The paper’s opinion writer, Enver Robelli, recalls the European Summit held in Porto Carras, Greece in 2003, with the countries of the Western Balkans. He quotes the statement made from the Summit that “The EU stresses that it supports without any reservation the European orientation of the Western Balkans countries. The Future of the Balkans states is in the European Union.” He also mentions the appeals made at that time for reforms, arrests of the suspects for war crimes, and return of refugees. “Division and secession based on ethnic principals is unacceptable for the European idea which is determinant for the solution of the problems of the region.”
When we look at Kosovo in 2016, he writes, we see that the EU has thrown those promises on the garbage bin. “Kosovo is divided into ethnic zones, it is decentralized, new municipalities are not created based on the geographical logic and on that of functioning of the state, but by establishing reservations for Serb minority. Even though it is not said openly, it is evident that the north of Kosovo functions as a separate canton, and very soon, the Serb minority will have some kind of its own government, community of Serb municipalities, which is an instrument to block and sabotage the state of Kosovo any time that Belgrade requests.”
Robelli criticizes the then UNMIK Special Representative of the Secretary General, Michael Steiner, “For often launching balloons that would be immediately blown up. For instance, Steiner had brought the decision for ‘unification of Mitrovica’ and almost all media had fallen into the trap of this propagandist balloon,” Robelli writes. He further notes that Mitrovica continues to be divided and with a new monument of Tzar Lazar.
He notes that Kosovo’s delegation was the largest at the Summit, however he stresses that only Hashim Thaci from that delegation has advanced in his carrier “thank to his versatility to manipulate elections and create a clientelist political system. On the other hand, when the EU integrations are concerned, Kosovo has stagnated more than any other country. It also remains the poorest country in the region, the most isolated, with an extremely polarized, disoriented and depressed society.” According to Robelli, the Stabilization Association Agreement is more a bureaucratic invention to prevent integration than to accelerate it. He considers that the reasons for the current situation should not be sought only in Pristina but in Brussels as well. “EU has spent billions of Euros and it has sent thousands of experts at UNMIK, EULEX, OSCE, EU Office, diplomatic offices and KFOR, to make Kosovo a functional state…, however, in 2016, leaders of organized crime, corruption, underground chiefs can brag that that they have managed to capture a state which has been under EU supervision. From the Summit of 2003 Kosovo has reached the 2016 dead end and it continues to live with the European dream,” Robelli concludes.
