Kosovo and Balkan Stability
Publisher: Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes
Volume: 13 pages, pdf
Description:
As the process of determining Kosovo’s future status enters its final stages, everyone’s worst case scenario—a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo Albanian authorities, without United Nations Security Council approval—appears increasingly likely. The diplomatic mismanagement of this process is largely to blame for the fact that the international community has arrived at such an impasse. The most pressing issue now is how all the major international actors (e.g., the United States, the European Union, Russia, NATO, the OSCE, etc.) involved can react to and control the likely consequences of such a development. The guiding assumption of current U.S. policy (and of a large number of Balkan observers 1 ) is that the Balkans are relatively stable, and that whatever spillover effects may result from the outcome of Kosovo’s future status can be controlled; in fact, in this view, the greatest threat to Balkan stability comes from not resolving Kosovo’s status. These assumptions are also either explicit or implicit in the so-called “Ahtisaari Plan” for Kosovo presented to the UN Security Council in March 2006.
Several strong arguments favor moving forward with determining Kosovo’s future status: respecting the right to self-determination of the vast majority of Kosovo’s inhabitants; the fact that it is difficult to conceive of a situation in which, after eight years of international administration, it would be possible to return Kosovo to any form of meaningful rule from Belgrade; and the fact that Kosovo’s unresolved status makes it difficult for Kosovo to receive access to several sources of development aid from international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.