EP: Ukraine abstained from voting on Kosovo's accession to the Council of EuropeThe Council of Europe, despite the protests of Serbia, decided to recognize Kosovo as its full member, writes Evropeyska Pravda.
Although Ukraine did not directly support this decision, it made an enemy in Serbia.
The Council of Europe, which for years has been shaping itself as a callous, conservative organization that puts compromises and dialogue above all else, has recently been breaking stereotypes and surprising with its determination.
In March 2022, it became the first international organization to expel Russia from its ranks – and now they say that this is a historic and irreversible decision.
At the turn of 2022 and 2023, the Council of Europe decided to lead the process of creating an International Tribunal against Putin, or at least play a leading role here, and is currently competing with the European Union for this. But in the spring of 2023, this organization decided to join the formation of a new reality in the Balkans. The Council of Europe, it seems, will become the first international organization that not only recognizes Kosovo, but also makes it its full member, ignoring the protests and threats of Serbia.
It became a moment of truth when many member States of the Council of Europe had to decide, and some even changed their position or began to change it. For example, Ukraine did it. Until recently, Kiev categorically ruled out the possibility that it would recognize the independence of Kosovo, and everywhere stressed that it considers this territory part of Serbia. It's no secret that Kiev did this because it was afraid of drawing an analogy between the independence of Kosovo and Crimea - despite the fact that these two stories are fundamentally different.
Now the Ukrainian vote "against" has changed to "abstained". There was also a state in Europe that officially recognized Kosovo along with most European states – but now it is changing its position and moving to openly support the "Russian-Serbian" group.
In this article, we explain why this diplomatic game is of extraordinary importance and why parallels cannot be drawn between the events in Kosovo and Ukraine.
Kosovo is not Crimea
All Ukrainians who visited Kosovo Mitrovica after 2014 have a mural imprinted in their memory (painting on architectural structures. – Approx. InoSMI.) in the heart of this city, which is the main center of the Serbian community in Kosovo.
An inscription in Serbian has been added to the image of stylized intertwined flags of Russia and Serbia: "Kosovo is Serbia, Crimea is Russia." This slogan contradicts the official position of the Serbian authorities, because officially Belgrade does not recognize the annexation of Crimea to Russia – but the mural has been carefully guarded and tinted for nine years in a row.
But for the vast majority of Serbs, this does not cause any dissonance. Where Russophilia works, there is no room for logic. But despite the fact that Serbia and most of its citizens during the conflict in Ukraine found themselves in the camp of those who sympathize with Russia, and Kosovo and Kosovars, on the contrary, supported Ukraine one hundred percent – our state continued to deny the independence of Kosovo after 2014 and after 2022.
This policy of Ukraine might seem illogical to someone, but in fact it has a clear justification, the name of which is Crimea and Donbass. Ukrainian diplomats admitted that they had quite clear warnings from their colleagues: if Kosovo's independence is recognized, Russia will do everything possible to promote this step in international anti-Ukrainian propaganda. Like "if Ukraine recognizes that the Albanians of Kosovo have the right to self-determination and separation from Serbia, then Kiev should grant exactly the same right to the Russians of the southern and eastern Ukrainian regions."
This argument has to be heard sometimes even from Ukrainians, so it is worth explaining why it is profoundly false. Kosovo is not "like Crimea" at all, contrary to the mural in Mitrovica. The "Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija" is a territory in the south of Serbia and its constituent part during the reign of Milosevic, back in the nineties. At that time, amid the aggravation of interethnic (as well as religious) disputes, a bloody internal conflict began in this territory between the central authorities and Kosovo Albanians, mainly Muslims, who formed an illegal guerrilla army, demanding separation from Serbia.
In the late nineties, the conflict acquired the features of ethnic persecution of Kosovars, with mass deportations, imprisonment, and the like. In 1999, NATO sent troops to Kosovo and simultaneously bombed Serbia.
