Handelsakkoord tussen EU en Kosovo onzeker (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Kosovo is optimistic about its prospects of starting talks on visa free travel and a basic trade pact with the EU i. But it is unclear how it can conclude any trade agreement given its non-recognition by five EU countries.
"We are on a good path. At the end of the summer we are going to open the dialogue on the visa liberalisation issue and also on the prospects of [access to] the EU market," Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci told EUobserver in a recent interview. "Even though five EU countries have not recognised us, the EU as a whole has this common perspective for us."
Compliance with EU standards will take a long time. On visas, Kosovo does not even have a functional population registry and the US last week named it as a waypoint for human trafficking to the EU. On trade, the EU will send a tentative fact-finding mission in July.
The visa deal would be a moral boost for Kosovars, fearful of becoming isolated while its neighbours travel freely to the EU.
The trade pact is more important politically. The bilateral agreement between the EU and Kosovo would constitute the first-ever contractual relation between the two sides. It would also prefigure a future Stability and Association Agreement, a key step on the path to EU entry.
A legal solution already exists for the visa deal.
Kosovo was in 2009 added to an EU list of countries, entities and territorial authorities requiring a visa in language describing it as "the territory of Kosovo" and saying the addition is "without prejudice to the status of Kosovo." The EU27 is now free to adopt a "common position" to shift it to a second list of entities that are exempt from visas.
The trade pact poses a bigger conundrum of how to designate Kosovo as a legal entity that is a party to the contract.
Non-recogniser Spain says Kosovo is a "special case" and that the European Commission is working on a "special" solution. A contact in the EU institutions i said: "We are the best in the world when it comes to squaring the circle. Perhaps there could be a legal agreement accompanied by a declaration that it [the trade pact] only applies to this and this, but not that [status]."
Romania, another non-recognising EU country, says the solution must be "status neutral" and in conformity with UN resolution 1244. The 11-year-old resolution designates Kosovo as a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). But the FRY was dissolved in 2005 and no longer exists.
A third non-recogniser, Slovakia, says that Unmik, the UN body set up in 1999 to run Kosovo, could sign the trade pact on its behalf. Unmik still exists, but only just. It has a skeleton staff in Kosovo and no real powers following the arrival of the EU rule of law mission, Eulex, in 2008.
The Unmik solution, which portrays Kosovo as a part of Serbia under UN authority, would be unacceptable to Kosovo, however. "There is no way [to sign contracts] as a part of Serbia. Kosovo is an independent and sovereign state ...there is no way back," Mr Thaci told this website.
The other two non-recognising states, Cyprus and Greece, did not answer EUobserver's questions. Greece noted that it lets Kosovars enter the country by stamping a visa on a blank piece of paper instead of Kosovar passports. But despite the visa pragmatism, the non-recognising EU countries take a hard line on status, pushing to change wording such as "Kosovo citizens" to "Kosovo inhabitants" in EU documents.
Credibility eroding
Meanwhile, away from the salons of Brussels, the credibility of the international presence in Kosovo and the ethnic-Albanian Kosovo government is eroding.
Romania shamed itself in March when 16 of its Eulex gendarmes were caught smuggling alcohol and cigarettes. The case comes after Romanian Unmik soldiers in 2007 killed two ethnic Albanians with rubber bullets. Both sets of officers were repatriated. It is unclear if the smugglers will face discipline. The Unmik shooters never did.
"All these types of people should be brought to justice, whether in Kosovo or Romania, it doesn't matter," Mr Thaci said.
Eulex in April raided the Kosovo transport ministry over corruption allegations in a $1 billion road-building contract obtained by US company Bechtel. The US ambassador to Kosovo, Christopher Dell, shortly after posed on TV with transport minister Fatmir Limaj at the Bechtel signing ceremony, giving the impression that he is interfering in the course of justice. Eulex later decided not to bring charges in the Bechtel case.
Mr Thaci has also faced questions of where he received the money to build himself a new house reportedly measuring 700 square metres, even as normal Kosovars earn less than €300 a month.
"I have started to build the house with the help of my family and I have bank loans," he said. "We are six brothers and four sisters and some of my brothers have [earned money] working in Austria for 22 years."
"[Today] I live in rented accommodation because I am in the service of my people and that's it," he added. "It was exaggerated [in the press]. It [the house] is about 600 square metres. But it's for the whole family, so there will be many people living there."