Kosovo after the elections – a reality that Belgrade can no longer ignore

The convincing victory of the Vetevendosje Movement and Albin Kurti in the parliamentary elections in Kosovo did not bring political surprises, but brought clarity. The citizens of Kosovo confirmed the continuity of a political course built on a strong sovereignist discourse, a tough negotiating position towards Belgrade and a clear rejection of any solution that, from the perspective of Pristina, could produce a new “Republika Srpska” in northern Kosovo. With this result, the last illusions that the political scene in Pristina could move in a direction more favorable to the interests of official Belgrade were extinguished once and for all.

The new government, essentially a continuation of the previous one, faces the same key challenges: continuing the process of normalizing relations with Serbia and implementing the Brussels and Ohrid Agreements. At the center of this process remains the formation of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities, an issue around which negotiations have been broken off and political relations have clashed for years.

In this context, the regime in Serbia, according to this critical assessment, is misleading public opinion when it speaks of the “Association of Serbian Municipalities”, since legally there are no Serbian municipalities, but only municipalities in which Serbs constitute the ethnic majority. All municipalities in Kosovo are municipalities of Kosovo, a reality that Kurti, as Prime Minister, has managed to consolidate in practice during the past period. It is enough, as it is emphasized, to visit the official website of the Government of Serbia to be convinced that even Belgrade itself uses the term “Association of Serbian Majority Municipalities”.

Kurti further complicates the position of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić by imposing a new condition for the continuation of the dialogue: the extradition of Milan Radojčić from Serbia, to be tried in connection with the terrorist act in Banjska. After demonstrating electoral strength, Kurti is combining this political capital with the apparent weakening of Vučić in the European Union and the United States, with the aim of securing additional benefits for Kosovo in the coming period.

Meanwhile, the international community has long insisted that the formation of the Association is an obligation stemming from the Brussels Agreement and a prerequisite for Kosovo's European progress. However, Kurti's electoral victory has significantly strengthened his position to condition this process. As a main argument, Pristina emphasizes Belgrade's lack of cooperation in the criminal prosecution of those responsible for the events in Banjska, which Kosovo institutions and part of the international community describe as a terrorist attack aimed at violating the constitutional order and territorial integrity of Kosovo.

Kurti repeatedly reiterates that, within the constitutional and legal system of Kosovo, he will not allow the creation of an entity that would have executive or security powers similar to those of the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to his interpretation, such an arrangement would constitute a permanent source of instability and a potential base for separatist activities of criminal structures in northern Kosovo. It is along these lines that the new Kosovo government is expected to draft the Statute of Association and organize it essentially as part of the local self-government of the Republic of Kosovo, without substantial ties to Belgrade. Such an approach also finds support from the European Union and the United States, which do not want the creation of another dysfunctional state in the Western Balkans.

Have you noticed that the "Serbian List" is not mentioned? According to this position, there is no need. It is a small group of political representatives close to Aleksandar Vučić, with whom no one is expected to develop a serious dialogue, precisely because of their direct links to the structures that attacked KFOR soldiers in May 2023 and to the perpetrators of the terrorist act in Banjska.

It should be recalled that with Article 14 of the Brussels Agreement, both parties have pledged not to hinder each other on the path towards the European Union. For this reason, both Belgrade and Pristina are expected to be ready for European, compromise and democratic solutions, within the framework of the agreements already reached, and not to selectively interpret them.

For official Belgrade, the election results in Kosovo have a deeper and more unpleasant meaning. The strategy that predicted that the destabilization of northern Kosovo and continued pressure on Pristina would produce political changes and a “more favorable” interlocutor has collapsed. This erroneous assessment is linked to a number of other miscalculations – from unrealistic expectations for the return of Donald Trump to the mistaken reliance on personal and informal channels of influence in Washington.

Aleksandar Vučić's regime has not fulfilled its obligations under the 2020 Washington Agreement, thus exhausting even the little understanding that existed in the first administration of Donald Trump. In the new configuration of American power, there are no longer either Richard Grenell or Rudolph Giuliani - figures on whom Belgrade had invested politically for years, wasting millions of dollars on ineffective and amateurish lobbying. The scandal known as the "General Staff" affair has further compromised Vučić, practically excluding him from the circle of potential allies in Trump's political environment.

At the same time, Trump’s chronic lack of interest in the Western Balkans, which he perceives as an economically peripheral region, has opened up space for the growing influence of Germany and Turkey – two regional powers whose interests often directly conflict with the policies of the current regime in Belgrade. The result is the complete collapse of Vučić’s regional strategy: Serbia, in just a few years, has transformed from a self-proclaimed “regional leader” into an isolated actor, with an increasingly prominent role as a satellite of Russia.

In such an imbalance of power and political positions, Belgrade will face ever-increasing pressures and an ever-decreasing real influence on the processes related to Kosovo. In the medium term, a scenario in which Kosovo would become a member of the European Union and NATO before Serbia is also not unimaginable. Such a development would represent the final symbolic and political act of a long process, during which Serbia, through miscalculations and missed opportunities, has lost almost all leverage over an issue that it has considered a central state interest for decades.

If it wants to avoid such an outcome, Belgrade will have to face reality – and this reality is significantly more unfavorable today than it was just a few years ago. Nationalism, radicalism and Russophilia are presented as structural “diseases” of Serbia, which are pushing the country towards marginalization and political extinction. Unfortunately, according to this critical view, even the alternative to Vučić, embodied in the student list, fails to see this problem clearly. Under the justification of the need for a “catch-all” approach to overthrow the regime, the nationalist narrative and the myth of the “Kosovo pact” continue to dominate in their ranks.

The reality is that Vučić has not been significantly weakened by the opposition, but mainly by his wrong foreign policy. However, this topic, as warned, will be addressed in a separate analysis below.

Dragan Shormaz