Devaluation

Serbia has bet in the last ten years that it is more important for Europe than Europe is for it. And in the bet between Serbia's political currency and the European one, the EU is in a permanent state of devaluing its own currency.

1.

In September last year, the special envoys of the German Prime Minister and the French President presented Kosovo and Serbia with a plan for the normalization of their mutual relations. The principle was that these two states would develop normal interstate relations, based on the UN Charter, but would not first be required to mutually recognize each other's independence.

In September of this year, instead of interstate relations but without mutual recognition, the diplomacy of the European Union will offer the Prime Minister of Kosovo and the President of Serbia to sit down and talk about the "EU declaration of June 6" . Based on this statement, Kosovo and Serbia should talk about how many Kosovo policemen can stay in the facilities of the four municipalities in the north of the country, in which alternative facilities the elected presidents can perform their functions (with 3 percent of the votes). and how to organize the extraordinary elections for the four municipalities.

In politics, this development of a year can take different names, but in economic sciences it has a name devaluation, loss of value. So, in a simple formulation, Germany and France in September of last year presented a model of normalization between Kosovo and Serbia based on that of the two Germanys, and presented this as a solution which, whether accepted or rejected, would constitute the box for measuring the relations between the two European powers and these two respective states. EU diplomacy has taken a ready-made diplomatic product and turned it into a mass of dough that can be cooked anyway. By preparing anyway, European diplomacy has now managed to negotiate with Kosovo and Serbia on the basis of the "June 6 declaration".

The "Franco-German" plan for normalization is today the "Declaration of June 6".

2.

The public does not need to know what the statement of June 6 is. I do not believe that it will be of value to anyone else: it is hardly conceivable that ten years later (and I am going far with the date) anyone in the EU or in our region will remember what was declared on June 6. (This date would count as a declaration of independence, but this does not apply to the EU).

However, the public may know that in September of last year, France and Germany tried to do something extraordinary, to present the ceiling principles under which the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia would be built. The principles were that Kosovo and Serbia, as two independent states, should establish good neighborly relations, without the need for formal mutual recognition. These principles were offered to Kosovo and Serbia as ultimate; Kosovo accepted them, Serbia accepted them as a framework for future talks.

Serbia, with the framework of future talks, determined that these principles will not be the common roof under which the house of Kosovo-Serbia relations would be built, but an initial foundation. In Serbia's interpretation, Kosovo and Serbia should talk about their relations, sometimes about license plates, sometimes about the North Mitrovica roundabout, sometimes about how many policemen should be in municipal facilities in the North, sometimes about elections...

3.

According to Serbia, for "normalization", negotiations will take place from the bottom up. So it will solve the special issues to reach the point of determining the nature of the relations between Kosovo and Serbia. At the time of Milosevic, this principle was implemented with the Saint Egidio Education Agreement, with which if the students return to the faculty buildings, normalization will be achieved. In Vučić's time, this principle is being tried to be applied whenever the opportunity presents itself. If you do it with the Association of Serbian Municipalities, fine. If you do with the extraordinary elections in the North of Kosovo, together with the community of Serbian municipalities, so much the better. If none do today, normalization will be called for daily or weekly needs this or that number of Kosovo policemen in the northern municipalities.

To change such a model, France and Germany decided last year the top-down principle. So, it would be accepted by both parties that they are sovereign states and that they should normalize their relations within the umbrella of this principle. With this, the negotiation mechanism for each specific issue, from license plates onwards, was finally removed.

But, from September 2022 to September 2023, of the three parties involved in this new model, one, Serbia, emerged as the winner. What was the basic "Franco-German" agreement today is the "Declaration of June 6".

In the background is Russia's war against Ukraine. The Franco-German plan was also born because of this geopolitical moment; its devaluation happens as a successful response of Serbia (and Russia) to show the weakness of the European policy in the region.

4.

It will be unfair to blame Serbia. President Vučić openly declared that he did not sign it, did not verbally accept it and did not support the Franco-German Plan. EU diplomacy is what took to interpret what Serbia really thinks when it says "no", not admitting that it said "no". The diplomacy of the EU is what took to interpret that Serbia is determined on its European path at a time when the support of the citizens and the state of Serbia for the EU has not been lower. EU diplomacy invented a European partner from Serbia when every signal of Serbia is pro-Putin: the president of Serbia at the last dinner in Thessaloniki managed to extract from the joint communiqué the part that mentions the sanctions against Russia and the condemnation of Putin's policy . In the European policy towards the Western Balkans, the common denominator is defined by Serbia and is low enough not to condemn Putin and sanction Russia.

This is the logic of devaluation. A coin will have value as long as it is demanded. Serbia has bet in the last ten years that it is more important to Europe than Europe is to it. And in the bet between Serbia's political currency and the European one, the EU is in a permanent state of devaluation of its currency. In 2011, the EU took on the task of normalizing relations between the two states, one of which (Kosovo) was judged by the ICJ not to have violated international law when it declared its independence. In 2023, twelve years later, the EU commits itself to negotiating its June 6 declaration.

And it does this after announcing that it is at a historical moment, a turning point, caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.