Why Nikolic won and what it means

The victory of Tomislav Nikolić in the second round of Serbia’s presidential elections last Sunday surprised most observers, including myself, and demonstrated once more how unreliable most opinion polls in Serbia are. Already in March (in fact in January he first wrote it), Dušan Pavlović, a good friend and a level-headed observer of politics, made a key observation: Tadić scheduled presidential and parliamentary elections to take place at the same time to have his popularity “rub off” on the Democratic Party which has been considerably less popular then him personally. The idea was that by combining the two elections, DS would be more likely to win a new majority in parliament. But Dušan Pavlović wondered, rightly as it turns out,  whether the dynamic could not also work the other way around: What is the unpopular party tainted Tadić as candidate?

This is perfectly captured by the cartoon below by Marko Somborac, whose cartoons in Blic are some of the best analysis of Serbian politics. So, just like Slobodan Milošević in 2000, Tadić announces early presidential elections asking the question, “What is the worst that could happen?”

The worst happened, at least for Tadić. The quick deal with SPS after the first round of elections sent the wrong signal, there will not be change: Before Sunday night, it looked like the government will be very much the same, as will  be the president. This was clearly too much of the same for too many voters. What tainted Tadić in the eyes of many liberals has been his dominance of the government and holding onto the presidency of the party while being president, controlling the PM and giving too much space to Ivica Dačić and SPS–a coalition that seemed to have developed into a relationship. It is thus that not only Vesna Pešić, but also others who belong to the liberal end of Serbian politics decided to vote for Nikolić (or at least threaten they would).

For many ordinary citizens, DS and Tadić were also no longer the clear “European” option, as Eric Gordy notes: ” All the harm people had been warned to expect from Tomislav Nikolić had already been inflicted by Boris Tadić.” In addition, the difficult economic situation does not help any incumbent. Finally, the DS committed a strategic mistake in its  electoral campaign: The campaign was largely negative, warning of the dangers a victory of Nikolić and SNS. Once more to quote a cartoon by Marko Somborac, where he depicts a DS election poster stating “We know, unemployment, corruption, bad living standards, but ‘buh! Toma!”.

A campaign based on fear of a Nikolić victory was credible in 2004 and 2008 when he stood for the SRS, but todays SNS is hard to distinguish from the Democratic Party, especially when it comes to the two big themes EU and Kosovo. Thus, the transformation of the political system since the break up of the Radicals has been ignored by Tadić’s campaign, while citizens did note that there has been this important shift.  Thus, observers like Andreas Ernst of the NZZ are right that the outcome is more a punishment of Tadić than a victory for Nikolić (who did not seem to expect to win), yet without Nikolić’s transformation, this outcome would not have been possible. In short, many who either did not vote at all or voted for Nikolić last Sunday are not only punishing Tadić because of Tadić’s policies, but also because it became possible to punish him by voting for Nikolić.

So what does this mean? A long, excellent, interview Michael Martens from the FAZ conducted with Nikolić shortly before the elections demonstrates why there is good reason for any Serbian citizen to be embarrassed that this man became Serbia’s president. Not the fact that his academic credentials are dubious, but the fact that is unwilling to own up to his past and his cynical and hateful statements until a few years ago.  It seems clear that he has made a political turn-around after 2008 and all the first signals after his election victory suggest that he will continue along these lines, but his often twisted and confused responses about past statements suggest that the break was pragmatic, not substantial.

It is easy to be a good European in opposition when the price is low–but whether he is able and willing to make difficult compromises is far from obvious. He thus runs the risk of becoming another fair-weather European politician in the region, who likes the EU because voters do, but not when it comes to giving some pet issues. Of course, he might also be able to turn out to deliver on key issues, such as Kosovo, as he does not need to worry about a strong contender to his right calling him a traitor. Whether he will be come part-time pro-European politician or will be willing to make painful compromises remains far from obvious. Finally, if he is unable to forge a SNS led coalition, he might remain a lame duck president, reduced to the constitutional powers of the president. That in its own right might not be such a bad thing for Serbia’s democracy.

…and the winner is Tadić

After I posted my comment that I consider Dačić not the winner of the Serbian elections, Tim Judah was surprised that I consider Tadić the winner of the elections, even before the second round of elections. Consider that his coalition only 22.11% of the vote and he got 25.31% in the presidential elections, this does seem counter-intuitive.

This is why I think that despite the numbers, Tadić is the winner:

First, his party did a lot better than it appears at first glance. While the DS-led coalition “For a European Serbia” gained 102 seats in parliament last time around, this time around the “Choice for a better life” coalition of the DS gained only 67 seats. However, in 2008, DS ran together with more singificant partners, most importantly G17plus which ran as the new United Regions of Serbia independently this time around, gaining 16 seats. Thus, in total of 83 seats, down from 102 by 20, but not a huge loss.The loss of the DS share is even smaller. Only 64 of the 102 MPs were from the DS. While DS will have to leave some seats to its partners from the 67 gained in 2012, it will retain a proportionally larger share as the partners were much smaller this time around.

Second, the loss was also cushioned by the limited success of Nikolić SNS. It has taken over most SRS voters since 2008 and its results in 2012 were sure a success for the party. Nevertheless, the number of seats gained by the SNS in 2012 is 73 or 5 less than the SRS in 2008. As a result, DS no longer is heading the largest coalition as it did in 2008, but the opponents took a beating as well.

Third, in the presidential elections in 2008, Tadić gained around 10% more than this time, but Nikolić gained 15% more last time around and was in first place. Thus, there has been a stronger showing of additional candidates, such as Dačić, but this was hurt Nikolić more and considering the more support for other candidates for Tadić, he is likely to win by a larger margin than last time around.

Altogether, this is a success for Tadić, who has been president for 8 years and it thus likely to become the longest serving president in the region, as he ducked the 2 term limit common throughout the region, including Serbia, through the passing of a new constitution. In addition, the opposition to the DS is likely to weaken as Nikolić seems like the eternal loser, having run for president in 2000 (of Yugoslavia), 2003, 2004, 2008 and 2012.

Finally, in light of the economic crisis that also hit Serbia hard after 2008 and the tendency of incumbents to lose in European elections, including in the region (Croatia, Slovenia), the elections results suggest that the true winner is Tadić.

And the winner is…not Ivica Dačić

After some newspapers misleadingly declared that Serbia was once more “at the crossroads” before the latest elections, the Socialist Party of Serbia and its president Ivica Dačić was declared the “winner” of these elections. However, if Dačić were the winner, he only achieved a Pyrrhic victory. Indeed, his party and its two partners did very well, gaining 14.7 percent of the vote, a larger share than most opinion polls had predicted. This was also a success as for most of the past four years, it was not sure to which degree its electorate would follow the party’s reorientation after 2008 when it formed a coalition with Tadićs Democratic Party. However, the party and its president failed in one key aspect. Its power derives from its ability to be an indispensable partner for Tadić and being the only party that could form a coalition with the Progressive Party (SNS) of Tomislav Nikolić just as easily as with the Democratic Party. This ability to join different governing coalitions would have given it tremendous bargaining power and Dačić made no secret of his desire to become Prime Minister.

However, the election results did not go his way. Despite the party’s own success, the result of the Progressive Party has meant that a coalition between Socialists and Progressives would not suffice to form a government. The SNS and the SPS (and its partners) only hold 118 seats, not enough for the necessary majority of 126 deputies. There are no obvious partners in parliament to grant the two parties the crucial additional 8 MPs. Minority parties would be unlikely to support such a coalition and the Democratic Party of Serbia of former Prime Minister Koštunica has positioned itself so far to the right, openly rejecting EU membership, that they are not a viable partner for the two parties that claim to have become advocates of EU integration.

As a result, the SPS can demand an increased share of ministers due to its greater electoral support from the Democratic Party, but it cannot maximize its influence by threatening to provide a majority for Tomislav Nikolić. Ironically, the Democratic Party has more options. If the SPS tries to extract a too high price from it for joining the government it could form a “grand coalition” with the Progressives. Considering that Tadić wants to win the second round of presidential elections against Nikolić, it is not surprising that Democrats and Socialists came to an agreement about future cooperation just days after the elections. When it comes to negotiating the new government, the hand of Dačić will be tied and the party will certainly get greater influence in the government, any threat to not join the Democrats will sound hollow. Thus, all the signs point to a new governing coalition which does not look very different from the old one.

