Events in the unfolding saga of the future of Kosovo seem at once inevitable and unpredictable.

Ever since United Nations special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari released his report earlier this year effectively recommending independence for the territory, and ever since UN and European Union diplomats engaged with Belgrade and Moscow in seeking a compromise that would make effective independence possible, and ever since it became clear that only independence-minded ethnic Albanians would vote in the November 17 elections in Kosovo, independence has seemed a matter of time.

But there is much to make the “final” outcome unpredictable. The question of just how far Russia and Serbia, among others, are prepared to go to block independence. The question of just how determined the leaders of Kosovo are to follow through the calls and the mood for a unilateral declaration of independence. The question of just how true are the rumours that Washington and several European capitals already have drafted, at least in their heads, statements accepting such independence. The real question of whether a workable solution could be found by December 10, a date that has taken on iconic status, the final day in the timeframe of status settlement talks being managed by a troika of the United States, EU and Russia, after which the matter will be referred back to the UN Security Council. With the answer to the final question apparently being “no”, the question of whether the Western Balkans are heading for new instability or a new European future.

In the days after the November 17 elections, unity on a formula for Kosovo eluded the EU itself. From the EU, one of the key messages was directed to Kosovo, to try to talk a future government out of a unilateral declaration of independence.

This quickly became a mantra, including in Sofia. Emerging from a meeting with EU diplomats accredited to Bulgaria, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Ivailo Kalfin told journalists: “The unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence in not in anyone’s interest”.

“I hope that Kosovo will not declare independence at the lack of agreement immediately after December 10 when the international mediators should present a report on the results of the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina to the UN Secretary-General,” Kalfin said. He said that after December 10, when the talks between between Belgrade and Pristina would be over, there should be talks between Pristina and the international community and between Belgrade and the international community.

From Brussels, where the Belgrade-Pristina talks chaperoned by the troika were taking place, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on November 20 that Kosovo’s future leader, Hashim Thaci, had promised to heed US and EU warnings against any rash moves toward independence.

“Kosovo is ready for independence, we are prepared, but we will co-operate very closely,” AFP quoted Thaci as saying as he arrived for a new round of negotiations with Serbian officials. “Kosovo will do nothing without co-ordination with our partners in Washington and Brussels,” he said.

Reuters reported that Portuguese foreign minister Luis Amado said Wolfgang Ischinger, the German diplomat leading the negotiations, would look to float a so-called “status-neutral” proposal to regulate ties between Pristina and Belgrade without pre-judging any future move to decide Kosovo’s final status.

The idea has its origins in a 1972 pact that normalised ties between West and East Germany without prejudging the question of unification, which only happened 18 years later after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. Earlier, Kosovo leaders rejected Belgrade’s proposal of a “Hong Kong” formula. With neither the East-West Germany model nor the Hong Kong formulas likely to be accepted, a Kosovo formula appeared to be close to impossible to achieve.

Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade and Krenar Gashi in Pristina

Nato and the UN police in Kosovo are reportedly planning to tighten their control over the predominantly-Serb north, if Kosovo declares its independence after talks on its future end in December.

The action would be aimed at preventing Serb-run areas from joining Serbia, in case Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian-dominated parliament proclaims independence, once the current phase of talks on the UN-administered territory’s status are concluded on December 10, an international diplomat told Balkan Insight on November 19.

The UN police and the Nato-led KFOR peacekeepers “are planning to take over Serb-run Kosovo police stations” in the ethnically-divided city of Mitrovica, the neighbouring municipality of Zvecan and the towns of Zubin Potok and Leposavic, the Belgrade-based diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

“KFOR will also gradually seal the border between Kosovo’s north and Serbia. After completing that action, KFOR will mount a series of raids aimed at discovering weapons caches in Serb communities and at arresting potential troublemakers,” the source said.

Mitrovica – known to Serbs as Kosovska Mitrovica – was the site of fierce ethnic clashes in early 2000 and 2004.

Referring to the planned moves, the diplomat said that that “through this action, KFOR will also send a message to Serbia’s leadership to stay out of meddling in Kosovo’s affairs”.

The diplomat said that “the Serbian military and police will get a clear message not even to think about moving forces closer to the Kosovo border”.

