Europe Report N°196 25 September 2008

Kosovo’s Fragile Transition

"THE BALKAN RISK TO CHANGE BORDERS"

Kosovo has taken first state-building steps, but the inter­national community has not met its commitments to provide adequate support. A rule-of-law mission (EULEX), the EU’s biggest ever European security and defence policy (ESDP) operation, was agreed in February 2008 but has only started to deploy. The International Civilian Office (ICO), projected to supervise independence, is a shell.

The UN still functions in part as an interim administration, negotiating arrangements for Kosovo Serbs with Belgrade. The Ahtisaari plan, on the basis of which 47 states have recognised Kosovo, has been undermined by the international organisations meant to help implement it. The EU and U.S. are struggling to come to terms with Russia’s attempts to portray its support for breakaway regions in Georgia as a mirror image of what they did in Kosovo.

Most urgent now is for the EU to make EULEX fully operational before year’s end and use its leverage with a Belgrade government that wants membership to begin to make pragmatic accommodations to Kosovo’s new status.

more see: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm