Serbia Premier Signals Shift on Kosovo
By
LAURENCE NORMAN
 |
| Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic speaks in Belgrade on Feb. 24, 2015. ASSOCIATED PRESS |
Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has signaled he could propose changes to the country’s constitution that would include stripping out a reference to Kosovo as a Serbian province and could help its bid for European Union membership.
While the current government has always maintained its opposition to recognizing Kosovo’s 2008 independence, the move could make it much easier for a future Serbian administration to do so. Mr. Vucic’s comments, made in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, come at a time when EU-brokered talks aimed at normalizing ties between Kosovo and Serbia have lost some of their zest.
In February, Mr. Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa met in Brussels to continue what is known as “the dialogue, the first top-level meeting in almost a year.” In the meantime, Mr. Vucic had won a landslide victory in Serbian elections in March last year. Mr. Mustafa took office in December after a six-month political standoff in Kosovo that followed June elections.
The February talks produced progress on one of the issues — integrating the justice and judiciary system in Kosovo — that still needed to be implemented from the 2013 Brussels Agreement between Belgrade and Pristina. That deal sought to guarantee protections and powers for the Serbian minority in Kosovo in return for acknowledging the primacy of Kosovo’s laws and institutions.
The two governments are still wrangling on other issues from the 2013 accord, above all the exact powers that will be given to the institution representing Serbian communities in Kosovo.
But in the interview, Mr. Vucic said he wouldn’t rule out asking Serbian voters to wording in their constitution’s preamble, adopted in 2006, that says that Kosovo “is an integral part of the territory of Serbia.”
Serbian media reported last month that Mr. Vucic had talked of changing the constitution in the next two to three years to push through changes demanded by Brussels as part of the country’s bid to join the EU. But in the interview, he said such changes wouldn’t happen because of Kosovo.
While the current government has always maintained its opposition to recognizing Kosovo’s 2008 independence, the move could make it much easier for a future Serbian administration to do so. Mr. Vucic’s comments, made in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, come at a time when EU-brokered talks aimed at normalizing ties between Kosovo and Serbia have lost some of their zest.
In February, Mr. Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Isa Mustafa met in Brussels to continue what is known as “the dialogue, the first top-level meeting in almost a year.” In the meantime, Mr. Vucic had won a landslide victory in Serbian elections in March last year. Mr. Mustafa took office in December after a six-month political standoff in Kosovo that followed June elections.
The February talks produced progress on one of the issues — integrating the justice and judiciary system in Kosovo — that still needed to be implemented from the 2013 Brussels Agreement between Belgrade and Pristina. That deal sought to guarantee protections and powers for the Serbian minority in Kosovo in return for acknowledging the primacy of Kosovo’s laws and institutions.
The two governments are still wrangling on other issues from the 2013 accord, above all the exact powers that will be given to the institution representing Serbian communities in Kosovo.
But in the interview, Mr. Vucic said he wouldn’t rule out asking Serbian voters to wording in their constitution’s preamble, adopted in 2006, that says that Kosovo “is an integral part of the territory of Serbia.”
Serbian media reported last month that Mr. Vucic had talked of changing the constitution in the next two to three years to push through changes demanded by Brussels as part of the country’s bid to join the EU. But in the interview, he said such changes wouldn’t happen because of Kosovo.
“We’ll have to discuss everything with our EU partners. We’ll have to discuss that with the Serbian people… I am not speaking about it but I am just saying that we need to have a very open discussion on Serbia’s future. And that’s it. We need to be very honest with our people. We need to see everything. OK, if we leave it here or we put it outside, what would that mean? And the people of Serbia should say their final word.”
Mr. Vucic, who said constitutional changes would be needed before the end of 2017, said he was opening the issue “although I knew that it was not very popular here in our country.”
Recognizing Kosovo isn’t a formal condition for Serbia to join the EU – there are still five EU countries, including Spain, which don’t recognize its independence. But many believe Belgrade will be under strong pressure to do this from Berlin, London and Brussels, longstanding supporters of Kosovar independence, if Serbia is to win membership.
