According to the parliamentary elections in Serbia, Kosovo conflict returns to the agenda of world politics
While in Belgrade after the double-edged outcome of the parliamentary elections last Sunday, the power struggles begin to form a new government, the UN intermediary in Kosovo conflict, Martti Ahtisaari, will present its long-awaited proposal for the future of the controversial province next Friday in Vienna. Of course, especially one seems: In the coming weeks, not only in Kosovo itself is a hard political conflict before, but also at international level. While the US diplomacy is positioned with emphatically on the part of the Albanian independence movement, Russia enhances the jerk cover of Serbia. In the European Union, serious differences of opinion are characterized in the Kosovo question.
It was a certain relief in the faces of EU-AUM Ministers, who related themselves last Monday in Brussel with the exit of elections in Serbia. He see "favorable conditions" for a government education that "Serbia leads to the European path," explained Frank Walter Steinmeier at the first conference under German presidency. The federal agent ordered a trip to Belgrade and promised the "Democratic Power" the "Help" of the EU.
In Belgrade, however, there is a skeptical mood. Although the parties of the "democratic block" have reached almost 50 percent of the electoral votes. The Democratic Party (DS) of the Prasident Boris Tadic scored 22.9 percent, the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) of the still-reimbursed Premier Vojislav Kostunica reached 16.7 percent and the election list G17 6.8 percent. In addition, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) could create a 5.3 percent short in parliament.
But a government formation will nevertheless require a considerable force. For on the one hand, the biggest faction in the Skupstana, the Serbian parliament, was set by the nationalist Serbian radical party (SRS). She is at 28.7 percent of the undisputed election winners. And on the other hand, the much-fashioned "democratic block" in Serbia is actually an excerpt heterogeneous and opposed collection of political powers, which are mainly united by one: their enmity to Slobodan Milosevic. This was already buried last year. Milosevics Party Danger of the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) also moved to parliament with 5.9 percent. The Socialists are in Serbia but no one more than horror.
Difficult government formation in Belgrade
First exercises of top politicians show where the problems with the upcoming coalition negotiations. Power consciousness is Vojislav Kostunica to be the prime minister in an art government. This requirement may appear in the face of the lean earnings of his DSS evening. The still acting premier has a joker in his pocket. Because without the consent of his national conservative DSS can be purely arithmetic no government of the "democratic camp". Kostunica has always left open in the election campaign despite persistent questions of many journalists, with whom he wants to coalize after the elections. And even on Monday after the election, he has not excluded a – computationally possible – coalition with the radicals not excluded.
Although in Belgrade all political observers ame that it will end up under massive prere from the EU and the USA to a coalition between DSS, DS and G17. However, the position Kostunicas indicates hard coalition negotiations that can go on several weeks. After the penalty, the new government must be shaped at least three months after the constituent meeting of the Parliament, planned for the end of February; Otherwise new elections are advertised. Kostunica will probably be the Prime Minister until the end of May. In the negotiations, it will not only be about the position of the Premier and the sharply controversial distribution of power positions in the ministerial departments, but also to strategic political ies.
Above all, the relationships with the European Union were discussed controversial. Although it is undisputed that Serbia is striving for membership in the EU among the expected artistic partners. In contrast to the economic-liberal respite parties DS and G17, which drive a uncritical EU course, Kostunica insists as much strongly on what he referred to as the "national interests" of Serbia. Kostunica has always categorically rejected any form of ultimate in Brussel’s ultimate reigning time. This is mainly due to his relationship with the Yugoslaviatribunal in the Hague, which is explained by Brussel to the livestock in the other EU-proof Serbians. While Kostunica repeatedly formulated his criticism of the tribunal’s prosecution, Chefankragin Carla del Ponte repeatedly improved "lack of cooperation" in the arrest of the still submerged defendants such as General Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic.
Heiren phase of Kosovo negotiations
Government formation in Belgrade is mainly due to the initiation of the hot phase of negotiations for the future status of Kosovo Province during the next few days. After the talks between Belgrade and Pristina failed in the fall, the UN broker Martti Ahtisaari wants to be ahead of a meeting of the "Balkan Contact Group" on a meeting at a meeting of the "Balkan Contact Group" – in which the US, Russia and the EU are represented in Vienna make a suggestion. The plan should be linked to the 2. February also be submitted to the government in Belgrade and Albanian provisional self-government in Pristina. Above all, the US developed the proposal already in Marz in the UN Security Council when Great Britain leaves the chairmanship.
However, the vitality and dangers in this approach are not to be severed. After negotiating in vain for almost a year under his mediation, it is unlikely that Belgrade and Pristina will agree on the Ahtisaari proposal in the last minute at the last minute. When diplomats ventilate, the former Finnish Minister Prosident is expected to suggest a form of "conditional" or "monitored" independence for Kosovo. Kosovo, which has been paying for the modern Serb State Territory since the Balkan Wares in 1912 and in the Middle Ages was the home of the Serbian Orthodox Church, was driven out of Serbia.
At the same time, the more than two million, mainly alban residents paid province were not received any complete sovereignty, but converted into a kind of protectorate of the European Union. The after the ethnic cleaning in the wake of NATO intervention from 1999 still about 100.000 in enclaves living Kosovo Serbs were allowed to receive a high degree of self-government rights and possibly also the right to a double Stateburgerschaft in the context of a decentralization process.
