The Future of Kosovo

The troika of Kosovo negotiators, made up of EU, US and Russian envoys, last week started 120 days of talks meant to encourage Belgrade and Pristina to resolve the issue of the province's undetermined status. After only three days of talks, the troika said it could no longer rule out a division of Kosovo into Albanian and Serbian sectors. On Dec. 10, the troika is due to present a report to the UN on the way forward.

Erhard Busek of Austria has been the EU Coordinator of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe since 2002.

DW-RADIO: In view of the resistance from Kosovo Albanians, how realistic is the concept of a division of Kosovo?

Erhard Busek: At the moment there are only proposals to which someone has expressed opposition. If you act on that assumption, then there's no proposal whatsoever, but that's not a solution. Any compromise that comes about won't receive the agreement of both disputing parties, but there must of course be a solution with which one can live, and that must be the assumption. Of all the bad solutions, that is at least a possible one. There's only the possibility of either reaching a virtual rapprochement or to decide in one way or another in conflict, with all the consequences that involves.

Many observers have indicated that a compromise isn't at all possible. What perspective do you see for the current 120-day attempt at dialogue?

The perspective is rather clear. If there is some area where the parties at least come close, where the distance diminishes, then there is a possibility. It will hardly be a solution, where one can speak of great agreements. The other "solution" is of course that it could cause a unilateral process of recognition. That, however, brings up its own problems. That starts already within the European Union.

The mandates of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and NATO's Kosovo force (KFOR) stem from UN Resolution 1244. These institutions can hardly go beyond their means.

Unilateral recognition would in any case occur without the UN. Everyone has to be clear on that. Many are of course scared of by that -- and with good reason. There's also the problem that the EU plays a significant role in the development of institutions in Kosovo -- but on the basis of what mandate should it then do that? That's where the resulting problems begin.

What would happen to KFOR if the UN was no longer involved?

You have to ask those in favor of unilateral recognition.

Do you think that unilateral recognition isn't doable, or isn't desirable?

Not desirable. Everything is doable, for, politics is, as you know, the art of the possible.

The six-nation Contract Group, composed of the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia, has so far rejected division as one of its basic principles. Can the troika, which was named by the Contact Group, move away from the principles?

Here, too, politics is the art of the possible. The principles have been mentioned repeatedly due to the "parallel cases." I think you have to very clearly establish that the Kosovo question in itself doesn't produce any solutions for parallel cases, but rather poses a unique problem.

It is after all the only case of a NATO intervention. That has never happened before in such a manner. To that extent, drawing parallels is exceedingly problematic. Here the question is more on the side of the Security Council. There were definitely also Serbian views that could imagine a sort of division under certain conditions. In this respect, the Troika surely had a reason for the proposal to resurface again.

Many observers have cited Republika Srpska as a precedent. You don't see it that way?

I don't see a precedent there at all, since it was a different situation. In Tito's Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina was also a constituent republic. That had a different, deeply rooted tradition. On the other hand, I didn't always have the impression that people in Belgrade would be so enthusiastic if that problem were also to arise.

A clear geographical division of Kosovo isn't even possible.

That's right, that's a majority solution. Serbs in other parts of Kosovo would stay behind. One shouldn't underestimate that then, Albanians in the Presevo Valley would also express wishes when it comes to Serbia and demand adjustments to the border. In any case, it means opening a Pandora's Box.

DW-RADIO's Fabian Schmidt interviewed Erhard Busek (ncy)