The Association/Community of Serb municipalities has received only what derives from the Constitution of Kosovo based on the Martti Ahtisaari’s plan.
Official reactions after signing the agreement on Association/Community of Serbs Municipalities (A/CSM), which is one of four signed agreements in Brussels in late August by Serbian and Kosovo prime ministers, are referring toward three counts of assertions: firstly, that community is created as a foundation of life of Serbs in Kosovo; secondly, that it has significant features of an autonomy; and thirdly that A/CSM has a firm institutional links with Serbia. Professor Slobodan Samardzic, former minister for Kosovo in the Serbian Government, argues that none of this stands are based on what is actually written in the agreement, and that this is the exact reason for choosing the tactic of convincing domestic general public in a fiction that features three above mentioned characteristics.
First of all, a remark should be made that this agreement has derived from the so called First Brussels Agreement (19 April 2013), which first counts have to do with the A/CSM. Counts 2 and 4 are of great importance. They stipulate that guarantees for the A/CSM are provided by the laws and Constitution (Kosovo one, of course) in force, and that its competencies would be to ‘exercise full overview’ in areas of economic development, health, education, urban and rural planning. It was clear to everyone that Serb-majority municipalities were handed over to the so called independent Kosovo, what was later justified with all following events, and confirmed with the last four agreements. Overall activities of Serbian authorities, after they accepted the First Agreement, was that the A/CSM, defined as such, receives at least a sort of acceptable legal frame for the life of Serbs in the independent Kosovo, and to present it as a status neutral matter.
Now, after we received the special agreement on A/CSM, we could say once more that there is nothing in it of what officials, on the helm with the prime minister, are trying to convince domestic general public about. Let’s review it, one by one.
Firstly, the agreement (on A/CSM) has to be adopted by the Kosovo government by a decree, which fells under the documents subjected to constitutional review (count 2). Further steps of the establishment of the A/CSM imply adoption of its statute, which draft has to be submitted to the ‘high level dialogue’ within four months. Bearing in mind the stand of Kosovo Albanian authorities, opposition and general public about this endeavor, we could assume that obstacles will be set in every single phase of this complicated process. Clear conclusion could be made that there was no room for any triumphalism on the side of Serbia’s officials. Simply the A/CSM was not established last week in Brussels, and we don’t know when is that going to happen.
Secondly, nothing in the text of the agreement is referring to any autonomy that was, allegedly, created by this document. The A/CSM will not bring laws in above mentioned areas, this will be in the competence of the Kosovo parliament, neither will A/CSM bring regulations for the implementation of those laws, it will be carried out by the Kosovo government, instead it will monitor the implementation of those laws and by-laws in Serb-majority municipalities. What the A/CSM received here is only what derives from the Kosovo Constitution, on the basis of the previously rejected (by Serbia) Ahtisaari’s plan.
Thirdly, agreement does not provide any institutional links between Serbia and A/CSM. In the first agreement neither Serbia nor UNSC Resolution 1244 were mentioned. Serbia is only mentioned in the part that has to do with the budget and support, whereas it wasn’t defined by a single word how will Serbia financially support the A/CSM, but it is quite clear that it will be carried out in line with Kosovo laws, like everything that was agreed by the First Brussels Agreement. Almost euphorically presented success about the firm link between Serbia and the A/CSM will turn into a sort of link that is practiced with all Serb minorities in neighboring states.
One should not have doubts that Serbian officials already knew all this when they signed the First Brussels Agreement. In the contrary they would not accept the document that defines everything with exclusive harmonization with the Kosovo laws and Constitution. The dispute that is ongoing at technical and political level is in essence the absurd one. Serbia endeavors by all means that Serbs in Kosovo receive all they are guaranteed by the Kosovo laws and Constitution, whereas Albanians are trying to avoid it by violating their own laws and Constitution. Here, Serbia has a certain level of support, but not the full one, by the European Union. Official Serbia wants to give up on Kosovo and Metohija, but Albanians are not allowing it by their irrational stand that Serbs have nothing to look for there. It appears that Europeans are the ones who suffer the most in this tragicomic absurd. Their only problem is how to convince Albanians to respect legal obligations, which were forcefully and violently imposed. And, it is Serbia now that has to help Europe.
