Beqë Cufaj said today, while Pristina and Brussels are discussing the expected changes of EULEX, that everyone wonders if this European presence was worth the millions spent by EU taxpayers. The answer is plain and simple, “no,” he said.
“First of all, the fact that this mission is neutral regarding Kosovo’s status makes it look like it is softening and reducing UNMIK’s role as an anonymous entity. The double standard towards the north of Kosovo is another ‘fish bone in the throat’ of the Mission’s designers. Different adventurous judges, prosecutors, and police officers only changed their UN attire to wear EULEX ones. Or, we had prosecutors like that Italian Salustro, who acted as a hero from Fellini’s movies, playing Kosovo’s Elliot Ness, chasing Kosovo war heroes, while neighbouring children were torn apart by his dog… There are dozens of these bizarre stories that prove that three kinds of people come to Kosovo with international missions: idealists, adventurers and careerists,” says Cufaj. “The majority at EULEX are adventurers and careerists, because idealists are too clever to know that locals should be the ones who can and should deal with the rule of law.”
“If Kosovo is a state, and no one questions this, then it should take over its state responsibilities, starting from the war against corruption to the investigation of war crimes. These are the two dimensions where the EULEX experiment has not only failed, but it did not even get close to justifying its presence in Kosovo,” says Cufaj. “Therefore, it is good for Kosovo to insist on dealing with its own problems. Kosovo has the capacity and it should be motivated to face the problems that appear during state building.”
