Kosovo is fast becoming “the black hole of Europe” and could descend into renewed violence within weeks unless the EU takes urgent action, senior diplomats and international experts warned in Brussels this week.
But continuing EU indecision over the breakaway province’s demand for independence from Serbia, coupled with the ethnic Albanian majority’s failure to embrace reform and respect Serb minority rights, are paralysing plans to launch “final status” talks this year.
Five years after Nato ejected Serbian forces and imposed an international administration, the UN and the US are still lacking an exit strategy. Serbia, meanwhile, wants its territory back.
In an attempt to show willing, Olli Rehn, the EU’s enlargement commissioner, met Kosovan leaders in Pristina this week. Mr Rehn said the EU would raise the issue when President George Bush visits Europe next month. But according to Erhard Busek, who heads the international stability pact set up after the 1990s Balkan wars to promote democracy and development in south-east Europe, the EU must take the lead.
“Kosovo is a European issue and we Europeans have to get our act together,” Mr Busek said. “If Kosovo goes wrong, we in Europe will be first to face the consequences of migration and organised crime.”
With unemployment approaching 60%, a disastrous lack of foreign investment, and with 50% of the population aged 25 or under, “there is a huge social problem – a timebomb in the making”.
Of course, this is getting wall to wall coverage from the Quagmire Watch Set.
Doug Hanson, at the American Thinker, “The prediction of EU impotence in the face of renewed violence and “payback” in the Balkans once US forces were withdrawn have, unfortunately, come true.”
I love it when all those flowery, high-blown intellectual notions of the progress of humanity suddenly collide with the crotchety reality of the human condition.
Or I would love it if it didn’t always inevitably mean some poor sod was going to get killed.
It would tax Solomon to find a equitable solution to Kosovo. Frankly, I doubt the EU has either the diplomatic skill to find a solution or the gumption to impose one.
So quagmire it is!
See if you can pick a clever solution from what’s on offer:
1. Kosovo as is (status quo)
2. Kosovo as an independent state (another Albania – just what the world needs)
3. Kosovo directly reincorporated into Serbia (another Balkans war, anyone?)
4. Kosovo combined with Albania into a “Greater Albania” (all the problems of Albania and Kosovo combined – talk about synergy – another Balkans war, anyone?)
JJM
OK, here’s the US exit strategy. Since the Europeans like us so much, let’s go home and let the French, Germans and UN handle it since they do so well at things like that.
Hmmm. Afghanistan no longer a failed state. Iraq on its way to rejoining the world. Where can a stateless terrorist find a hole into which he can crawl? And the population is mostly Muslim; and it is about a day’s drive to Vienna or Geneva.
Kosovo? Sounds like something you would put in a bun.Dont bet on the cowards in Berlin and Paris doing anything without US support. I hope the US takes a pass and watches the 2 Stooges get their asses kicked.