When Bosnia was Divided in Graz

Only a month had passed since the beginning of the war in Bosnia when the Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžić meet with new strong man in the Bosnian Croat HDZ Mate Boban for a secret meeting at the Graz airport on 6 May 1992. At this point, the HDZ was still formally a coalition partner to the Muslim SDA in the Bosnian government, but this alliance was quickly unraveling. It was thus that this meeting was officially “secret”, even though the Austrian media, including the state broadcaster ORF, and later the international press reported extensively from this event. The content of this meeting remained silent, as there was no official announcement and the Croat delegation left the five hour meeting without speaking to journalists. Karadžić however revealed to reporters and, as the Austrian daily “Die Presse“ notes on 7.5.1992,  that the talks focused on the “cantonization of Bosnia”. Already at the time, Austrian tabloids speculated, as it turns out rightly, whether the meeting had as its goal the partition of Bosnia.

Karadzic at the Graz Airport, 6 May 1992

The meeting in Graz between Boban and Karadžić follows an earlier, better known meeting between the Serbian and Croat preisdents, Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tudjman, in March 1991 in Titos old hunting lodge where both had already agreed on the partition of Bosnia. How much Karadžić and Boban received the backing of the two republics also became obvious as Karadžić arrived with the plan of the Yugoslav government and Boban with a car of the Croatian authorities.

So what did Boban and Karadžić agree on in Graz? Despite speculation about the partition of Bosnia by media and frequent reference to the agreement during trials at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the content remains largely unknown. Neverthless, the Bosnian daily “Oslobodjenje“ proved to be well informed a few days after teh meeting, correctly identifying the content of the agreement. The agreement itself was later published by the Croatian politician Zdravko Tomić. Austrian journalists noticed that the Croat and Serb delegation focused on a large Bosnian map showing the demographic distribution. The Agreement indeed focused on drawing a line of division between Croat and Serb spheres of influence in Bosnia, effectively dividing the country without the third and largest community being represented at the table.

Croat and Serb representatives do not agree on all matters in Graz. While Karadžić considers the river Neretva the border between Serb and Croat territories in Herzegovina, the Croat delegation supports the border of the 1939 Croat banovina instead. In the North of Bosnia the two delegations agree on the division of territory along the strategically important Posavina corridor that connects the region around Banja Luka with Serbia. The Agreement concludes that „as a consequence of what has been agreed there is no reason for further armed conflicts between Serbs and Croats on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina “.

Kleine Zeitung, 7 May 1992

The Agreement does not in a single word mention the Muslim population (not to mention anybody else). This is particularly absurd when dividing Mostar, the scene of intense battles between Croat and Bosnian government forces just a year later. The agreement notes that Croats claim all of the city, while Serbs see the Neretva river once more as the line of division.

During his trial at the ICTY Karadžić noted the importance of the agreement as it largely put an end to the Serb-Croat conflict. Similarly the well respected Serbian journalist Miloš Vasić noted in 1993 that the Grazer Agreement constituted „perhaps the single most important document of the Bosnian war“, as it enabled the Bosnian Serb army to focus on Muslim targets and prepared the ground for the two side war against the Bosnian government in 1993.

The maps on which the nationalist leaders drew new borders have been rolled out before Graz: The European Community represented by Portugese diplomat José Cutileiro suggest the creation of ethnically defined cantons already in February 1992 at the insistence of nationalist politicians. The division of Bosnia also had been decided already in 1991. In Graz, however, new borders were drawn for the first time and one conflict, the Croat-Serb one in Bosnia, came to an end so that the overall war would continue much longer. The consequence of the agreement was the Croat-Muslim war within the war which only came to an end in 1994 with the Washington Agreement, a prerequisite for the Dayton Peace Agreement.

