek a new path away from the crisis.

• Ilana Bet-El is an academic, author and policy adviser based in Brussels.

On Monday (10 December) the United Nations deadline for reaching an agreement on Kosovo expires. Unless a miracle occurs - one that would have to include a deep-rooted identity replacement for both Serbia and the Albanian majority in Kosovo, coupled with a hint of inspiration in the EU foreign policy establishment - no agreement will be reached and the region will officially be in crisis.