Mr. Vucic’s move has risks. It will likely inflame nationalist sentiment in Serbia. Mr. Vucic, himself once a minister under Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and a leading figure in the vehemently anti-Western Serbian Radical Party, already stands accused of selling out his principles to the West.
“The Brussels Agreement is silent recognition of Kosovo independence,” Nemanja Sarovic, deputy president of the Serbian Radical Party, said in an interview on Tuesday, referring to the 2013 deal.
He said it was only a matter of time before Mr. Vucic buckles to Western pressure to recognize Kosovo. “The only worry for him is how to present this well in the media to gain a few percent” in the polls, Mr. Sarovic said.
Yet Mr. Vucic may also face resistance from within his own party. The governing Serbian Progressive Party grew out of the roots of the Radical Party after Mr. Vucic and President Tomislav Nikolic defected to create the new force in 2008. Mr. Nikolic, who faces presidential elections in 2016 and is now seen as the less powerful of Serbia’s two leaders, has always struck a much tougher line on Kosovo.
Recognizing Kosovo isn’t a formal condition for Serbia to join the EU – there are still five EU countries, including Spain, which don’t recognize its independence. But many believe Belgrade will be under strong pressure to do this from Berlin, London and Brussels, longstanding supporters of Kosovar independence, if Serbia is to win membership.
Mr. Vucic’s move has risks. It will likely inflame nationalist sentiment in Serbia. Mr. Vucic, himself once a minister under Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic and a leading figure in the vehemently anti-Western Serbian Radical Party, already stands accused of selling out his principles to the West.
“The Brussels Agreement is silent recognition of Kosovo independence,” Nemanja Sarovic, deputy president of the Serbian Radical Party, said in an interview on Tuesday, referring to the 2013 deal.
He said it was only a matter of time before Mr. Vucic buckles to Western pressure to recognize Kosovo. “The only worry for him is how to present this well in the media to gain a few percent” in the polls, Mr. Sarovic said.
Yet Mr. Vucic may also face resistance from within his own party. The governing Serbian Progressive Party grew out of the roots of the Radical Party after Mr. Vucic and President Tomislav Nikolic defected to create the new force in 2008. Mr. Nikolic, who faces presidential elections in 2016 and is now seen as the less powerful of Serbia’s two leaders, has always struck a much tougher line on Kosovo.
***
BELGRADE— Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s 45-year-old prime minister, has a reputation for combining brawn with brains.
A law student as the former Yugoslavia began to unravel a quarter century ago, Mr. Vucic, then a fervent Serb nationalist, studied hard during the week, notching up top scores in school. On weekends, he would follow his beloved soccer team, Red Star Belgrade, across the country, brawling with fans from top Croatian, Bosnian and other non-Serb teams.
Mr. Vucic admits to spending a few nights of his youth in custody in Zagreb, Split and Sarajevo but insists he is a principled fighter.
“I have never kicked the ass of a simple guy when he was sitting down,” he said in an interview this week, ahead of his first trip next month to Washington as prime minister. “I always wanted to participate in very fair fights.”
A year after taking office, Mr. Vucic is locked in battles of another kind. In an effort to inch his country toward a place in the European Union, he has launched an austerity program at a time of economic stress, pledged sweeping economic and political reforms and played a key role in advancing one of Brussels’ top demands: that Serbia gradually normalize ties with Kosovo [NEVER! You could, may be, find some Quisling who came out of Serbia, among us to technically does that treachery, but Serbs will NEVER, NEVER recognize this! You can tell your Shqiptar friends not to paint walls, not to bring their furniture into our home, not to move in. We will be back. For sure. And than we gonna settle the bill. This time once and for all! Turks know what I am talking about!], a former [to your opinion] province whose 2008 independence Belgrade vows not to recognize.
If it succeeds, Mr. Vucic’s mission could shape Serbia for decades [If it succeeds, Mr. Vucic’s mission could shape his surname and his family and progeny until the end of time. They will be damned forever until the last Serb draws breath! Nothing Mr. Vucic can do can not and will not shape Serbia. Serbia is far greater than Vucic.]. But his past has raised questions among foreign governments and domestic skeptics alike. As a senior figure in Serbia’s Radical party, an ultranationalist, anti-Western grouping, he was a minister under former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic. He faces criticism that his old authoritarian instincts remain intact and that he is seeking to stifle political and media opposition.