What remains of the Graz Agreement? With more than three years of war with and some 100,000 victims, the borders Boban and Karadžić drew in Graz were drawn and redrawn, some changed, others remained the same. The border between the Croat and Serb dominated regions of Herzegovina is similar to the 1939 Croat banovina, as Croat negotiators in Graz had hoped. The Posavina region has remained under control of the Serb Republic, even if it is divided by the District of Brčko. More important than the maps is the idea that Bosnia should be divided along ethnic lines. Despite (or because of) the Dayton Peace Agreement and extensive international support for refugee return, most of Bosnia remains divided into ethnically largely homogenous regions. The Graz agreement is thus a reminder 20 years after its conclusion of the failure of international mediation and ruthlessness of nationalist “leaders” to divided lands without any consideration of the people living there. While Mate Boban died in 1997 and Radovan Karadžić stands trial in The Hague, their ideas, maps and plans remain alive.

(thanks to Nidžara Ahmetašević and Iva Komšić  for researching the background materials).

The non-historical elections in Serbia

For once, elections in Serbia will not be a historical crossroads during next Sundays elections. News reports over the past decade have termed all parliamentary and presidential elections as historical: they were in 2003 over the success of DOS in the aftermath of the overthrow of Milosevic, in 2007 and 2008 the Kosovo issue raised the spectre of a take-over by the radicals. The elections this year are historical for Serbia only for not being historical. For the first time since the introduction of multiparty elections in 1990, it will matter not that much which of the two largest parties wins the elections.

Serbian superheros

There is no doubt that Tomislav Nikolic and many from the “Progressive” Party (SNS) have an unsavory past with the Radicals and their statements and policies during their previous life are hard to accept, but they stated goals differs only marginally from the Democratic Party. Of course, one can doubt their committment the EU integration and liberal policies or, more importantly, their competence, but there is little doubt that the battleground in Serbia has shifted towards the centre. Already in 2003 and 2007 the Radicals became the largest party less for their extreme nationalist positions, but rather for their social populism.Today, the is little appeite among either the electorate or the SNS to challenge the consensus that has emerged in Serbian politics over EU integration, reform and a rhetorical committment to Kosovo.

Latest opinion polls seem to suggest that the SNS might be narrowly defeated by the Democrats. Even if this is not the case, they will have a hard time to form a government, having a much more limited choice of potential coalition partners: both the Radicals and Kostunica would take the SNS away from its desired international rehabilitation and make any progress in terms of EU integration impossible, leaving the SNS only the coalition around the Socialist Party of Ivica Dacic as a significant partner. The DS can count on the popularity of Boris Tadic and three partners tipped to enter parliament, the liberal reformist LDP, the eternal governing party (since 2000) G17 now called United Regions of Serbia (in cooperation with some local strongmen) and the Socialist Party.

Thus, the elections seem to point towards a continuation of the current government with some reconfiguration among the coalition partners–and even if this were not the case, Serbia has moved towards a political system that is far from perfect, but fear that every election is a juncture between EU and abyss is no longer justified.

Serbia’s candidate status delay: Romania, the Vlachs of Serbia and the EU

After everybody expected a smooth confirmation of Serbia’s EU candidate status today, following the agreement between Belgrade and Prishtina last week and the support for status by Germany that had earlier blocked Serbia’s bid, the decision seems to have hit an unexpdected snag. Romania has blocked a final decision over the treatment of the Vlach minority in Serbia. This blockage is both surprising and worrying, even if it ended after just a few hours:

Romania had not indicated earlier any intention to block the EU candidate status for Serbia. It appears to have been a surprise by many observers . Such last minute efforts to push ones own agenda on such an important issue is clearly worse than a little sneaky. It undermines the already weak credibility in the region and leave the impression that accession countries can fulfill conditions, but member states will come up with their own ecclectic agenda. As a result, legitimate conditions are tainted by such requests. There is a further problem with Romania’s blockage: While the status of Vlachs leaves much to be desired, the treatment of the community certainly does not merit such an intervention. The most recent report of the Advistory Committee for the Framework Convention notes a number of problems, but nothing either that substantial or specific for the community that would merit such a drastic kin state intervention (if Romania is a kin state at all, a role not accepted by all Vlachs in Serbia).

