Last Steps

Serbian Foreign Minister, Spongebob Squarepants

Karadžić in the Hague, negotiations for Mladić’s arrest, a strong dinar and a resurgent economy have paved a fast track to the EU for Serbia. But there is one thorn in the nation’s side that Boris Tadić’s pro-European government cannot make go away: Kosovo.

When NATO bombed military and government targets in Belgrade and elsewhere in Serbia in 1999 to halt the fighting between Milošević’s forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army, the West registered decisively its support for an independent Kosovo. Bombing Belgrade for what was technically an internal conflict signaled Serbia’s loss of sovereignty in Kosovo. The position has effectively not been changed by the diplomatic and political equivocation of the past 9 years.

Muscled out of Kosovo (justly or unjustly), Serbia lost military and diplomatic avenues to challenge Kosovo’s recent declaration of independence. Which leaves the law. Vuk Jeremić, the Serbian Foreign Minister affectionately known as Spongebob Squarepants, left for New York the other day to seek support for his request that the ICJ review the legality of Kosovo’s independence. Serbia will need the backing of 96 UN nations for the ICJ to adopt Serbia’s resolution and review the Republic of Kosovo’s legality.

Russia, China, and India—all nations with separatist regions—have pledged support for the resolution. But with 45 EU nations recognizing Kosovo’s independence Serbia is unlikely to find the remaining 93. Nonetheless, experts told B92, the resolution carries “moral weight”. It also may incur a diplomatic cost, alienating Serbia from its potential peers in the EU.

If Serbia’s initiative fails to realize an ICJ review, it will remain to be seen how Serbia deals with the thorn of Kosovo, having exhausted the available resources to challenge the state’s independence. The broader question is how, if it can no longer remain on the government’s table, the issue will live on otherwise in Serbian political and social life.