Asked by Balkan Insight if he could confirm the report, Alexander Ivanko, spokesperson for the UN administration in Kosovo, UNMIK, said that his organisation was “doing some planning for the repositioning of UNMIK in the north”.

“However, we cannot talk about our plans,” Ivanko said.

Meanwhile, an officer with KFOR confirmed to Balkan Insight that that peacekeepers were planning to carry out raids to discover weapons held illegally by members of the public, and that they will try to highlight those considered “troublemakers” in the north.

However, he did not comment on the reported plans to take over Serb-run police stations or tighten border security.

Kosovo Serbs have reacted with concern to the security measures KFOR and the UN are reportedly planning.

“I fear Serbs will feel cornered and will react with their hearts rather than their minds, and that means violence,” Oliver Ivanovic, a Serb moderate politician from northern Mitrovica, said.

“I also fear if KFOR and UNMIK atempt to do such a thing, we will witness violence similar to that in 2000 and 2004,” he told Balkan Insight.

“I see this as an attempt of UNMIK and KFOR to secure Kosovo’s territory in its entirety.”

Milan Ivanovic, a Mitrovica-based Serbian official said that “such a move would be a clear sign of violence against Serbs and would turn KFOR and UNMIK into an occupation force.”

According to Milan Ivanovic, the developments were not entirely new.

“We have recently spotted the unusual deployment of an entire KFOR detachment along the boundary” between Serbia and northern Kosovo, Ivanovic said, and added that “Serbs will resist any such move with all peaceful means.”

“That would include civil disobedience, protests, blockades of roads and KFOR and UNMIK who are in Kosovo to prevent violence instead of provoking it.”

According to the diplomatic source, UNMIK and KFOR believe that “the pacification of northern Kosovo will also serve as a warning to Serbia not to try to flex its muscles” in its southern, predominantly-ethnic Albanian municipalities along the boundary with Macedonia and Kosovo.

The volatile region comprising the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja is still recovering from a year-long ethnic-Albanian insurgency that ended in 2001 with a Nato-brokered peace deal that secured the rebels’ disarmament and their integration into society.

The situation in Serbia’s south remains, at times, tense, marked by occasional flare-ups in violence.

Dragan Sutanovac, Serbia’s defence minister, recently pledged swift action in case of a spill-over of potential violence from Kosovo or from Macedonia where police and armed ethnic Albanians clashed earlier this month.

Aleksandar Vasovic is BIRN Serbia editor. Krenar Gashi is BIRN Kosovo editor. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication. www.birn.eu.com

Brussels – Senior EU officials have welcomed the way the November 17 elections in UN-administered Kosovo were conducted, while regretting the Serb minority’s boycott of the polls.

Javier Solana, the EU’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, said on November 17 that the elections in Kosovo “took place in a calm and dignified atmosphere”.

However, Solana sounded a less positive note about the voting figures in Kosovo’s parliamentary and municipal elections.

“I am concerned about the low turnout, which reflects the population’s widespread dissatisfaction with the political elite,” he said in a written statement.

Solana voiced his regret in particular about the Kosovo Serbs’ non-participation in the ballot which followed a call by the Belgrade authorities for a boycott.

“The active engagement of all communities in the political process remains essential for a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo,” Solana said.

European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn expressed similar views about Saturday’s elections, and appealed to Kosovo’s Serbs to adopt a more positive approach.
“I call on them to take a constructive role in Kosovo’s future,” Rehn said in his statement.

Rehn and Solana urged elected politicians to work for the rapid formation of a new government.

They also used the opportunity to request the Kosovo Albanians’ Unity team of top negotiators to engage constructively in the decisive final stage of the internationally-mediated negotiations on Kosovo’s long-term status.

Pristina – On November 19, Kosovo’s Central Election Commission (CEC) released the first official preliminary results of the November 17 elections, which confirmed results published earlier by civil society observers.

With about 90 per cent of votes counted, the Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK), led by former guerrilla commander Hashim Thaci, was first with 34 per cent of the vote.

The PDK was followed by the Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), which saw its support drop significantly to just 22 per cent of the vote. The party’s poor showing is seen as a consequence of the death of its founder, Kosovo’s late president Ibrahim Rugova, and a party split which followed.

