• Kurti has a US visa, will travel soon to the US (media)
• EU welcomes reopening of custom terminal in Trepca (media)
• EU refutes Government and President about the vetting (Koha)
• The vetting will not include judges of Constitutional Court (Kallxo)
• Association of Serb-majority municipalities ruled out after tensions in BiH (Koha)
• Haradinaj doesn’t rule out cooperation with VV in runoff elections (Telegrafi)
• COVID-19: 21 new cases, one death (media)
• Open Balkan meeting in Belgrade today (media)
• Kamberi: No tangible positive effects from Open Balkan (Euronews Albania)
• An EU-US deal for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s disintegration (EU Observer)
• US leadership matters to avoid new violence in the Balkans (Just Security)
• Virtual brain drain: Kosovo’s booming ICT sector exports talent abroad (BIRN)

Kurti has a US visa, will travel soon to the US (media)

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti has a US visa and will travel soon to the US, a Kosovo Government spokesman told Kosovapress news agency on Wednesday, refuting reports in some media that Kurti’s visa application was rejected. “It is not true. Prime Minister Kurti has a US visa. He will travel to the United States of America soon. His visit is being planned,” the spokesman said.

EU welcomes reopening of custom terminal in Trepca (media)

The EU Office in Kosovo said in a statement on Wednesday: “We welcome the news that PM Albin Kurti recently inaugurated the new premises of the inland custom terminal in a publicly-owned facility, as in Trepca. We encourage the government to move other existing inland custom terminals in publicly owned premises. Such action is a progress made in meeting the recommendations on customs chapter in the EU enlargement package and Stabilisation and Association Agreement. Nonetheless, we call on the government to remove the associated fees charged to every truck to discharge custom obligations when entering the inland terminals, as they are not in line with the SAA and create additional barrier to trade to businesses.”

EU refutes Government and President about the vetting (Koha)

After the publication of the Progress Report which criticised Kosovo about the vetting, Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani and Justice Minister Albulena Haxhiu said that the European Union has supported them for this process. But the EU’s position has not changed. The EU Office said in a written response to Koha that there is an ongoing dialogue with the government about this issue. “Kosovo’s Report notes a potential appearance of a full reassessment of all the judges and prosecutors in Kosovo as a serious concern. Such a verification process should be considered only as the final extraordinary measure, which means that it should be taken into consideration only after all the existing means and mechanisms for ensuring the integrity of the judicial officials and combating of corruption have been exhausted. Any verification process should be in line with European standards, therefore, the Venice Commission should assess it as soon as possible… We have heard lately many comments about the process and the position of the EU towards it. The EU has always supported the efforts ensuring that the people of Kosovo receive a proper, efficient, and unbiased justice. The means for achieving this are as important as the final objective and this is the reason why the EU considers a full verification only as an extraordinary measure. It is also important to avoid obstacles against functioning of the justice system. We will continue our dialogue with the Government regarding this issue,” the EU Office said in its response.

The vetting will not include judges of Constitutional Court (Kallxo)

The concept document for the vetting process in Kosovo notes that the process will not include judges of the Constitutional Court. One of the reasons cited for not including judges of this court in the process is their competency to interpret the Constitution and the compliance of other laws with the highest legal act in Kosovo. The concept document also notes that judges of the Constitutional Court don’t have a permanent mandate but a nine-year mandate, without the possibility of extension. The document notes that including these judges in the vetting process would translate into constitutional amendments which could block the work of the Constitutional Court. “The vetting of the judges of the Constitutional Court would imply thorough amendments to the Constitution or the suspension of constitutional articles that talk about the composition, mandate, independence and its organisation, the results of which would not be the improvement of the Constitutional Court, but rather its blockade,” the document notes.

Association of Serb-majority municipalities ruled out after tensions in BiH (Koha)

Koha Ditore reports on its front page this morning that following tensions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo Government officials have reiterated their statements against the formation of the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities.

