Political analyst Shkelzen Maliqi writes in an opinion piece for Klan Kosova that the voting result on Kosovo’s bid to join UNESCO was disappointing, but, according to him, “when it comes to the number of votes, one might say that it was an encouraging achievement.” Maliqi argues that Serbia achieved a Pyrrhic victory. “It is true that Serbia managed to prevent Kosovo’s membership, but when it comes to international support, Serbia lacks behind Kosovo by 50 votes (92 for Kosovo, 42 for Serbia).” Maliqi writes that this outcome is catastrophic for a country that is present in the international arena for more than a century, compared with Kosovo’s only 8 years of independence. “One can say that these votes cannot cover the ‘shame of failure’ because it seems like the dialogue with Serbia, the agreements reached including the support of the EU and the US, were all useless because Serbia finally realized its goal. But that is not true. This was only a battle with tough rules, where from Kosovo was required to win 2/3 of the votes, while Serbia could reach its goal with only 1/3 of the votes.”
Maliqi further writes that Kosovo’s non-acceptance to UNESCO is inconsistent with Serbia’s commitment in the EU-brokered dialogue that it will not hinder Kosovo’s membership in international organizations. “This can cause frustration and delays detrimental to negotiations for EU membership, for which Serbia was given the green light, but the first chapter of negotiations should be the normalization of relations with Kosovo – for what Serbia now has switched on the red light.”
According to the author, political parties in Kosovo who enjoy Kosovo’s failure to join UNESCO could lead to the failure of the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, and generally also the failure of all the negotiations mediated by the United Nations and the West (from Rambouillet up the Ahtisaari plan and Kosovo’s declaration of independence), what might return Kosovo to point zero.
