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| Kosovo: welcome to Europe?
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So yesterday the newest state in Europe declared itself independent. Kosovo, the former Serbian province is now a country in its own right. At least it thinks it is. Isn't that what counts?
Well it's part of the story. But this is not going to be an easy birth. At the time of writing there has not yet been formal recognition from the EU, the US or the UN - these probably will follow shortly.
Serbia is not exactly happy - I gather there's a list of actions that they intend to take, all of which are currently peaceful. While Kosovo is primarily ethnic Albanian, there is a Serbian minority that live there, and Serbs regard it as the historic home of the slavic peoples. There have been grenades, flag burnings (not so much impact for Europeans as for Americans as we don't pledge alligence to our flags) and violence at embassies in Serbia however, and the UN has appealed for peace.
The Balkans have long been a flashpoint in European history, and it's particularly poignant that this declaration of independence has come during the Slovenian Presidency of the EU - Slovenia being another former Yugoslav state and the first to join the EU.
This fact was brought home to me in one EU Council working group I attended in 2004 on vehicle emissions: new Member States were being offered emissions levels in line with those they had had for the previous decade... and the Slovenian delegate pointed out that they had been at war ten years ago so perhaps their needs were not accurately reflected.
EU recogition is important - there's been an EU military presence there under UN auspices and there will be a strong EU presence there after independence. But EU countries are meant to act together - I remember the difficulties back in 1991 with German unilateral recogition of Slovenian and Croatian independence and it's something that most EU countries are keen to avoid this time round.
However we can expect Cyprus, Greece, Romania and Spain to be worried about recognising Kosovo, because they have their own separatist populations within.
And outside the EU, Russia has already asked the UN to declare the declaration of independence null and void because a 1999 mandate hands Kosovo to the UN, and fears that there are implications for the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. China has also appealed to Kosova to get around a table with Serbia and seek another solution.
The effects of this event are rippling out like a stone dropped into water distubing the waters on other shores.
There have been two serious conflicts in the Balkans in my lifetime. The human face of this was a university flatmate of mine, a refugee from Bosnia-Herzegovina who told us of a friend, a promising basketball player who had his arm shot off by a sniper and was beaten about the head with it. She herself was so frightened of the bangs and explosions of a war all around her that she hid under the table at a pub fireworks night we went to.
I don't want to see conflicts that impact on people like this. They happen all over the world, but it's a terrible truism that you feel it most when it's your own backyard. The Balkans are the EU's backyard.
The EU has been a strong factor in preventing wars in Western Europe for over 50 years. The carrot of EU membership has helped many new central and eastern Europen states through the difficult post-Communist or post-conflict eras.
So whilst there's celebrations in Pristina, and I really hope it's all going to work out fine, we need to pray that the EU gets its act together on Kosovan independence, that peace can be maintained. For all our sakes. |
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Posted by rose22 on 2008-02-18 07:49:32 | Rating: | Views: 85
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