Kosova has two key problems. First key problem is divided town of Mitrovica. Second key problem is huge unemployment.

Key problems are not necessarily big problems. But key problems become big problems when you try wrong solutions. This is precisely what has happened in Kosova.

The issue of Mitrovica has been addressed in dialogue with Serbia and almost everything got worse. After local elections in November and December last year, ten municipalities in Kosova are now run by the Belgrade newly founded political party which is called Srpska (obviously alluding to Republika Srpska in Bosnia).

In 21st century, Serbia is trying to achieve Greater Serbia by the means of many small Serbias that they call Srpska.

Unlike the begining and the end of 20th century when legally and practically possesing territory was the way of hegemony, nowadays the same is rather attempted by controlling practically the territory that legally is not under their possesion. 

In general, Albanians are a strong nation with weak states. Serbs are not that strong nation with powerful state. Historically we had the conflict between Albanians as a nation and Serbia as a state.

In the Balkans, there can be no war without Serbia and no peace without Albanians.  Mitrovica can and should be united by using socio-economic meassures and political and security ones. The division is not to be identified as Albanian/Serb and north/south. There are Serbs in Mitrovica who have been living for decades there and who have nothing to do with parallel structures and they would rather stay in good relations with Albanians than with Serbs who went there after 1999. Then there are Serbs who benefit from parallel structures (pensions, social assistance etc.) but do not participate in them. Then there are Serbs who work for parallel structures in education, health care, culture, social issues etc. And then there are 300 to 400 Serbs who work for notorius MUP - security structures comanded by Belgrade. With these there should be no dialogue and no compromise.

Instead of dialogue between Kosova and Serbia we should have dialogue with Serbs of Kosova as citizens of our Republic. 

On the other hand, in Kosova we have had always dialogue for fulfilling different international standards but never a dialogue for economic development. Just as financial stability was maintained at the expense of development, likewise the political stability was preserved at the expense of justice.

Kosova is not poor and with vast unemployment due to culture of the society, history of the people or geology of its land but due to the wrong economic model. This is the neoliberal model which first installed the principle of privatisation and secondly the principle of infrastrusture, both times at the expense of any comprehensive vision for socio-economic development.

What we need is the developmental state where the state does not centralise economy but neither remains a spectator. We shall engage in economic development which focuses in manufacture and reindustrialisation of the country. We don't need just a new generation of politicians to lead the institutions but we also need a new generation of businessmen, outside and beyond these who got rich in periods of transition.  

Kosova is not an EU country, but Kosova is a country of EU. The name of our anthem is 'Europe' and entire EU is there: we have a strong European Commission Office, a Special Representative of EU, and, the EULEX - a 1200 staff mission which spends one million dollars per day.

Travelling around Kosova you could see everywhere so many different flags in the same place together: the kosovar flag, the Albanian flag, the EU flag, the US flag, the German and British flag etc. typically for a Brussels kind of political being.

While we are being told that our future is safe and secure in EU, our past is at risk more than ever. The attempts to criminalise the liberation war of the Albanians led by Kosova Liberation Army have enhaced like never before. After three years of dialogue with Serbia, we didn't get even visa liberalisation (I have a diplomatic passport with which I can go only to five countries without visa), and we even got a Special International Court for allegedly crimes of KLA members.  

Serbia is convinced that it does not have to choose between Kosova and EU because it can have both: advancing toward EU while not recognising Kosova and at the same time increasing its control inside Kosova through some sort of Rublika Srpska light in north of river Ibër and other Serb majority municipalities.

Again, Serbia is convinced that it does not have to choose between EU and Russia because it can have both: last year both Nikolic and Dacic met Putin in their visits to Russia and, including Vucic, they have very good cooperation in particular will Russian Minister of Defense, Sergei Shoigy.

It was no surprise that Vucic didn't condemn annexation of Crimea by Russia. In those EU circles that want to see EU closer to Russia and further away from USA, Serbia is having a priviledged position.   

Justice, Democracy and Development should be internal and domestic issues of Kosova while Serbia should be an external and foreign issue. Our government did exactly the opposite of this: Serbia is heavily internal issue and justice, democracy and development became external issues, matters of hope for foreign aid. Reversing this wrong order of things is essential to viable solution for Kosova's sovereignty and statehood

Back: Parliamentary delegation from Albania visits Kosovo 04/2014

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