Following Kosovo's declaration of independence in February of this year, the country's new constitution came into force on June 15, 2008. Kosovo's President Fatmir Sejdiu lauded the "historic" launching of the document. Yet the realities on the ground reveal the country faces considerable challenges.
The starting point is a seemingly irreconcilable division between the Albanian and Serbian population in Kosovo. The two communities exist in separate societal dimensions: The Serbs live in segregated enclaves with close ties to Belgrade and hardly any participate in the state's power structures whereas Albanians govern their state affairs. During the negotiation process, the partition of Kosovo had been a taboo. Today, it is an obvious fact that amplifies the existing resentment and endangers the region's fragile peace.
Despite, or precisely because of the 16.000 NATO troops in Kosovo, maintaining stability in the region will remain one of the most important tests for transatlantic foreign policy, especially with regard to the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The plan of UN Special Envoy Marti Athisaari and its core principle - Kosovo's internationally supervised "conditional independence" - stipulates that the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) should hand over the supervision mandate to the European Union after Kosovo's declaration of independence. Serbia and Russia, however, oppose the EU mission - EULEX - as its mandate is not based on a UN Security Council Resolution.
In order to avoid the emergence of a power vacuum as a result of the withdrawal of UNMIK and the impeded deployment of EU troops, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon put forward a reconfiguration plan for UNMIK, which will allow EULEX to operate under a UN umbrella. On June 25, 2008 the new UNMIK Chief Lamberto Zannier received the green light for that reconfiguration. Next to a general downscale of the UN resources on the ground and the reallocation of responsibilities between the UN and EULEX, the UN is set to open a new round of talks between Belgrade and Pristina about practical issues relating to the Athisaari Plan.
And while international bodies are reconfiguring themselves and the Serbian and Albanian politicians are preparing for yet another round of negotiations, the Kosovars are struggling with everyday issues of subsistence such as repeated power and water outages, a 45 percent unemployment rate with half of the population under the age of 25 and a poverty rate of 47 percent. Representatives of both ethnic groups rightly remain highly skeptical regarding the general impact of the new constitution for the improvement of their living standards.
Although the past regional conflicts and the remaining political uncertainties have surely hindered a greater influx of foreign investment into Kosovo, the reason why there have not been any official incentives to enhance regional, cross-border trade and renew pre-war business ties remains unclear. It is no secret that ethnicity, religious and political affiliations play little role for profitable business operations. In the past, Kosovo achieved its greatest economic progress when it had the closest integrative ties with Serbia and its regional neighbors. Thus, an integrated regional market with free trade components will not only alleviate the economic grievances in Kosovo and the region at large, but also mitigate security concerns, substantially help overcome the existing ethnic divisions and facilitate future European integration.
In the last interview before his assassination in March 2003, the Serbian Prime Minister Djndjic of the pro-European Democratic Party (DS) spoke of his vision of a regional free trade area, in which strong cross-border economic activities would make the question of national borders redundant. It seems that even nationalist leaning forces in Serbia increasingly seem to recognise this. In his new book "Openly on Kosovo and Metohija's Economy" Nenad Popovic, the head of the Economic Team for Kosovo and Metohija and South Serbia and member of the nationalist conservative party Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) stresses that "the strongest possible ties between Belgrade and Pristina in all domains, and particularly in the field of economy, are the only way for Kosovo to make economic progress."
Instead of initiating a new round of talks, creating yet another institution and drafting more papers and agreements, the official decision-makers on both sides should just set the legal framework for the empowerment of free-market forces. This would allow Serbian and Albanian entrepreneurs and business people to enhance the "unofficial" trade volume of 500 million Euro and to finally provide tangible and promising results for the impoverished population. The phrase "strongest possible ties between Belgrade and Pristina" would eventually gain a new meaning.
Sonja Davidovic is a graduate student at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C. She is currently interning at Atlantic Community in Berlin, Germany.
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