Two new parties gained substantial support. The Alliance for a New Kosovo, led by businessman Behgjet Pacolli, won 12.1 per cent of the vote, while former LDK member Nexhat Daci’s Democratic League of Dardania won 10.4 per cent.

The Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, led by former prime minister Ramush Haradinaj, increased its share of the vote from seven per cent in 2004 to about 10 percent this time.

The results show that the reformist ORA party led by Veton Surroi had won just 4.2 per cent of the vote, at this stage in the count, falling short of the five per cent needed to enter parliament.

These results were not final. The CEC still needed to count the so called conditional votes, of people that were not able to cast their vote at their own polling stations, and also about 10 000 postal ballots from voters outside Kosovo.

It was not expected, however, that these votes would significantly change the latest results. The CEC is expected to certify the final results by December 4.
BIRN

Tirana – Albania’s top politicians have unanimously hailed the November 17 elections held in Kosovo as an important step towards the UN-administered entity’s independence.

Albanian prime minister Sali Berisha said that that the conduct of the elections was proof that the rule of law had been established in Kosovo.

“The authorities in Kosovo have confirmed with the poll their democratic maturity and the unchanged will of Kosovo Albanians for a free, democratic state, integrated into Nato and the EU.”

The same sentiments were echoed by the leader of the opposition Socialist Party, Edi Rama.

“We have witnessed with legitimate pride our brothers and sisters shake off their past in Kosovo. Today a new European state was born,” Rama said to media outlets on Sunday.

Albanian president Bamir Topi emphasised the importance of the vote for Kosovo’s aspirations for independence.

“I value the responsible and wise reaction of the public in Kosovo, that through this vote expressed their will for the future,” Topi said.
BIRN

Arbana Xharra in Pristina

Only two months ago, a loaf of bread, weighing 600 grams, cost 25 euro cents. Today 50 euro cents, and many in Kosovo predict the price may go up to 70 euro cents within another few months.

According to recent World Bank statistics, 15 per cent of Kosovo’s population live in extreme poverty while 37 per cent are considered to be poor.

Bread is the staple food of most Kosovars, and many of them are now afraid that they themselves will soon be approaching these two categories of poverty. Most of them are finding it hard to make ends meet on average incomes of 240 euro a month.

Insufficient production at home and the high cost of imports are behind the steep rise in flour prices in Kosovo.

Although grain price rises on the world market have affected the whole region, Kosovo has suffered the most, partly because of its lack of reserves, and partly because the delays to defining Kosovo’s long-term political status mean the government has few control mechanisms to cope with such crises.

Economists fear that Kosovo is still very much dependent on foreign produce, as it imports about 450 million euro worth of groceries each year.

In the meantime, due to an uncontrolled, and now unstable, market, traders have been able quite easily to raise the prices of other items as well.

According to government officials, flour producers and bakers are to blame for not putting enough effort into sourcing their flour from the regional market.

Two months ago Serbia imposed a ban on grain deliveries to Kosovo. Meanwhile, bakers claim that they are throwing away thousands of loaves of bread a day, as the market for their product is shrinking day by day.

Avni Arifi, adviser to Kosovo’s prime minster Agim Ceku, says that one of the reasons for the price increase is that the Serbian government has asked companies in Serbia to stop trading with Kosovo.

“This has, of course had an immediate impact, which will remain until new suppliers have been attracted from other countries,” Arifi told Balkan Insight.

“The increase in wheat prices for a society like Kosovo affects immediately other products as well, so basically this price change has had a huge impact,” said Arifi.

Arifi added that Kosovo cannot have a proper state emergency fund because it is not a state yet.

“This sounds like an ordinary excuse but unfortunately this is very true. The government will not regulate prices as it simply cannot do so,” Arifi said, and added that the government is now “removing customs duties and is reviewing the possibilities of abolishing or reducing the current 15 per cent rate of value added tax” in order to boost supply in Kosovo.

According to the statistics of Kosovo’s Chamber of Commerce, Kosovo spends 80 million euro on bread a year, a sum that dwarfs the government’s emergency fund of three million euro.

Arbana Xharra is a journalist with Koha Ditore daily and Balkan Insight contributor. Balkan Insight is BIRN’s online publication.