Is another trouble spot threatening to flare up in Europe?
Shots fired at police officers at night and an attack on EU mission forces have further intensified tensions in the Serb-majority north of Kosovo.
︎ Trigger for the renewed excitement in the youngest country in Europe: to protest against the arrest of a former Serbian police officer, hundreds of Serbs gathered again on Sunday morning behind the street barricades they had set up, with which they have been paralyzing traffic at two Kosovan border crossings to Serbia since Saturday.
EU mission shelled with grenade
︎ Hours after the blockades were set up, the Kosovan police said they were attacked three times with firearms on one of the roads to the border.
︎ According to Eulex, a reconnaissance patrol from the EU mission Eulex, which is supposed to help the country build up the police, judiciary and administration, was shot at with a stun grenade.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell (75) sharply condemned the attacks. All sides must avoid any “escalation” and ensure calm, Borrell explained on Twitter. He called on the Kosovo Serbs to remove the blockades “immediately”.
Concerned about growing violence: KFOR task force leader Colonel Egon Frank
Bundeswehr operations leader warns of “continuous danger”
In view of the renewed tensions, the contingent leader of the Bundeswehr forces on site warned of the “continued danger” that the situation on site would deteriorate “in a very short time”.
The dissatisfaction of many people in northern Kosovo forms a “constant basis for possible escalations and potential for violence,” said the German KFOR contingent leader, Colonel Egon Frank „Welt“.
Polish KFOR soldiers patrol Mitrovica
And further: The NATO-led operation is “compulsory and indispensable for securing peace and stabilizing the situation on the ground,” explained Frank. Because the precarious situation in northern Kosovo is due to “organized crime, Serbian parallel structures and the unchanged potential for inter-ethnic conflict”.
Explosive: “Various Serbian actors” would use the people as an “instrument of Serbian influence”, says Frank.
Kosovo Serbs block the road
Balkans expert: “Serbia provokes”
Kosovo, with its predominantly Albanian population, declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, but is still viewed by Belgrade as a breakaway area and is not accepted as an independent state.
Adding fuel to the fire: Belgrade is encouraging the Serb minority in northern Kosovo in their attempts to defy Pristina’s authority. There has been tension for years. Most recently, the EU had successfully settled a dispute over car license plates – since Serbian nationalists do not want to accept Kosovar license plates.
“It is mainly Serbia that is provoking here. It would like to fully or partially reverse the results of the lost war of 1998/99,” explains Balkan expert Dr. Konrad Clewing (55) from the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Research to BILD.
Serb President demands his own soldiers in Kosovo
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić (52) demanded on Saturday evening that 1,000 Serbian soldiers and police officers should return to Kosovo. Belgrade intends to make its intentions towards the commander of the NATO-led Kosovo protection force, KFOR, official in the near future.
“The demand is a show for the Serbian audience. Serbia will not attack the security force – but the situation is explosive. A security vacuum has been created in northern Kosovo as a result of the resignation of the northern Kosovan-Serbian police officers from the Kosovan police force, which was controlled by Belgrade. This vacuum itself is dangerous. But dangerous in the sense of general stability, not in the sense of a threat of war,” said Clewing.
Serbian President Vučić wants to station his military in Kosovo
The background to the latest tensions were plans by the government in Pristina to schedule local elections in the Serb-majority areas for December 18.
The main Serb party immediately announced its boycott, and when the electoral authorities were about to start preparations earlier in the week there were shootings and explosions.
Shortly after the roadblocks were erected, Kosovo’s President Vjosa Osmani (40) postponed the elections to April 23 – a decision that the embassies of France, Germany, Italy, Great Britain and the USA as well as the EU representation immediately described as a “constructive contribution”. to stabilize the situation in northern Kosovo.
The fact is: “Serbia not only does not recognize the statehood of Kosovo, but tries to undermine this statehood wherever possible. That’s the heart of the problem,” explains Clewing. The EU has repeatedly warned the governments of both countries that EU accession is not possible without a settlement of the conflict. Serbia is already an accession candidate. Kosovo applied for EU membership on Wednesday.
KFOR soldiers inspect the Serbian road blockades
Russia is on Serbia’s side
The Kremlin called for the tensions to be settled “through diplomatic means”. “It is important to us that all Serbs’ rights are guaranteed,” said Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova accused the EU and the USA of being responsible for the worsening security situation in Kosovo. “Russia will continue to help Belgrade assert its legitimate national interests over Kosovo,” she said.
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Experts put it plainly: “Kosovo’s existence is endangered in the long term by the radical nature of Serbian politics. His de facto safety guarantee from the Kfor is only valid in the short and medium term. Only Kosovo’s equal membership in NATO can protect the country from Serbia in the long term,” says Clewing.
And further: “Under the impression of Russia’s war against Ukraine, the accession of as many European countries to NATO is of course also in the interest of the West and of NATO itself. Albania is already a member, as is Montenegro – why not Kosovo, where is the security policy need for it is greatest?”
