Politicians have turned Kosovo into a victim of procedures

In Kosovo, political parties behave as if the procedures are more important to them than the results. It is difficult to find another country where so many dilemmas are brought to the attention of the Constitutional Court. And in this way, while claiming to respect the procedures, they have brought Kosovo into a permanent political crisis from which, with this approach, it will not emerge soon.

The motto of the work of over 40 thousand civil servants in the European Commission is that “procedures are more important than results”. Of course, they do not tell them this when they recruit civil servants, nor is it written anywhere. But this saying is very often used by critics to comment on the lack of results in the work of the EU institutions. Because results can be discussed, there can be different assessments, but for those who have not achieved results there are no consequences. And there are consequences for violating procedures. If we want, we can also take as an example the dialogue for the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. The EU believes that the right result has been achieved in this process. But critics can claim that results have been lacking. The EU can claim that today Kosovars can travel through Serbia, Kosovo has an international telephone prefix and is part of CEFTA. But critics can say that relations between Kosovo and Serbia are more on the verge of a conflict than close to normalization.

So the result can be discussed, but for the EU it is less important than the procedure, the rules. All this time, the EU says that "the facilitators have adhered to the mandate they received from the member states". And in this way, by respecting the procedures and the mandate, the EU facilitators have normalized the non-recognition of Kosovo, because the EU has a neutral stance on the status. The EU has left the blame for each failure on the parties because, ultimately, according to the agreed procedure, this is a dialogue between the parties, while the EU only facilitates it, so it bears no responsibility for either the failure or the result. With or without results, no one in the EU cares whether or not there will be normalization between Kosovo and Serbia. Some even say with irony that the longer this lasts, the more work there will be, well-paid, for those EU officials who deal with this topic. They just have to respect the procedures. 

There was an old saying, perhaps accurate, that “procedures saved Rome.” But this was in the sense of preventing hasty, authoritative, and reckless decisions. And in the end, even Rome did not save itself.

In a political system, procedures are necessary to create a framework within which the system will function. But that system operates according to political rules which, although they must respect the procedures, cannot take them as an excuse for their failures and for creating crises.

Procedures cannot resolve political crises if there is no political will to overcome those crises.
For more than a year, Kosovo has been experiencing how a political crisis is created and perpetuated while claiming to respect procedures.

In Kosovo, political parties behave as if procedures are more important to them than results. It is difficult to find another country where so many dilemmas are brought to the attention of the Constitutional Court. And in this way, while claiming to respect procedures, they have brought Kosovo into a permanent political crisis from which, with this approach, it will not emerge quickly.

Now we are waiting for the Constitutional Court to clarify who violated the Constitution, procedures or the law. Perhaps it will provide an answer as to whether the president was right to dissolve the Assembly or not. And perhaps we will know whether or not Kosovo currently has a functional Assembly.
This situation has been created due to political irresponsibility. Because political parties consider accepting their offer as a compromise, not demands made on them. When they say "we have offered a compromise", they are thinking of the proposal that their candidate be elected. When the VV, as the winner of the elections, invites other parties to come up with their candidate, it does so to legitimize the victory of its candidate. When the opposition says that they are ready to come up with a candidate, they think that as the loser of the elections, they will at least take the post of president. Those who until yesterday constantly claimed that "we do not have votes for Vjosa Osmani" are now almost lamenting why "Kurti sank Osmani".

While we are waiting to know whether or not the deadline for electing a president has expired, whether there are 30 or 60 days left, whether we will go to the elections and if we do, when we will go, Kosovo is threatened with a new stagnation, which the citizens did not want.

If now that VV has a comfortable majority in the Assembly, the country goes to elections, who can be sure that after new elections the situation will be different. And after those elections, new failures may come not only to elect the president, but also to constitute the Assembly and elect the government.

This whole new political crisis is happening in the most dramatic times in the world. And it is happening at a moment when it was believed that Kosovo was opening an opportunity to recover the losses it suffered in the last three years due to the EU's punitive measures and the lack of functional institutions. Now the measures have been lifted, freeing Kosovo nearly 500 million euros. On the other hand, the Parliament ratified the relevant agreements with the EU, paving the way for the use of up to 820 million euros from the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans. In addition to these funds, there are other international loans and investment funds. Over 1.5 billion euros could be available to Kosovo in the next two years. And the use of those funds is at risk if the political crisis continues. Because even under normal circumstances, it is not easy to use them, as strict EU rules must be respected, while lost time must be compensated.

Kosovo will also have political consequences. It has almost been forgotten that Kosovo was on the verge of membership in the Council of Europe in the spring of 2024. But last year, not only was it no longer on the agenda, but it was no longer able to participate in the meetings of some committees, even as a guest. In the circumstances of a political crisis, Kosovo risks not being on the agenda for membership in the Council of Europe this year either. Such meetings in which Kosovo can be accepted as a member state take place only once a year. So if Kosovo misses this deadline, the earliest it can count on is 2027, sometime in the summer. And we don't even know whether the offer for EU membership that was on the table in May 2024 is valid or not. Kosovo's lack of progress in strengthening its international subjectivity will be just one of the consequences of the political crisis, while the greatest consequences will be felt by the citizens of Kosovo themselves. And for them it matters little who is at fault and who is not, who has respected the procedures and who has not.