Domestic factors mean those who do not recognise Kosovo are unlikely to change their minds, writes DANIEL McLAUGHLIN
THE INTERNATIONAL Court of Justice’s verdict that Kosovo’s independence does not violate international law poses more questions than it answers.
While dashing Serbia’s slim hopes of a decision that would force a return to the negotiating table over Kosovo’s status, the ruling is also unlikely to trigger pragmatic talks between Belgrade and its former province, or embolden foreign investors to pump money into the tiny, impoverished state.
The advisory verdict may prompt countries to join the list of 69 nations that have already recognised a sovereign Kosovo, but key holdouts like Russia, China and European Union members including Spain, Greece, Slovakia and Romania are unlikely to alter their stance.
They fear that regions and groups around the world that are pressing for independence or autonomy will be emboldened by the court’s vote of approval for Kosovo’s sovereignty.
What will such a decision mean for, among many others, Chechen separatists in southern Russia; for breakaway Uighur groups in western China; for the Basques and Catalans in Spain; the divided island of Cyprus and the large Hungarian minorities in Slovakia and Romania?
Serbia’s pro-western president Boris Tadic warned that a decision that cleared Kosovo’s independence would ensure that “an entire process of creating new states would open throughout the world, something that would destabilise many regions of the world”, while his foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, said “no border in the region and the world would any longer be secure”.
Some experts on the issue agree with them. “This is bad news to a number of governments dealing with separatist movements,” said Edwin Bakker, researcher at the Clingendael Institute of International Relations. “This ruling brings Kosovo’s entry in the UN much closer. This would mean that for the first time since the split of Pakistan in the mid-1970s, we will have a country on the world map that became independent despite the strong opposition of the country from which it separated.”
Mr Bakker said the verdict would resonate most strongly with people who, as in the case of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority, “have been confronted with very brutal repression”, meaning that “several European cases are not really comparable”.
“The most interesting question after today is what Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania will do vis-a-vis Kosovo,” he said.
“Will they follow their European partners in recognising Kosovo? My expectation is that they will postpone that step as long as possible, and wait and see what will happen within the UN.”
Kosovo’s leaders celebrated last night and said they hoped the verdict would open a new, peaceful and constructive chapter in relations with Serbia.
Belgrade, meanwhile, reiterated that it would never accept the independence of a region that it sees as central to Serb history and identity.
The ruling is likely to have little impact on day-to-day life in Kosovo. The fledgling state is now de facto divided in two, with the Serb-dominated north refusing to deal with the Pristina government and still looking to Belgrade for leadership, funding and services.
Attempts to strengthen Pristina’s presence – or that of the EU mission created to oversee independence – in the main northern town of Mitrovica are still met with violence.
Though fiery rhetoric may be deployed, and Serb calls for a formal partition of Kosovo may intensify, Belgrade’s reaction to the decision is likely to be muted.
After all, both Serbia and Kosovo have their eyes trained on the distant prize of EU membership. Between now and that remote accession day, Brussels must help them to find a way to live together.