Koha Ditore’s Brussels based correspondent writes in his opinion piece today about the initial expectations of Kosovo population regarding the establishment of the EULEX mission in Kosovo. “Kosovo people loved their independence, they did not believe that the structures of their state would be able or that they would have the political will to fight the organized crime and corruption up to the most senior level…Therefore, except for Vetevendosje, no one opposed the EULEX mission. One can even say that there was an enthusiasm for the establishment of this mission,” writes Palokaj. He adds that there was a reason for this, that people believed that that this mission would be different from UNMIK courts, police, customs, being that this mission would employ personnel from the EU member states, and it would engage people from the most democratic countries. “The citizens of the neighboring countries were even jealous and wished to have such mission which would have the courage to hit their corrupted politicians,” writes Palokaj.
“What do we have seven years later? Some statistical data on the inherited cases from UNMIK and the number of those that are resolved. We have some processed cases of war crimes. Some that are ongoing, but a little to justify all those expectations from such a vast and expensive mission. On the other hand, we have sentenced people who did not go to prison; we have suspicions for corruption within EULEX, police officers of this mission caught smuggling alcohol and finally suspicions for the attempts of certain political structures to interfere on political processes of creation of the government of Kosovo, by using the judiciary for this aim. So we have someone from the EU and EULEX trying to do what they usually tell candidate states not to: political interference on judiciary.
If the EU and EULEX try to silence these scandals with some reports, which would deal with procedures of whether they were violated or not, if they wait for these abuses to be forgotten, neither Kosovo nor the EU would benefit. If something does not change very fast, then it can be said that EULEX was a mission with political intentions, and which for the sake of some political stability scarifies democratic principles. Those who are currently criticizing EULEX are not doing so because they do not want it in Kosovo, but because it is not even close of doing the job for which it initially came for,” concludes Palokaj.