Delaying Serbia’s candidate status is also likely to doubly hurt the Vlach, Romanian and other minorities in Serbia. The use of the kin state to block (even if it will turn out for a few hours) progress towards the EU over minority rights is only going to have a negative impact on minority rights. Of course, the EU accession process is a key tool to improve minority rights, but not like this: Giving Serbia candidate status and beginning negotiations is much more likely to improve the status of minorities than letting Serbia wait. As with other aspects of the accession process, the actual negotiations are the most effective tool to secure change rather than punishing a country. As a result, the Vlack minority will be more likely to benefit from the candidate status for Serbia as soon as possible rather than from Romania’s intervention at this point. Of course, once negotiations start, the minority rights agenda will be driven by the Commission, not by member states. This means that kin states like Romania now might be less interested in genuine minority rights and rather in flexing their smallish muscle and present themselves as the protector of national interests. Considering the large number of cross border minorities and kin states in the region, the Romanian delaying tactic is a worrying signal for the EU enlargement process and unfortunately unlikely to do much good for minority rights.

 

 

The Significance of the Belgrade-Prishtina Agreement

As most compromises, the agreement between Serbia and Kosovo concluded a few days ago contains its share of absurdity. Kosovo can now participate in regional meetings with a footnote referring to the UN SC resolution 1244 and the ICJ opinion the declaration of independence, but these two references are meaningless. 1244 refers to the interim status of Kosovo that has clearly passed, even within a new UN SC resolution and the ICJ opinion is clear on the declaration of independence, but does not tackle the independence of Kosovo itself. It is similar to attaching a footnote to an apple pie saying that apples can be prepared in many different ways and a second note that an apple pie can call itself what ever it wants.

However, the meaninglessness of these disclaimers aside, the agreement has greater significance: It is the first time that Serbia has accepted the Kosovo government to represent Kosovo at the international level directly, rather than being formally represented by the UN mission or being able to participate, but without a mandate. As a result, this solution could be path-breaking for Kosovo in the future. The solution could outline the direction in which Kosovo could eventually co-exist with Serbia in the international arena. Since the declaration of independence in 2008, the challenge has been to find a way in which Serbia can live with Kosovo without extending full recognition and this agreement outlines the mode through which this could be achieved. Serbia recognizes Kosovo as a separate entity with a government, while stopping short of international recognition. Such a solution could open the door for membership in other international organizations and also eventual EU membership. The step from extending this solution from regional meetings to international organizations is small and has now become conceivable. If the agreement holds and proves to be a acceptable solution for both Kosovo and Serbia, the ball is in the court of the EU to outline a credible EU integration perspective for Kosovo and for the five EU member that have not recognized Kosovo to reconsider their stance. Of course, relations between Serbia and Kosovo will remain on the agenda and the agreement does not resolve the many remaining questions, but it might turn out to be a bigger step than the mediators and the parties have anticipated.

Stagnation or the consolidation of not-quite democracy in the Balkans

A few days ago, I attended an interesting discussion on democracy in Serbia. The panel presented a recent survey conducted by the Institute for Social Sciences in Belgrade. The results were not overall surprising, but highlight some interesting trends. In particular, most striking was the fact that while most citizens support a democratic system of government, they have a very skeptical view of democracy and a majority does not consider Serbia to be a full democracy, but some kind of hybrid between democracy and authoritarianism. This is  a considerably more gloomy view of democracy than rankings such as Nations in Transit or the Bertelsmann Index. It might be time for these to also take popular assessments of democracy in the respective country into account. Beyond that, there seems to be some a trend of democratic stagnation in the region. None of the regimes in the Western Balkans are dictatorships, but neither are they consolidated democracies. The problem already lies in the terminology: The term unconsolidated democracy, as used by Nations in Transit and many scholars implicitly suggests that it is “natural” to move to a consolidated democracy. In recent years, hybrid regimes have been taken more seriously and we had recently a good discussion on this regime type by Ivan Vukovic, a visiting fellow at the Center for Southeast European Studies, however the terminology is still often confused and confusing. Both the semi-authoritarian regimes of the 1990s (Milosevic, Tudjman) were hybrid regimes, as are the governments of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Bosnia etc. today. Of course, they differ substantially, the former leaned more towards authoritarianism and the latter more towards democracy. The question arising from the discussion, especially with Irena Ristic and Vedran Dzihic, was whether or not these types of regimes should be considered not just a temporary glitch, but rather as a discreet and stable type of regime.

