Kosovo marks today, Wednesday the 17th, the second anniversary of its unilateral declaration of independence, UDI from Serbia. The majority of the members of the UN have not recognized the independence of the Serbian province, despite the politically motivated recognition by 60 countries, mainly EU members.
The first countries to recognize Kosovo's UDI were the U.S, Britain, Germany and France, as was to be expected. Washington and Brussels were the brains behind the infamous Ahtissari "plan" that cut away a piece of the Balkan pie. The four master planners had then promised to guarantee security in the province and to help restore its war shattered economy; they had also promised that investors will be falling over each other to put their money in Kosovo, and that the Serbian province has a good chance of integrating into the larger Europe.
Perhaps Kosovo is not destined to become a thriving province any time soon, and its political structure leaves much to be desired, said Pavel Kandel of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute for Europe.
The turning of Kosovo into a democratic society, where Serbs, Albanians and other minority communities can live in peace and harmony is, to put it mildly, a nigh impossible mission, said Kandel. For one, Northern Kosovo, inhabited mainly by Serbs, is outside the control of the Pristina rulers. For another, a large number of Serbian refugees, about 200 thousands have not returned to their homes in Kosovo. Finally, and perhaps the most important, Kosovo is having to deal with the old problems of population explosion and high unemployment, two sensitive issues which often lead to social tension. There was the hope that independence will bring large investments to Kosovo, but it has not happened, the reason being the low level of education and qualification of the locals; migration is equally a difficult problem, and a spill-over of tension from neighbouring Macedonia remains a distinct possibility since the Albanian population in Macedonia have also started to agitate for independence and a merger with Kosovo. There is nothing to write home about the two years of independence of Kosovo. Western countries, which encouraged Pristina to fight for independence have got a difficult child to nurse and raise: crime is rampant and is compounded by the struggle for power between the Albanian different clans. Meanwhile, Kosovo is trying to prove its right to independence in the Hague UN International Court. The President of Serbia, Boris Tadzic is confident that the Hague Court will rule in favour of a restart of negotiations on the status of Kosovo, adding a few days ago that Kosovo can never become a member of the UN without Belgrade's consent, meaning that the recognition by 63 our of the 192 members of the UN, amounts only to a statement of fact and nothing more.
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