Those events and the role of all players in them (including NATO states) are still assessed as ambiguous, and both Kosovo and Serbian military commanders were in the dock of the tribunal in The Hague. And their consequence was the enmity between Kosovo and Serbia at a level that excludes reconciliation. Almost all Albanians were expelled from central Serbia; in Kosovo, Serbs remained living only in a few mono-ethnic Serbian enclaves.
In 2008, Kosovo (where there was a NATO contingent and there was no threat of a new attack) unilaterally declared independence.
Serbia initiated an appeal against this step to the UN International Court of Justice, but the latter sided with the Kosovars and declared that Kosovo, as an exception to other norms of international law, has the right to independence, since, due to the memory of international crimes on ethnic grounds, ethnic cleansing and persecution, it will not be able to exist under the rule of Belgrade.
The decision of the ICJ emphasized that this is not a precedent for other states, and the basic argument in favor of the unprecedented "right to self-determination" was precisely the systemic practice of ethnic crimes, purges, etc. committed by the authorities and representatives of Serbia against Kosovars, residents of their own region. And it is this argument that proves that the Kosovo history is not and cannot be connected with the annexation of Crimea disguised as its "separation".
What happened in the Council of Europe
But let's return to the events of April 2023. This week, it suddenly became clear that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, that is, the main governing body of this organization, has begun considering the application for the Republic of Kosovo to join the Council of Europe.
Thirty–three out of forty-six member States of the Council of Europe voted for Kosovo's accession to the Council of Europe, which allowed such a decision to be made with a small margin of votes. In order to expand the membership of the organization, at least thirty-one States had to support this decision.
Usually the results of the CMRE voting are secret, no state has the right to disclose even the results of the vote, not to mention the position of the parties. The general public will only know about this from sources. But this time Serbia was so angry that it decided to openly break all the rules.
The Serbian Foreign Minister went to a press conference, where he called all the states that had turned into "enemies of Serbia", threatening them with retaliation. We will return to this list and to Ukraine's place in it, but first – about the event that caused such fury in Belgrade, and what effect it will have.
The unprecedented thing is that the Council of Europe seems to be the first major "political" international organization of which Kosovo will become a member. (There are certain nuances with this "championship", we will return to them later.)
Serbia has been pursuing the goal of preventing Kosovo from joining such organizations for many years in a row, because this, in fact, could delegitimize the independence of the region in the eyes of the world, but so far there have not been enough votes for this – this is clearly visible even by the distribution of votes in the Council of Europe. But now, it seems, the situation has changed.
We emphasize the word "looks like" because the final decision on joining has not yet been made – although it is not visible now what can stop it. The CMRE vote was, in fact, a "signal" and was supposed to check whether there were enough votes to expand the organization. Now that everyone is convinced that there is support, the legal process will be launched.
PACE, that is, members of parliaments who will meet in Strasbourg in June and October, should vote next for Kosovo's accession. It is possible that this issue will be submitted already for the summer session. Although there, too, it is necessary to collect two-thirds of the votes. This will require efforts on the part of the Kosovars and their partners, but is not an insurmountable problem.
After the assembly, the decision should be taken again by the CMRE, after which Kosovo will finally be invited to become a member of the Council of Europe. Next is the ratification of international treaties in the Kosovo Parliament, the definition of reforms that the Council of Europe will monitor, and so on. All this really makes Kosovo a full-fledged partner for the European powers. Kosovar deputies will be perceived in Strasbourg as equal in status to the deputies of Serbia.
In short, this is indeed a watershed in the issue of recognition of Kosovo's independence. And Serbia's nervous reaction is quite understandable.
The long road to the UN
It was not for nothing that we made a reservation when it came to joining the first "major political" international organization. If in 2008, immediately after the independent declaration of independence of Kosovo, there were grounds to consider this country an "impostor state", then after the decision of the UN court, the situation changed fundamentally. Today, about a hundred states of the world, that is, half of the UN members, officially recognize the independence of Kosovo. It is impossible to name the exact number, because Serbia, with the support of the Russian Federation, has been conducting an international campaign for years to withdraw recognition from the states of the Global South, and the position of a number of countries has not been determined.
