The rebirth of separatism?

EU leaders and officials have spent the last few months maintaining that Kosovo is a unique case which in no way sets a precedent for the solution of frozen conflicts elsewhere.

After their meeting in Brussels on 18 February in which they took note of Kosovo's declaration of independence the previous day, EU foreign ministers issued conclusions which reaffirmed the EU's "adherence to the principles of the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, inter alia the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity and all UN Security Council resolutions".

The conclusions said that Kososo was a sui generis case which did not call into question these principles. What made Kosovo a unique case was, according to the document, the conflict of the 1990s (which pitted the province's ethnic Albanian majority against the repressive Serbian state) and the extended period of international administration, which is now coming to an end.

Stressing the uniqueness of Kosovo is important to the EU for three closely related but distinct reasons.

First, the EU wants to undercut Russian and Serbian accusations, made with great fervour in recent weeks, that, by recognising Kosovo, the European powers are undermining the established international order and the principles upon which it rests. Moscow and Belgrade point to the inability of the UN Security Council to agree a course of action as proof that recognition is illegal.

There is probably little the EU can do to counter this accusation. EU member states which believe that international legitimacy can only flow from the UN Security Council will have particular trouble explaining to their electorates why they are recognising Kosovo.

Second, the EU wants to prevent Russia using the power of precedent to force a resolution in its favour of the so-called frozen conflicts in places like Abkhazia, a breakaway province of Georgia.

Here, the EU's strategy could work, if perhaps for no other reason than that Russia may not genuinely be interested in forcing a resolution to the post-Soviet conflicts. "It either wants to maintain the status quo to keep Georgia off-balance or have some kind of federal state in which Abkhazia and South Ossetia can block Georgia's NATO aspirations," says Janusz Bugajski of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.

Matthew Bryza, a US deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs and the administration's point man on the frozen conflicts, told reporters in Brussels on 22 February that Russia was "quite co-operative" in talks held at the UN in Geneva the previous day. Bryza said that in his view, Russian talk of Kosovo as a precedent for the post-Soviet conflicts was a warning rather than a threat.

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass quoted a high-ranking foreign ministry official on 22 February saying, "Russia does not seek to recognise the independence of the Dniester region, Abkhazia and South Ossetia", a reference to 'frozen conflicts' in Moldova and Georgia. "We do not need this now, as this would drag Russia into new conflicts."

The EU also fears that the Turks of Northern Cyprus and the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina might use the Kosovo precedent to push for recognition of their own statelets.

Finally, the EU wants to send a signal to ethnic minorities in EU member states - Basques and Catalans in Spain, say, or Hungarians in Romania - that Kosovo has no bearing on their situation. Most of the EU member states which currently oppose Kosovo's independence - Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovakia - have such minority problems.

This is where the EU's argument about Kosovo's uniqueness appears to be on firmest ground, according to various expert and legal opinions.

Richard Caplan, a professor of international relations at Oxford University and the author of a recent study on state recognition, says: "If you look at all the candidates for secession in Europe, they all have recourse to democratic means to address their concerns." He points to a 1998 opinion by Canada's Supreme Court on the possible secession of Quebec, which listed the conduct of the state from which secession is sought as one of the factors likely to determine its success.

Kosovo, Caplan says, "earned through its suffering the right to independence".

For Kosovo's Albanians, in other words, independence was a recourse of last resort after long-standing repression. The Basques of Spain, by contrast, can realise their self-determination through democratic means within the current state.

Bruno Coppieters, a scholar of secession at the Vrij Universiteit Brussel (VUB), suggests that the EU's talk of Kosovo's uniqueness is imprecise. Kosovo is not unique, he says, but an exception to the way states normally behave. "To justify an exception, however, one needs principles, so it is easier for the EU to claim that Kosovo is unique."

One aspect that has not received much attention in EU statements on Kosovo is that Kosovo had a quasi-republican status under the old Yugoslav constitution, a status that was abolished only after Slobodan Milo_evic« came to power in the late 1980s. Before that, Kosovo had a representative on Yugoslavia's collective presidency, for example, and for all practical intents was self-governing in the same way as Croatia or Slovenia were.

This sets Kosovo apart from the Bosnian Serb Republic, which did not exist before the war in Bosnia (and which, incidentally, also does not fulfil the criterion of last resort) and might yet provide the strongest legal argument why Kosovo should be independent.

Potential conflicts

• Abkhazia

This region on the Black Sea coast broke away from Georgia in a war in 1992-93 and has since been de facto independent, though no other country recognises it. It is supported by Russia, which has troops there

• The Basque Country

The Basques, who speak their own ancient language, are split between Spain and France. On the Spanish side, the terrorism of the separatist group ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom) has claimed many lives and turned a significant part of the Basque population against ETA

• Bulgaria

Bulgaria's ethnic Turks were brutally persecuted under the Communist regime and hundreds of thousands were forced to re-settle in Turkey. Conditions have since improved and Turkish parties are represented in the government

• Catalonia

Catalans, who are a distinct group within Spain, have enjoyed increased degrees of autonomy since Spain became a democracy in the late 1970s

• Corsica

Corsica has seen low-intensity violence against the French administration, often mixed with banditry, for decades

• Cyprus

Ethnic Greeks and Turks have experienced tension and violence since the island gained independence from Britain in 1960. The north has been occupied by Turkish troops since an unsuccessful coup in 1974 which was supported by the Greek government. The Turkish community has declared its own state, recognised only by Turkey

• Macedonia

Macedonia has a substantial ethnic Albanian minority which fought a brief rebellion in 2001. Since then, the country has stabilised under the Ohrid agreement, which gives far-reaching autonomy to local communities and includes Albanian representatives in national government

• South Ossetia

Ossetians speak a language related to Persian and are split between Russia and Georgia. South Ossetia broke away from Georgia shortly after the country's independence from the Soviet Union and is supported by Russia

• Transdniestria

A part of mainly Romanian-speaking Moldova situated on the eastern bank of the river Dniestr, the breakaway region with its majority Slavic-speaking population has not been under Moldovan control since the 1990s and has been supported by Russian troops stationed there

• Transylvania

Romania's Hungarian minority is concentrated in this region, which became a part of Romania only after the fall of the Habsburg empire in 1920

EU leaders and officials have spent the last few months maintaining that Kosovo is a unique case which in no way sets a precedent for the solution of frozen conflicts elsewhere.