In Washington, he will meet Vice President Joe Biden [never happened] and other senior figures, seeing the trip as a chance to push Washington to help Serbia in its EU bid. Keeping balance, Serbia’s President Tomislav Nikolic is scheduled to be in Moscow on Friday to join Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military parade to mark 70 years since Germany’s World War II surrender. Serbian troops are due to join the march.
Mr. Vucic, quietly intense and rarely smiling during an hour-long sit down, said his past mistakes and change of heart are part of what won him broad support among his countrymen. Many voters, he believes, identified with his long political journey from the fringes.
He said Serbia’s experiences in the 1990s had hammered home a lesson: that the conflicts and killing of the past, which left more than 100,000 dead in the former Yugoslavia, ended with Serbia weakened, unstable and isolated.
“I saw the consequences” of that path. “I know how that kind of mind can function. I know myself from 20 years ago,” he said. “We have to preserve the peace. Another mistake will mean that we are going to lose everything.”
Already the power broker in the previous government elected in mid-2012, Mr. Vucic set eventual EU membership as his top priority when he took office in April 2014 after a landslide win for his Serbian Progressive Party.
The EU formally opened accession talks with Serbia in January 2014, a reward for the previous year’s agreement between Serbia and Kosovo, which sought to normalize the position of the Serbian minority in Kosovo’s north.
But EU progress has been slow. With Germany cautious, the bloc is yet to open a single one of the 35 negotiating areas Serbia must tackle to join the club. Mr. Vucic says he hopes that will change by September, but EU officials warn that appears ambitious.
Mr. Vucic says that after slashing the deficit by delivering painful budget cuts, including reducing state salaries and pensions, securing a new International Monetary Fund program, liberalizing labor laws and improving Belgrade’s ties with its neighbors including Kosovo, Serbia deserves a reward. But he insists “I am not going to weep” if it doesn’t happen.
“There is no turning back,” he said of Serbia’s EU bid. “I have my disappointments personal and political… regarding the EU… But my job is to take care of the strategically important issues of this country.”
It is a message that Mr. Vucic has delivered not only to Western officials. When Mr. Putin visited Belgrade last October, Mr. Vucic told a news conference with the Russian leader that Serbia will “not give up” its EU membership bid.
“I do not lie to anyone,” Mr. Vucic said this week. “I don’t have different messages in Moscow, Washington and Brussels.”
On Kosovo, Mr. Vucic bristled at what he called “joke” proposals by the Pristina government to give local Serb minority communities only perfunctory powers. But he signaled what could be a significant shift by Belgrade, saying he is considering constitutional changes by end-2017 which could include removing wording that states Kosovo is a part of Serbia.
“We need to be very honest with our people” about the different options, he said. “And the people of Serbia should say their final word.”
Mr. Vucic faces questions about delivery. The government has held off restructuring loss-making or inefficient state enterprises. Corruption and political interference in the judiciary remain rife, diplomats say.
Yet the biggest worries are what some see as Mr. Vucic’s moves to stifle opposition. Independent journalists say the government treats critics as state enemies, using friends in the tabloid press to mount scurrilous campaigns against opponents.
“We are slowly, slowly sliding toward illiberal democratic practices,” said Jadranka Jelincic, director of the Open Society Foundation in Serbia.
Mr. Vucic says he is a soft target because of a repressive anti-media law he passed—and later apologized for—under Mr. Milosevic and that his government comes under daily fire from the press.
Mr. Vucic says he has no intention of spending long years at the top of Serbian politics, unlike other leaders in the region. He doubts he will be holding high office in the early 2020s, when he hopes Serbia’s EU bid will have succeeded.
He rejects the charge of a volatile streak that brooks no argument. “I can accept every single word of criticism,” he said.
—Naftali Bendavid contributed to this article.
Source: The Wall Street Journal| Originally posted: May 8, 2015
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