The Proposed Territorial Exchange between Serbia and Kosovo.

• Author: Zdravkovski, Aleksander
• Position: COMMENTRY - Report

Vucic's Proposal

In February 2018, former U.S. President Bill Clinton congratulated the people of Kosovo on the 10th anniversary of their independence from Serbia. By way of a warning, he emphasized the fact that the youngest country in Europe needed to strengthen the rule of law and the protection of minorities. (1) That same year in July, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic reintroduced the old idea of an exchange of territories between his country and Kosovo. According to this scheme, Belgrade would acquire direct control over the northern part of Kosovo and, in return, Serbia would recognize the independence of its former autonomous province and compensate Pristina by ceding three towns in southern Serbia--Bujanovac, Medvedja, and Presevo--to Kosovo. Needless to say, Vucic's proposal provoked a flurry of negative reactions, both internationally and domestically. In Kosovo, the plan has gained some traction with President Hashim Thaci; on the other hand, Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj and various opposition groups have vehemently opposed the idea, stating that such a land swap could trigger a local war. (2) In Serbia, the plan was immediately rejected by the Serbian Orthodox Church and by nationalist parties such as the Serbian Radical Party and the Dveri Movement. Among Serbs, an opinion poll conducted in October 2018 found that, while a majority of Serbs favored direct talks between Serbian and Kosovar government officials, 61 percent opposed ceding the Presevo valley, where the three towns with large Albanian populations are located, and 76 percent opposed Serbian recognition of Kosovo. (3) Internationally, the idea also received mixed reactions. The U.S. administration did not oppose the project, but within the EU, no consensus was reached. The German government expressed negative attitudes regarding Vucic's plan, while the European Union's Foreign Policy Chief, Federica Mogherini defended the proposal to carry out the exchange of territories. (4) In order to understand the current developments and possible outcomes of these novel political dynamics, a short synopsis of the Kosovo crisis is essential.

The Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s and the Kosovo Crisis

In 1989, Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his government suppressed the autonomy of Serbia's two provinces, Kosovo and Vojvodina. While the regime claimed that this move was intended to restore and assure security to the Serbs who were allegedly under threat from Albanians in Kosovo, the Serbian leader's real objective was to build his personal power, bolstering his preponderance within the collective presidency of Socialist Yugoslavia. With the help of the security apparatus, Milosevic successfully crushed the largely peaceful ethnic Albanian resistance in Kosovo. (5) The Albanian community responded by boycotting Serbian institutions, elections, censuses, etc. Serbian authorities showed their contempt for local Albanians, who constituted the majority of the province's population, by dismissing many Albanians from their posts, bringing in Serbian students to attend classes at the University of Pristina, renaming streets and public squares, and removing the names of Albanian heroes and replacing them with the names of Serbian heroes. The simmering conflict continued throughout the first part of the 1990s; it metastasized into a full-blown insurgency in 1998, when a group calling itself the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) launched an armed insurgency against Serbian security forces. (6) Having no air-power and relying on old and inefficient weaponry, the Albanian insurgents were not able to sustain their initial momentum. However, in terms of drawing the attention of Western media and politicians to the Kosovo conflict, the KLA's rebellion was a resounding success. The atrocities of the Serbian security forces and the humanitarian crisis were covered in much detail by Western media outlets and, as a consequence, pressure increased on Western governments to try to resolve the crisis diplomatically or, if necessary, by force. When thousands of Kosovo Albanians fled to North Macedonia, (7) the crisis threatened to destabilize the Southern Balkans. After a number of diplomatic attempts failed to end the conflict, in March 1999 U.S. President Bill Clinton, with the backing of his British counterpart Tony Blair, decided to intervene directly by launching an air campaign against Serbia. (8)

The Serbian air-defense systems were no match for the NATO air force which repeatedly pounded Serbia, inflicting devastating blows to the military and civilian infrastructure of the country. Fearing a possible ground offensive, in June 1999 the government in Belgrade ceased all military activities in Kosovo and agreed to withdraw its security forces and political apparatus from Kosovo. The UN Security Council then passed resolution 1244, under the authority of which the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo was created. Once Serbia withdrew its police, army, and other institutions from Kosovo, the province became de facto independent of Belgrade. This withdrawal brought with it an exodus of ethnic Serbs from Kosovo, along with members of some other ethnic minorities such as the Bosniaks and Roma who were subjected to pressure and harassment. (9) In the northern part of Kosovo where ethnic Serbs form a majority of the population, however, Pristina has not been able to assert its authority, since Belgrade has continued to maintain a certain limited influence. Consequently, northern Kosovo became a no-man's land where crime, corruption, and nepotism reached levels that were unprecedented even by Balkan standards. (10) The situation in the remaining part of Kosovo which was controlled by the UN was also dire. Economic hardships, lack of strategic planning, and corruption worsened the situation in the region. In March 2004, Kosovo was...