Kosovo’s independence put on ice

The UN Security Council will debate the question of Kosovo’s final status next Wednesday (19 December) but without taking any decisions, according to EU and UN diplomats.

The debate - expected to be contentious given Russia’s opposition to an independent Kosovo - is the latest stage in a diplomatic end-game on the future of the UN protectorate which is still nominally part of Serbia.

Early in the new year, however, the issue will be back in the EU’s hands, diplomats say.

The EU plans to dispatch some 1,800 policemen and judicial experts to Kosovo to take over from Unmik - the current UN administration in the province. This rule-of-law mission will be complemented by a smaller political mission. Both need a legal basis which allows member states, including the handful that are unlikely to recognise an independent Kosovo, to approve their mandate, or at least not to block them.

The path of a UN Security Council resolution - the typical way in which missions under the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) are authorised - is blocked by Russia’s insistence on Serbia’s territorial integrity. The next-best step, according to EU diplomats, is some sort of authorisation by Ban Ki-moon. the UN Secretary-General, which might take the form of a letter calling on the EU to take up its responsibility in Kosovo.

The current thinking among legal experts evolves from the fact that Security Council resolution 1244 of June 1999, which set up Unmik, also authorises the secretary-general to "establish an international civil presence in Kosovo", "with the assistance of relevant international organisations". This language, they say, should enable Ban Ki-moon to request the EU to take over from Unmik.

But after talking to EU ministers in Brussels, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov poured cold water on that idea. "Interpreting this Security Council resolution is dangerous if you do it in a one-sided way," he said. And a senior UN official in New York said that the secretary-general was in no position to provide the EU with the legal clarity it is hoping for and that he would not issue anything that would reinterpret resolution 1244.

Cyprus, which holds misgivings about Kosovar independence for fear this could serve as a precedent for its own Turkish minority, also wants a "clear and sound legal basis for the deployment" of the EU mission, according to its diplomats.

Cyprus, together with a handful of other EU member states, is unlikely to recognise Kosovo; a more pressing question is whether it might try to block the ESDP mission there. EU officials still believe a solution can be found.

Serbia is following the discussions anxiously and threatens to challenge Kosovo’s independence before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. On Tuesday (11 December), Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica warned that his country would not allow an EU mission to "come to its territory, Kosovo, without a new Security Council resolution".

The UN Security Council will debate the question of Kosovo’s final status next Wednesday (19 December) but without taking any decisions, according to EU and UN diplomats.