Evaluating EU Actorness as a State-Builder in ‘Contested’ Kosovo

Abstract

When citing, please refer to the publisher version.Evaluating EU actorness as a state-builder in 'contested' Kosovo Elena BaracaniKosovo can be considered a contested state because it has problems of both internal and external sovereignty (Krasner 2001, 2 and 6-12). Kosovo's internal sovereignty is compromised by the fact that the government is unable to govern in the Serb-populated municipalities in the north, and by the fact that it is unable to govern effectively in the rest of the country. Kosovo's external sovereignty is compromised by the fact that the international community is divided over Kosovo's independence. At the beginning of 2018, ten years after its declaration of independence, 80 out of 193 (41.5%) United Nations (UN) member states did not recognize Kosovo, including Russia and China (members of the Security Council), and five EU member states (Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain). Study of the Kosovo case is relevant also from the perspective of the EU's external relations and foreign policy. Even if it has fewer than two million inhabitants and the poorest economy in Europe, Kosovo represents, in terms of the political geography of the EU's external relations, one of the main testing grounds for its renovated foreign policy. Indeed, because Kosovo is geographically and politically closer to the EU than other contested states, it can use a wider set of foreign policy tools to foster the state-building process. Finally, from a EU foreign policy perspective, while at the time of the escalation of the conflict, neither the European Political Cooperation nor the Common Foreign and Security Policy were able to stop it, since the early 2000s Kosovo has become the site of the most comprehensive EU foreign policy approach. The content analysis presented in this article is based on qualitative sources, mainly policy documents by EU foreign policy actors (European Commission, European Council, EU Council, High Representative, and European External Action Service) on relations with Kosovo and the Western Balkan countries for the period 1999-2018, but also official documents by the United Nations on Kosovo and by the Republic of Kosovo. For the phase of EU state-building during monitored independence (2008-2012) I had the opportunity to Author's elaboration * 'Presence' refers to the general perception of the EU as a foreign policy actor and not to the specific perception of the EU by Kosovars.** Even if in the first phase Kosovo cannot be considered as a contested state, because it had not yet declared independence, the contestation issue, in the form of the dispute with Serbia on the status of Kosovo, was already present.

The EU and Contested Statehood in its Near Abroad: Europeanisation, Actorness and State-building

“…Kosovo, North Macedonia, Palestine, Serbia, Ukraine) (see Noutcheva 2018, Maass 2019, Dobrescu and Schumacher 2018, Baracani 2019, and Bouris and İşleyen 2018; the enlargement policy/accession process where the EU can use conditionality-related mechanisms (i.e. Cyprus and Kosovo which are considered potential candidates) (see Wydra 2018, Noutcheva 2018, Kyris 2018and Baracani 2019 as well as the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) framework which induces tailor made conditionalities for the 16 countries in the EU's eastern and southern neighborhood (see Cebeci 2018, Wydra 2018, Noutcheva 2018, Maass 2019, Dobrescu and Schumacher 2018, Baracani 2019, and Bouris and İşleyen 2018) (see also Bouris and Schumacher 2017). In addition to such established frameworks for the projection of EU external influence, in recent years the proliferation of appointments of EU Special Representatives for flashpoints in its near abroad has widened the scope for policy entrepreneurship and/or the exercise of significant agency by senior EU officials (Adebahr 2009;Grevi 2007;Tolksdorf 2012Tolksdorf , 2013Tolksdorf , 2015.…”

“…Discord among EU member states is usually the rule, rather than the exception, when it comes to state-building and the EU has long been criticised for not being able to 'speak with one voice'. One of the most recent examples includes the case of Kosovo where five EU member states namely Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Romania and Greece have not recognized its independence (see Wydra 2018, Baracani 2019, and Noutcheva 2018.…”

“…It is, therefore, important to 'historicise' each instance of state contestation within the context of the EU's foreign policy learning curve. The case studies examined in this Special Issue offer a great deal of empirical diversity ranging from early stages of the CFSP and the disintegration of Yugoslavia (see Wydra 2018, Noutcheva 2018, and Baracani 2019 to the more recent events in Ukraine (see Maass 2019), North Africa (see Noutcheva 2018) and the Middle East (see Bouris and İşleyen 2018).…”

“…Indeed, in certain cases, the very act of recognition of independent statehood, as the most embryonic form of state-building, can become the trigger of international conflict or domestic confrontation. A number of contributions in this Special Issue return to this issue (see Wydra 2018, Baracani 2019, and Noutcheva 2018.…”

“…Kyris (2018) focuses on the case of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and offers a conceptualisation of 'avoidance' of contested statehood, by reference to external and internal sovereignty as conditioning factors of the EU's state building posture. Following this, Baracani (2019) traces the evolution of the EU's strategy towards Kosovo during 2008-2018, interrogating the interconnection between state contestation on the ground and the EU's projected actorness. She argues that the lack of recognition of Kosovo by five EU member states has forced the EU to devise innovative institutional and legal solutions on order to overcome internal divisions.…”