Such a proposal has been categorically rejected by the Serbian government and public. All political power with the exception of the LDP, on the other hand, have stated the support of a new penetration in October 2006 to hold Kosovo as a province with "high autonomy" in Serbia (new preference, new conflicts). Also a new government under the guided DS will have to be kept at this consensus. For this, the decisive influence of Kostunicas DSS and the mobilization ability of the radicals guarantee. And for this, not least the political leadership of Kosovo Serbs will provide. The Serbian National Council (SNV) in North Mitrovica has repeatedly clearly made it clear that it will be accepted under no circumstances as well as alienity Kosovo. Rather, the protrusionants of Kosovo Serbs demand the "rapid return of the Serbian dispute" in the province.
But even for the Albanian side, the Ahtisaari Plan will be difficult to swallow crace. For the year long, Kosovo-Albanian population was worn out of their political fuels in a sacrificial struggle on independence. The full sovereignty is considered not only as the enforcement of a "national self-determination", but not least as a prerequisite for improving the miserable social situation. The erection of a new protectorate is based on the remedious experiences with the UN-transition management inefficient and authoritar unmik, on the other hand, on little counterlow. Especially the decentralization suggestion stobs on sharp resistance in a wide range of Albanian population. In the negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade he was next to the ultimately decisive status question of the second important ie. Above all, the agile and dynamic movement Vetevendosije (self-determination) for the charismatic former student carrying Albin Kurti Mobils against the municipal form planned by Ahtisaari. She sees a trial Kosovo ultimately to columns.
Not to be severed is the force potential that can be mobilized in the coming disputes. Unmik-boss Joachim Rucker, the former Burgermeister of Sindelfingen, will not emphasize Mude, Kosovo is on the way to a "functioning democracy". Series human rights organizations, on the other hand, emphasize the high degree of danger of non-Albanian ethnic minorities through violence. The renowned Minority Rights Group from London explained shortly:
Nowhere in Europe there is such a level of fear for so many minorities, persecuted or attacked.
Hardly considered by international media in recent months repeatedly showed clear evidence of the existence of mobilizable well-armed networks of Albanian extremists. Only in December, for example, the special state lawyer for organized crincentat in Montenegro, Stojanka Radovic, charges against 18 Albanians, who had planned attacks on police stations in the border area between Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo last September. The group has crossed a rich weapon arsenal and was logistically networked with former UCK fighters from Kosovo and Albanian Diaspora in the USA.
Kosovo as a dispute between USA, Russia and European Union
With the opening of the prevention phase of status negotiations, the Kosovo problem also returns to the agenda of world political conflicts. While the US diplomacy and the large part of the EU states went down for a long time, they only had to break the resistance of the Serbian government to enforce a targeted independence Kosovo has turned the leaf in recent months.
In the course of the development of a new coarse power literacy in Russia, Vladimir Putin explained the Kosovo conflict to the chief thing. He asks primarily a negotiated solution that can also agree Serbia. On the edge of the visit of Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel in Russia last weekend explained Putin:
If we ignore the territorial integrity, then other Volkers will say they do the same. This is not only in the post-Soviet world, but also in other countries, including the EU.
For the case that Serbia is to be forced a solution, Aufemister Sergej Lavrov has explored Russia’s Veto in the UN Security Council. At the latest, if it came, the Kosovo conflict was heavily burdens world political relations. It is therefore to be amed that the diplomatic efforts are increased in the coming weeks to find a negotiated solution.
In Washington, however, tones are loud, left elseburaid. It is the newly starred Democrats, which drums most powerful for a quick approach in Kosovo question. The influential new chairman of the Committee for Austolitan Relations of the US Senate, Joseph Biden wrote at the beginning of January in an attack-sensitive opinion article in the Financial Times:
Extremists in Belgrade and Moscow Are – For Very Different Reasons – Hoping to Use Russia’s United Nations Security Council Veto to Quash Kosovo’s Bid for Independence. IF They Succeed, The Balkans Will Emerge AS Another Source of Bad News in A World Already Crowded with Crises.
In a remarkable argument, he is a reason for the US horny in the independence Kosovos:
The People of Kosovo – Already The Most Pro-American in The Islamic World – Will Provide A Much-needed Example of A Successful US Muslim Partnership.
Belgrade and Moscow are with their position, however, is no longer as alone, as it seemed a few months ago. A number of EU countries – including some conflicts of "self-determination law" of certain national minorities are virulent – but now to be careful about the further procedure in the Kosovo question. After a romania, Slovakia, Italy and Greece, for a slovakia, Italy and Greece, has been forced to be imposed in front of a Belgrade, after a report of the Spanish newspaper El Pais, at the beginning of the week, the Spanish Aufemister Alberto Navarro exemble his support for the Serbian Position explains. "Imposing the right to self-determination of a region in a sovereign state" seemed "no solution for the Balkans," Navarro is quoted.
Although it is still uncertain, as the independence Kosovo’s skeptically or refusing EU countries are in doubt, in doubt a hard diplomatic confrontation, there are first unexpected successes of the Serbian government. During the meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, the Serbian representatives with support from MEPs from Romania and Greece was deleted the word "independence" from a draft resolution to the future Kosovos.