Prime Minister Albin Kurti said in an interview with BBC that “when the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo was not implemented, no Serb of Kosovo protested, it was always Belgrade who was angry. On 26 April 1991, 14 municipalities with Serb majority in Bosnia-Herzegovina got together and created their Association. On 9 January 1992, they declared independence. On 28 February 1992, they got their Constitution and finally on 14 December 1995 in Dayton they got international recognition. They want to repeat Bosnia in Kosovo. I am not going to allow this, be that in opposition or in the government. And that is why people voted me, to prevent ‘Bosniasation’ of Kosovo. I am confident that with our program we are going to help Serbs as much as Albanians. If you ask Serbs in Kosovo what their key complaints are, they will say jobs and justice. But Belgrade wants to have a state within a state, a state of Serbia within the independent Kosovo”.

During a visit to Prizren on Wednesday, Kurti said that “we will not allow the functioning of a state within the state as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina” in reference to the Association/Community. He also said that the Constitution of Kosovo does not allow the formation of monoethnic associations.

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani and Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla too have recently said in separate statements that the Association/Community will not be implemented.

Haradinaj doesn’t rule out cooperation with VV in runoff elections (Telegrafi)

Ramush Haradinaj, leader of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo (AAK), said in a debate on TV Dukagjini on Wednesday that despite his debates with Vetevendosje leader and Prime Minister Albin Kurti, he will not close the doors of cooperation to Vetevendosje.

“I cannot be alone in this respect. As neither Krasniqi [PDK leader] and Abdixhiku [LDK leader] have not done this either, I cannot play the hero and make it my mission to damage the Vetevendosje Movement. My objective is to strengthen my political party. We are looking into the possibility of coalitions with Vetevendosje in several municipalities,” Haradinaj said.

COVID-19: 21 new cases, one death (media)

21 new COVID-19 cases and one death have been recorded in the last 24 hours in Kosovo. 16 persons recovered from the virus during this time. There are 445 active cases with COVID-19 in Kosovo.

Open Balkan meeting in Belgrade today (media)

Most news websites report that Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and North Macedonia Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Dimitrov will met today in Belgrade as part of the Open Balkan initiative.

Kamberi: No tangible positive effects from Open Balkan (Euronews Albania)

“We’re still not seeing any positive effects from the agreements reached on the Open Balkan,” Shaip Kamberi, an Albanian MP at the Serbian Parliament, told Euronews Albania.

Giving his insights on the initiative launched by Albania, Serbia, and North Macedonia, Kamberi said that the people of the Balkans need to cooperate more in many aspects, including politics and economy. But he also cast a shadow of doubt on Serbia’s approach and seriousness on the matter. “Alongside the Open Balkan, Serbia has also officially launched the idea of establishing a Serbian world, something that has sparked many problems in Bosnia”, he noted.

Kamberi also believes that Belgrade is interested in spreading its influence across the Balkans.

An EU-US deal for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s disintegration (EU Observer)

An opinion piece by Bodo Weber and Valery Perry, senior Democratization Policy Council associates based in Berlin and Sarajevo.

The EU’s policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina – indeed the wider Western Balkans – has been on a failing trajectory ever since it took the reins a decade and a half ago.

Now, in cooperation with the US and UK, it is seeking to camouflage that failure with appeasement of separatists in Bosnia, at the same time lending a geopolitical win to adversary Russia for free.

This in effect would amount to colluding with the country’s nationalist leaders in an accelerated path towards ethno-territorial disintegration of the state – which would not be peaceful.

Yet we already see that such a diplomatic coup would be marketed as an achievement, rather than an avoidable failure.

It is a time-honoured practice in diplomatic negotiations to squeeze the weaker side until a deal comes into sight.

This was the mission that brought Angelina Eichhorst, the managing director for Europe of the European Union’s diplomatic service, to Sarajevo last week, infuriating BiH’s pro-European and pro-American citizens and policymakers: to team up with US envoy Matthew Palmer and squeeze the main Bosniak party, as well as the non-nationalist opposition, into accepting a deal on so-called election law reform that would legally and institutionally deepen ethno-territorial division in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

All this is taking place against the country’s worst crisis since the 1995 Dayton peace agreement. Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, in cahoots with the HDZ and emboldened by Zagreb and Belgrade, has stepped up his decade and a half-long attack on the country’s post-war constitutional order, announcing far-reaching steps by the Republika Srpska institutions toward secession of that BiH entity.