Decreasing support for EU integration and elsewhere in the region, as well as democratic backsliding in countries like Hungary suggest that there might be a permanent “democracy gap” in the making, i.e. the current democracies in Southeastern Europe might be stable and have a number of features that set them apart from liberal democracies. However, rather than seeing it as a deviation towards the inevitable goal of a consolidated liberal democracy inside the EU, it might be helpful to consider them as there to stay, EU membership or not. Of course, this is not to argue that there a liberal democracy is intrinsically impossible in the Balkans, a point that would smack of essentialism, but rapid change and catching up seems unlikely. If one takes this perspective, understanding how these regimes work is not just tell the story of how they deviate from liberal democracy, but rather how they empower particular elites and are strikingly resilient and adaptable. It also means that our tools to analyse these kinds of democracy are entirely inadequate. For example, Irena was noting that while party membership might indicate popular engagement with politics in a consolidated democracy, in hybrid regimes in Southeastern Europe, party membership means access to jobs, and not political engagement.

The Risks and Benefits of Ethnic Citizenship

Millions of people in Southeastern Europe are citizens of more than one state. Many acquired this status when they were gastarbajteri [guestworkers] in Germany, Austria and elsewhere in Western Europe; others received a second passport as they fled the wars that accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia. For some people, dual citizenship seems due to a quirk of fate: for example, their father may have been born in a different Yugoslav republic than they and held that republican citizenship when Yugoslavia was still a single country and when republican citizenship had no practical significance. Due to some long abandoned vestiges of patriarchal rules, today they have the right to a second citizenship of a republic they never lived in. Among the many ‘multi-citizens’ of Southeastern Europe there are probably a million who have received passports from countries they have never lived in. Hundreds of thousands of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina hold Croatian citizenship as a result of their ethnic Croat identity. Over 50,000 Macedonians also became citizens of Bulgaria after declaring themselves to be ethnically Bulgarian. Recently, Serbs from Bosnia (and elsewhere) have been able to become Serbian citizens by declaring their loyalty to Serbia—most prominently, President of the Serb Republic, one of the two Bosnian entities, and Milorad Dodik, who publicly submitted his request for citizenship to the Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić in 2007. Nearly a million Moldovan citizens have applied for Romanian passports and over 100,000 have been granted EU citizenship, on the grounds that they are descendents of former Romanian citizens who lost their Romanian citizenship when Bessarabia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1944.

Read the rest of the comment at: http://www.citsee.eu/op-ed/risks-and-benefits-ethnic-citizenship

 

Kosovo: Of Talks and Violence

Just three weeks ago, relations between Serbia and Kosovo seemed to have been the best in many years. A first agreement between the two governments paved the way for increased freedom of movement in regard to travel with ID cards, license plates and other technical issues. The atmosphere between the key negotiators Edita Tahiri and Borko Stefanovic seems professional.

The nationalist opposition in Serbia and Kosovo opposed the agreement, with Vetevendosje suggesting that it further undermines Kosovo’s sovereignty and DSS and the Radicals in Serbia arguing that the agreement leads to Serbia’s recognition of Kosovo. In brief, it was exactly what the EU had hoped to accomplish, a practical first step which paves the way to further negotiations and building confidence between the parties which had mostly talked at each other. This outcome was more encouraging that most observers (including myself) had predicted due to the upcoming Serbian elections early in 2012 and the rather weak Kosovo government. The reason it became possible was combination of the Serbian government banking on the EU candidate status prior to elections and an agreement with Kosovo can only improve the odds. The Kosovo government on the other hand appears to have trying to regain its international legitimacy through serious talks, after Thaci was tainted through the Marty report and the flawed parliamentary elections.

