Byzantine Blog

European Policy Analysts: EU Unjust, Obsessed with Kosovo Independence

The efforts of the European Union to enforce Kosovo province's secession from Serbia are unjust and prove that the EU is obsessed with the independence of the Serbian province, participants of a conference on “just secession", in the organization of the Center for European Policy Studies (CEPS), assessed in Brussels on Monday.

“We have become completely obsessed with Kosovo independence,” Deputy Director External Affairs and Director Conflict Management at HCSS Christa Meindersma warned.

“Way back in the late 90s, we created such a situation in which independence was seen as the only possible solution, and now we are trying to justify such a stand,” she explained.

Imposed Dismemberment is About the Only "Unique" Thing Here

Bruno Coppieters, Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels), opposed the EU claim that Kosovo-Metohija was a "unique case."

“What is unique about this is that the United Nations has been bypassed and that that such a policy has been created in which every time there is a possibility of veto, ways are sought to bypass that body,” Coppieters underlined.

According to him, the EU should apply the same standards towards all similar cases in the world.

Director of the European Stability Initiative (ESI) Gerald Knaus has assessed that independent Kosovo will, actually, be completely dependent on Europe and represent one of the most isolated spots in the world.

Deputy Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center Dmitri Trenin said that Kosovo was Europe's baby and that the European would have to nourish it in order to sustain it.

“Kosovo will become one of the symbols of new divisions at the global level,” Trenin said, adding that “From that point of view, the period after cold war will finally be behind us and we will enter a new era of rivalry of big powers, the so-called era of rival states.”

He assessed that the day of unilateral declaration of independence would be celebrated in Pristina, but also in other separatist regions such as Sukhumi in Abkhazia, Erbil in Kurdistan and Taipei in Taiwan.

Janusz Bugajski Delivers the Good News: American Interest Triumphs Over Law and Ethics!

Long-standing Albanian lobbyist Janusz Bugajski of the Washington-based Center for Strategic Studies has expressed satisfaction over the fact that “in case of Kosovo, pragmatism has won over legality and morals.”

Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies Michael Emerson has assessed that Kosovo independence “has a lot of deficiencies,” but that he does not see any other solution.

Representatives of the Serbian Mission to the EU Nikola Lukic and Ivan Samardzic opposed to such a stand.

“It is completely wrong to say that all possibilities for a compromise solution have been exhausted,” Lukic said, pointing out that in case of southern Serbian province of Kosovo, there was not a single valid argument for a violation of international law.

Cartoon by Tosho Borkovic (Serbia)