The latest escalation evolved over the last six months after EU and US diplomats on the ground in BiH, supported by middle rank officials in Washington and Brussels, engineered inter-party talks on electoral reforms and so-called “limited constitutional reform.”

Those talks took the de facto form of collusion to satisfy political leaders’ unfulfilled nationalist agendas, first and foremost that of Dragan Čović, head of HDZ BiH, the main Bosnian Croat party, which wants to safeguard its primacy among Bosnian Croat voters.

The then EU High Representative in BiH, Valentin Inzko, following on pressure by the EU and US to support the deal they were brokering, prompted him to impose a law against genocide denial and glorification of war crimes and criminals on his last day in office; an entirely personal and morally-understandable move, but one lacking any strategic framework or support.

The move triggered a walk-out by the Bosnian Serbs from central institutions. It also made life difficult for his successor, German Christian Schmidt.

Schmidt’s ill-designed nomination by German chancellor Angela Merkel herself, without a clear strategic policy or plan, made escalation even easier. It prodded Dodik to question the very appointment of Schmidt and the existence of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) more broadly, supported by Russia, which has amplified its own anti-Western activities regarding BiH.

Russian veto at UN this week?

That move raised the risk of a Russian UN Security Council veto against the EU’s peacekeeping force in BiH, EUFOR, whose mandate comes up for annual renewal this month, probably even this week.

Milorad Dodik came to power as leader of the Republika Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 2006, at around the time the European Union took over leadership of the international community in the country.

Since then, things have been in a downward spiral. Dodik has tested the West’s red lines roughly three dozen times by threatening to call various referenda or with outright secession; the West’s weak responses helped undermine the integrity of the central government and roll back the very democratic and rule-of-law reforms purportedly required for the country to make progress needed for EU candidacy.

This time around, Dodik himself appeared surprised by the lack of push-back from the EU and the US, something that according to some reports made him escalate his threats beyond where he intended to go.

There would have been a straightforward move to stop Dodik’s adventurism while also deterring a possible Russian veto against EUFOR. Sending reinforcements to EUFOR and deploying EUFOR and Nato troops to the strategic town of Brčko, an autonomous district that cuts the RS in half, would have demonstrated the EU’s strategic will to prevent a serious challenge to the security and territorial integrity of the country.

Alas, that will does not exist – and nor does the strategy.

Instead, the void left by the lack of a strategic Western policy and political will has been filled by lower-level officials Eichhorst and Palmer – both of whom were also crucial players in the dangerous EU-US push towards an ethno-territorial land swap deal between Kosovo and Serbia in 2017-20.

‘Appeasement’

And in Bosnia, they seem intent on appeasing both divisive nationalist agendas through a package deal: Dodik would get the substantial gift of assigning a core portion of state and defence property, of which the state of BiH is the legal proprietor, to the entities (or cantons), a key item on Dodik’s wish list, in return for calling off the immediate secession steps; while the HDZ BiH would get its election law reform arrangement, ensuring it a seat on the country’s three-member presidency through election engineering.

Such a deal would deepen the ethno-territorial division of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and put in place the outlines for a gradual dismemberment, aided, abetted, and legitimised by the EU and the US.

Declaring victory and claiming the country met the conditions to close the OHR (“solving” the state and defence property issue, long blocked by the RS’s anti-constitutional actions, is at the core of 5+2 conditions for closure) would at the same time remove the last executive instrument of the international community to arrest the downward spiral, together with EUFOR.

France, the US, and the UK all seem on-track to telegraph a message of reduced support for the high representative to avert a Russian (and potentially Chinese) veto of EUFOR scheduled for Wednesday (3 November) at the UN Security Council.

Moscow and Beijing could not veto Schmidt’s appointment; they can oppose EUFOR in the UNSC.

EU capitals, especially Berlin and Paris, must finally take an interest in the situation and confront the policy transactionalism of the European External Action Service, replacing it with a more strategic policy.

High Representative Borrell needs to start doing his job, as called for in a letter signed by MEPs from the four main political groups in the European Parliament on 21 October, and replace Eichhorst in her current role.