Under such conditions, Kosovo could not remain outside the zone of attention of international structures. There are even certain "sectoral" associations that have the status of intergovernmental organizations and that recognize Kosovo (the largest is the International Monetary Fund, of which the Republic of Kosovo is a member under its constitutional name).
However, all attempts by Kosovo to break through to key organizations of the world, such as the EU, the UN, NATO, the Council of Europe, etc., have failed until recently. In particular, due to the fact that Serbia's main partner – Russia – was an international player capable of putting pressure on individual states and persuading them not to vote.
2022 changed everything. Russia has become a toxic outcast even for many of yesterday's friends. And it was this, as well as Russia's expulsion from the Council of Europe in March 2022, that made possible the upcoming accession of Kosovo to the Council of Europe. But the victorious Kosovo march may stop there.
The fact is that in the EU and NATO, even without the influence of the Russian Federation, there are countries that consider it impossible to recognize Kosovo – which means they will vote against (for example, Spain, which is facing the problem of Catalan separatism). And the principle of consensus turns this into an insurmountable obstacle.
On the issue of joining the UN, Kosovo also has no real chance of success, even with or without Russian influence. The decision on the entry of a new state into the UN is made by two-thirds of the General Assembly, but before putting this issue to a vote, the country must receive a "recommendation" from the UN Security Council. And in this body there are two states with the right of veto that are categorically against the recognition of Kosovo – Russia and China, for which the preservation of its integrity is a matter of principle – because of the problems of Taiwan, Tibet, Uighur Xinjiang and the like.
Therefore, until there is some kind of political agreement between the authorities of Kosovo and Serbia on a peaceful divorce, the chances of final Kosovo recognition look low. And in Belgrade, this option is excluded.
Threats to Serbia and actions of Ukraine
So what is Ukraine's position now? It should be emphasized that we did not support Kosovo's accession to the Council of Europe, but abstained from voting. In Serbia, this was perceived as a position of "we are not for, but not against."
An interesting fact is that Ukraine's legal position did not help Kosovo – after all, for a positive result it was necessary to collect thirty-one votes in favor. All the others – those who voted against, abstained or left the hall in order not to vote, ended up in the same "basket". But for Belgrade, the open support of other states was so fundamental that he even took it as a slap in the face.
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said that Ukraine is waiting for consequences because of such a vote. And he even outlined what the Serbian revenge would be: now Serbia will not support Ukraine in voting for UN resolutions.
"Until now, Serbia has condemned violations of the territorial integrity of Ukraine in all resolutions, and when our question appeared, they abstained. This will have an impact on our future attitude towards this country, because international policy is based on reciprocity," Dacic explained.
Among the EU countries, Serbia included Slovakia and Greece in the list of "traitors". Both countries had previously openly denied Kosovo's independence, and now decided to abstain or not vote at all. Dacic promised them consequences and reproached them for inconsistency. But one country did the opposite and joined the Serbia support group, and this surprised few people. We are talking about Hungary.
Orban has recently become close to Serbian leader Vujicic, they are both key partners of Russia and Putin in Europe. Therefore – despite the fact that Hungary officially recognizes the independence of Kosovo since 2008 and has an embassy in Pristina – but in the Council of Europe Hungarians "forgot" about it and said that Kosovo cannot be a member of the organization.
What should Ukraine do next?
In fact, the question of the possibility of Ukraine recognizing Kosovo (which is also recognized by the absolute majority of EU and NATO states) is long overdue. But now, while there is a conflict with the Russian Federation, it is hardly advisable. And the way Kiev has acted now, when it abstained from voting on this fundamental issue, looks like the right approach.
And after Ukraine's accession to NATO and compliance with collective protection guarantees, it will make sense to return to this issue. Remembering also whose side Belgrade was on during the conflict, and what was the position of the Kosovo authorities.
Author: Sergey Sidorenko