EU doors open to the Balkans

The last “European” war was waged in these territories in the last years of the past millennium. Since then, Kosovo’s destiny remained an open wound for Pristine and Belgrade’s governments, and an obstacle to Brussels’ EU enlargement plans towards the South-East of the continent. Enlargement towards the Balkan countries is important t not only in economic and historical but also owing to the highly symbolical value of the region where the spark of the first world conflict was triggered, almost a century ago. Last week’s agreement between Serbia and Kosovo regarding the future of what Belgrade never ceased considering its own province, refusing to recognize its unilateral declaration of independence released 5 years ago, was warmly welcomed. The complex negotiations conducted with the support of European mediators allows for an association of four Serb-majority communities in the north of Kosovo, to which the Thaci government agreed to grant a large measure of autonomy in key areas of social life. The parties agree that crimes of Serb-Kosovar citizens (some 100 thousand people on an overall population of two million Albanians) will be judged by a Serb-majority appeals court. The minority group will be represented in all judicial systems of the country and will have their own police commander in four districts. They will administer economic development, health, education and urban planning … By the end of the year citizens living in the north of Kosovo will be called to the polls to elect local bodies under OCSE mediation. By recognizing control over Pristine in Northern Kosovo, Belgrade obtained the recognition and the protection of its minority residents, but most of all it overcame the major obstacle to the prosecution of the negotiations with all 27 Member States for EU membership. Serbia is required to meet this goal in order to turn a new page, leaving behind the tensions and violence that ensued the breakdown of former Yugoslavia, and most of all to curb the serious economic crisis, which the local population has to come to grips with every day. The Thaci Government has been rewarded for renouncing the use of force to define the future of the area with the launch of the process that could accelerate a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU (provided it halts widespread corruption and illegality within its institutions), and most important obtain free visa travel in the EU. To date, Kosovo inhabitants are the Balkan residents who cannot avail themselves of the free movement facilitations granted by the EU: a serious obstacle to those seeking a job outside a Country where one every two inhabitants is unemployed.The agreement stipulated must not be considered a point of arrival, especially in an area where the only certainty is the lack of certainties, more often than not. Now it’s Brussels’ turn to take an initiative, so that words may be followed by concrete facts, direly needed for a definitive pacification of the entire area, postponed for too long.