Kosovo countdown: A blueprint for transition

As the day the Troika is due to present its final report on the failed talks between Belgrade and Pristina draws closer (10 December) and a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo is likely to become a reality, the EU should prepare to make its ‘conditional’ independence operational, a new International Crisis Group (ICG) paper suggests.

Once the Contact Group – France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the UK and the US – reports to the UN Security Council on the failure of the Troika – the EU, Russia, and US – to reach a settlement between Serbia and its province, the EU and the US should “begin implementing a plan to orchestrate” Kosovo’s “peaceful transition” to independence, the ICG says. 

The Crisis Group defines “conditional” or “supervised” independence as meaning that all supporting parties – the EU, the UN and the US – should accompany and assist the province on its way towards its final status. 

Supporters of Kosovo’s independence hope that the province will not make a move before May 2008, after a 120-day transition period following the release of the final Troika report, as foreseen by the Ahtisaari plan, the ICG states. 

The ICG urges European leaders to take the following action at their upcoming summit on 14 December: 

• The Union should officially declare that the talks between Belgrade and Pristina have failed; 
• The EU should make clear that it still considers the Ahtisaari plan as “the best way forward”; and;
• European leaders should prove that they are willing and ready to deploy two field missions to Kosovo once the province declares its independence. One should be a rule-of-law mission and the other should focus on setting up an International Civilian Office (ICO). 

“The US, the UK and France will have to work hard in New York – and be prepared to accept some damage to their relations with Moscow – to ensure that the clear majority of the Security Council will lend support” to Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence, according to the report. 

Much now depends on the dynamic between the EU and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, ICG says. Both sides have a degree of mutual dependence in this process, the paper explains. 

“Without a clear and unequivocal message from the European Council meeting [on 14 December 2007], Ban is unlikely to feel able to make any statement welcoming the EU missions. He cannot be expected to act against Russian pressure without certainty that the EU itself will be resolute”, the ICG states. 

The paper adds that without Ban’s “help in giving at least some semblance of UN cover, the EU will be less likely to overcome last reservations and vote on actual mission deployment”. 

The ICG recommends moving in December to obtain statements from the current members of the Security Council, since the five new members who will assume the chair in January 2008 would take considerable time to familiarise themselves with the issues. 

The paper concludes that failure to lend sufficient support to Kosovo on its way towards independence could cause violence and instability in the neigbouring countries and “seriously damage” both the UN’s prestige and the EU’s development as a global actor.