How did this success in talks so quickly descend into the latest round of violence? The talks did not resolve the issue of Kosovo products being able to enter the Serbian market, which has been impossible to date and hurt the fledgeling Kosovo economy. In an apparent move to improve Kosovo’s bargaining position and in response to Serbia apparently stepping away from a deal of customs (talks scheduled for mid-July were postponed for September as parties were unable to come to an agreement), Kosovo banned the import of Serbian goods. As Tim Judah convincingly argues, this was an unpleasant surprise for the Serbian government, as it suddenly and unexpectedly upped Kosovo bargaining power in talks where the pressure on Serbia traditionally came from Brussels (or Washington), not Prishtina. Of course, the implementation of such a ban is impossible as long as the borders as permeable and the government has few options of preventing the import of Serbian goods. If it would stop such goods on the border between north and south Kosovo around Mitrovica, it would only help consolidate the partition. Thus, it dispatched the special police unit ROSU to take over the two main border posts between Kosovo and Serbia in the North. It reached one and was blocked by Serbs barricades at the other. However, it was not to stay for long and was forced to withdraw soon thereafter under international pressure. During operation, a ROSU member was shot and killed by a sniper, presumably linked to local Serb nationalist structures. The barricades erected in the North and the subsequent burning down of the Jarinje border post by hooligans (according to Tadic) or a local smuggler (according to Blic) mobilized the Serbian parallel power structures in the North and further raised the stakes.

Apparently, the Kosovo government sent the police without consent of either the EU or the US government and the operation seem to have been planned by the government rather than being a regular police operation. Altogether this would mean that the operation was effort by the government to create a fait accompli (on a side: Milos Vasic reminds us that seizing customs posts is also how the war in Slovenia began in June 1991).

The incidents have fueled suspicions on both sides and encouraged both extremists  and spoilers. While the Kosovo government and media appear to be convinced that the Serbian government was behind the burning down of the border post in Jarinje, the Serbian media had a hard time imagining that the police operation could take place without international support.

The Kosovo government now threatend that it would arrest the Minister for Kosovo Goran Bogdanovic and the chief negotiator Borko Stefanovic if they entered Kosovo. While this is a symbolic gesture as the ability of the Kosovo authorities to arrest them in the North is limited, it undermines future talks and links the incidents back to the negotiations.

Although the official goal of the police operation failed, Prime Minister Thaci claims that there is no return to the status quo ante. He might be saying this to save face after the failure of the operation. Alternatively, one can consider the operation a success. He gained credibility domestically and for the first time the Kosovo government took the initiative without seeming to be remote controlled by the US embassy or others. The operation certainly put the status of the north on the agenda. The price the government might have been too high, though. First, the operation, which seems clearly reckless (it reminds of Saakashvili ill-fated intervention in S. Ossetia in August 2008) and without much promise to lead to a real rather than symbolic change, suggests that the Kosovo authorities have become more unpredictable and willing to use unilateral force to change the situation in their favor. Second, it would also seem to strengthen hardliners in Serbia who have warned about armed intervention of the Kosovo authorities in the North. Finally, the operation is unlikely to have earned the government international sympathies, even from close allies.

As the violence seems to have ended and Kosovo’s North returns to the “tense, but calm” status, where does this leave talks and the parties? Both sides come out looking more vulnerable: Serbia for the first time felt pressure from the Kosovo government through the boycott and the police action, even if brief and ultimately unsuccessful. Kosovo has noticed that it cannot established its authority in the North without international consent. The international presence is reminded that the situation can escalate very quickly and limited the escalation of violence requires a strong KFOR presence. One good side effect of the violence might be that it shed a light on the continued criminal security structures in the North. No matter how one thinks about the ROSU police operation, the killing by sniper of a police officer and the burning of border post suggest that these networks remain ready to use force quickly to protect their interests. While Tadic has been seeking to reduce the influence of the political representatives of these structures, the incidents might encourage the Serbian authorities to clean up the North of Kosovo more vigorously.

Despite all the posturing at the moment, it seems unlikely that talks will not continue, both governments have too much to gain, yet the violence is a reminder that negotiations are determined not just on the negotiation table, but also on the streets of the North of Kosovo.

P.S. As reader pointed out, the Kosovo government was successful in as far as KFOR upon taking control of border posts at least temporarily blocked all further trucks coming from Serbia.