Six American messages for the competing parties

Memo to political parties competing in the June 7 elections: no more new elections, there is no magic wand for relations with Serbia, don't take credit for the KSF, find a way to bury the hatchet, don't be like Serbia and Albania when it comes to crime, and don't think the US is your guardian.

The State Department offered its first report on the Western Balkans to Congress as a new legal obligation under the so-called Western Balkans Democracy and Prosperity Act. Kosovo’s attention was focused on the pre-election political environment and the report was discussed here and there, with a quote or observation. In the meantime, perhaps rather than the usual conspiracy theories that will be discussed by any participant in the political race or its analyst, it is worth extracting the essential messages from the State Department Report. If it were a memorandum for political parties participating in the elections, it might look like this:

1. Stability as an absolute priority: No threats of new elections

The US administration considers regional stability a prerequisite for any other strategic objective. In this context, the priority will be to avoid destabilizing post-election rhetoric, and to fully respect the constitutional order and democratic procedures. These are called “motherhood and applepie” in America, so things that are completely understandable. However, it was understandable that after democratic elections accepted by all, functional institutions would be created quickly and without problems, and yet this did not happen. 

The message to parties: the ability to create functional institutions without prolonged paralysis is evidence of stability. Or rather, blocking the creation of institutions is a direct intervention against stability.

And this means that the warning that we will go to early elections after these elections if “my/our condition is not met” will have to be removed from the pre-election rhetoric. The message should be that after the elections, state institutions will be created immediately, based on the election result and the obligation that all parties have to build social consensus as a prerequisite for stability.

2. There is no American magic wand for dialogue with Serbia

The State Department report states, “The United States continues to encourage Serbia and Kosovo to make progress in normalizing relations, with the goal of reaching a negotiated, sustainable, and mutually acceptable agreement.” The entire formulation of American policy in this sentence points to a difficult negotiation process, not to an act that suddenly creates new realities. 

Message for political parties in the campaign: 

• Do not use dialogue as an instrument of populist mobilization; 
• Do not delegitimize the concept of compromise; 
• Understand that coordination with allies remains a component of Kosovo's national security. 

And Kosovo has no reason to fear the negotiation process. It should ultimately create a state of stability in the region, and this is possible in the case of Kosovo only with good interstate relations between Kosovo and Serbia, based on mutual respect.

3. Kosovo as a security provider, not just a consumer

The American report emphasizes Kosovo's transformation from a "security consumer" to a "security provider," through the development of the Kosovo Security Force and participation in international initiatives such as the upcoming peacekeeping operation in Gaza.

Message to the parties: 

Rejoice, everyone, and leave the KSF outside of party instrumentalization. The plan for its development into a defense force within NATO standards should not be a subject of debate at all. The best thing that the contestants can do is declare that they are part of the consensus for the KSF by preserving its multiethnic and professional character.

4. Energy, geopolitics and two projects

In the document (and this has long been done in American diplomacy) energy is treated as a strategic security issue and not just economic development. And, although the Report deals with this as a complex problem where each Western Balkan country finds its own needs and obligations (such as regional interconnections, transmission networks towards the European market, gas and renewable energy capacities, cybersecurity of energy networks) Kosovo should actually focus on two major issues that are set in a semi-sentence:

“Modernization of coal-fired power plants in Kosovo and coal gasification projects”.
The message for the competing parties is now about the lack of a magic wand. So, there may be many ideas and alternatives (and all of them necessary and useful, as are those for renewable sources such as wind and solar), but in the end, the projects that ensure Kosovo's energy independence are once again found in coal, now with the latest technology.

5. Organized crime

“Organized crime groups from the Western Balkans pose a direct threat to the national security of the United States and the American homeland. Western Balkan criminal networks have created connections that strengthen and enrich drug cartels, designated foreign terrorist organizations, based in the Western Hemisphere, which then traffic illegal narcotics and facilitate illegal immigration to the United States.”

There is no clearer formulation than this regarding the importance that this American administration gives to organized crime as a national security problem. For Kosovo, this requires attention on two points. The first is the dimension of M. Radoicic's paramilitary group as part of a broader organized crime scheme. The second is that Kosovo is located between two states, Serbia and Albania, where international organized crime has financial strength and political influence; the pressure to be influenced by these groups will be great both in terms of money laundering and political influence. Radoicic with the Serbian List testified to this; it is to be expected that Albanian parties and Kosovo institutions will continue to be under pressure from organized crime interests.

Order for competing parties: 

Commit to transparency in party finances, to laws against organized crime, and to abolishing the culture of legal immunity for politically exposed individuals.

And number 6: The silent American message

The document contains an important philosophical shift: the US no longer sees itself as an administrator of the Balkans, but as a power that supports local actors only when they produce stability and functional partnerships. 

For Kosovar political parties, this can be translated into a single sentence:

The era when Washington invested unconditionally in Kosovo is over; now American investment is conditioned on Kosovo's capacity to function as a serious state.