The OHR under Christian Schmidt has to take the defence of Bosnia and Herzegovina and of the Dayton peace accords seriously and push back against the dangerous deal-making impulse of the EU and the US.

EUFOR should be augmented in Brčko and the international community should abstain from a false urgency in reforming Bosnia’s election law, instead focusing closely on improving election integrity. The time for comprehensive constitutional change is after the 2022 elections.

US leadership matters to avoid new violence in the Balkans (Just Security)

Opinion piece by Ismael Cidic, Ambassador Vesko Garcevic and Drilon S. Gashi

Next year will mark 30 years since the United States recognized Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as an independent and sovereign state. The Serb-dominated army of the disintegrating Yugoslavia had already been fighting Croatia’s independence declaration and was beginning to attack Bosnia, where the conflict exploded into what became the deadliest and most destructive of the Yugoslav wars. Ultimately, the U.S. helped secure the peace in BiH through the American-brokered Dayton Peace Accords. It did the same in Kosovo with the U.S.-led NATO intervention in 1999 and the negotiation of the Rambouillet Agreement that ended that conflict with the Serbs. With the later U.S. recognition of Montenegro and Kosovo, it expanded its diplomatic aegis to virtually the whole of the Western Balkans.

But as the United States stepped back in favor of European Union leadership on the Western Balkans, and with the EU now stalling on further enlargement, the nationalist Serb forces that once fomented violent conflict across the region have become ascendant again. It is time for Washington to recognize this central issue and step back in to preserve its legacy and help shore up the prospects of permanent peace in Europe. The international community’s new high representative for BiH, Christian Schmidt, just warned the United Nations of the “very real” threat of renewed conflict in Bosnia. The risks extend to the broader region, and the through-line is a resurgent Serb nationalist ideology.

Washington’s Legacy of Balkan Peace

Timely political and military interventions in the region’s recent past have proven the significance of a proactive Western approach. The 1995 Dayton Agreement ended genocide in Bosnia, the worst campaign of atrocities on European soil since World War II. The 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslav and Serbian forces put an end to the ethnic cleansing and attempted genocide of Kosovo Albanians. Likewise, the European Union’s involvement in the 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum was critical for its success.

As U.S.-led interventions in the last decade of the 20th century brought hostilities to an end, the prospects of NATO and EU integration for the region became realistic, and the states stepped up with an ambitious agenda to transform their countries into liberal democracies. They made remarkable progress, particularly in the first decade of this century.

Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montenegro Under Direct Threat from Belgrade

Today, EU accession has stalled, both reducing Brussels’ leverage and diminishing an important incentive for leaders in the region to develop and reform their countries. It may even lead to renewed conflict. The lack of a concrete, proximate commitment for Western Balkan countries’ ultimate membership in the EU has emboldened Serbia to undertake renewed aggression in the region and facilitated the increasing and malign economic and military influence of Russia and China.

Read full opinion piece here: https://bit.ly/3CMm0FF

Virtual brain drain: Kosovo’s booming ICT sector exports talent abroad (BIRN)

The ICT sector in Kosovo has grown fast, despite institutional neglect – but with most youngsters with expertise going abroad or using their skills for international markets, the country risks losing this asset.

The logistics official of a company in Australia is using the software of the Tive company to track the shipment of its goods.

The property manager of a building in the US uses the software of Kode Labs to manage all the devices in the building, and calculate how long he should leave the heaters on for a proper room temperature, without spending too much.

A family in Europe is paying Rritu e Meso (“Grow and Learn” in Albanian) for an app for their toddler to learn and be entertained.

What these hypothetical customers all have in common, in three different continents, is that the technology they use has been developed and managed in Kosovo – the newest country in Europe, and one not recognized by all states in the world.

Kosovo’s Information, Communication, and Technology, ICT, sector has seen rapid growth in the last decade, with many new companies providing outsourcing services or developing new technological solutions for people or companies, mainly outside Kosovo.

The market in Kosovo is small. The country of only around 1.8 million people with average monthly wages of around 460 euros and an employment rate of 28-29% consumes few ICT services, such as apps or software. This leads the growing number of local experts to export their services, or go abroad, where they get better pay.

Read full article at: https://bit.ly/3BVuo4N