March 15 is approaching, when in Kosovo and Metohija, if nothing changes by then, the implementation of the Law on Foreigners of the so-called Republic of Kosovo, adopted back on July 31, 2013, is set to begin.
Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija are unanimous in their assessment that the implementation of this law would most severely affect the University of Priština of the Republic of Serbia with temporary seat in Kosovska Mitrovica. Namely, from the perspective of this law’s provisions, numerous students and professors of this University are simply foreigners, since they do not possess the “citizenship” and travel documents of the so-called Republic of Kosovo. According to Miloš Ković, as many as 40% of the professors and 50% of the students of this University do not have “Kosovo documents”. Consequently, in order to continue their studies or employment at the University in Kosovska Mitrovica, students and professors who do not possess documents of the so-called Republic of Kosovo would have to obtain approval from the authorities in Priština for a one-year temporary residence permit, which they could then renew. The request for temporary residence on the territory of the so-called Republic of Kosovo is submitted to the competent “diplomatic-consular mission” of this entity, and obtaining it is tied to meeting a whole series of strict conditions.
FATE OF THE UNIVERSITY IN THE HANDS OF KURTI’S REGIME
It is quite likely that for students and professors of the University in Kosovska Mitrovica, studying or working at a higher education institution that does not have a license from the so-called Republic of Kosovo would represent a serious administrative obstacle to obtaining a temporary residence permit. The discretionary authority of the competent body of the so-called Republic of Kosovo to deny issuance of temporary residence permits to any “foreigner” who represents a threat to the national security and public order of this entity could become an instrument for personnel purges and, consequently, the weakening of the Serbian University in Kosovska Mitrovica.
Without waiting for the Law on Foreigners to enter into force, the separatist regime in Priština carried out, on February 10, additional pressure on the University in Kosovska Mitrovica, demanding that the Faculty of Technical Sciences vacate its current building within 30 days, allegedly because the faculty has no right to use the plot on which its building is located. Regardless of the numerous legal deficiencies accompanying this process of de facto expropriation of the faculty’s land and buildings, its motivation lies not in the sphere of property law, but in the political and consequently public-law domain. Namely, through this property-law demand, a clear message is being sent to employees of the University in Kosovska Mitrovica that their fate, and the fate of the University where they work, is entirely in the hands of Kurti’s regime, which alone has the authority to decide on their legal status.
LUKEWARM REACTIONS OF OFFICIAL BELGRADE
The lukewarm reactions of official Belgrade, without any serious substance or indication of the existence of any plan, inevitably reinforce the impression of Kurti’s omnipotence and the helplessness of the employees of the University in Kosovska Mitrovica. The response to the latest property-law demand of Kurti’s regime, as well as to the announced implementation of the Law on Foreigners, which came from the local branch of the SNS – the Serbian List, not only failed to alter this impression but made it even more ominous.
The essence of the Declaration adopted on February 12 at a gathering in the amphitheater of the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Kosovska Mitrovica by representatives of the Serbian List in the institutions of the so-called Kosovo amounts to a request to the separatist regime in Priština to ease the administrative procedure for Serbs to obtain “Kosovo documents” or temporary permits for studying and working in Kosovo. This is nothing other than a request to facilitate the process of integrating Serbian educational and health institutions into the legal system of the so-called Kosovo. This would be the culmination of the policy toward Kosovo and Metohija that official Belgrade began on November 3, 2013, when, as Kosta Čavoški once noted, it was forcing our citizens and compatriots in KiM to participate “in elections called under the constitution and laws of a foreign and hostile state”.
LEFT AT THE MERCY OF OTHERS
The reactions of the official mediator in the dialogue between Belgrade and Priština – the European Union – to the disputed property-law demand addressed to the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Kosovska Mitrovica, as well as to the contested Law on Foreigners, have only confirmed the well-known fact that Brussels structures and Albanian separatist leaders from Kosovo act in synchronization when it comes to consolidating the sovereignty of the so-called Republic of Kosovo, regardless of occasional personal misunderstandings that may arise between officials in Brussels and Priština.
In such a situation, it is entirely understandable that Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija once again feel that they have been left by everyone at the mercy of Kurti’s regime, particularly by their own state. Moreover, although since 1999 there has been no political loss whose consequences have not been tragic for the collective status and the personal and family life of the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija, the current strike by the Albanian separatist authorities against the University in Kosovska Mitrovica could prove decisive for the survival of a demographically and politically even minimally relevant Serbian community and its institutions in Kosovo and Metohija, as an important guarantee for the international reaffirmation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and the future reintegration of the southern Serbian province into the constitutional and legal order of Serbia. Hence, in the words of Duško Čelić, education, healthcare, and the Serbian Orthodox Church are “the three most important pillars for the survival of Serbs in KiM.” And Priština, according to him, is well aware of this.
A STEP IN THE PROCESS OF SO-CALLED NORMALIZATION
The current strike by Kurti against the key institutions of Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija, in order to further weaken them and then integrate the weakened institutions as painlessly as possible into the legal system of the so-called Republic of Kosovo, is nothing more than another step in the process of the so-called normalization of relations between the Republic of Serbia and its forcibly seceded province. This is a process that has been conducted since September 2010 on the basis of a legally non-binding Resolution of the UN General Assembly, the text of which had previously been agreed upon between Serbia and the EU.
From the very beginning, “normalization” under EU auspices implied that Serbia would voluntarily abolish those elements of state sovereignty that had survived on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija after the aggression of the Collective West and the formation of a new secessionist Albanian parastate, thereby helping the authorities of the so-called Republic of Kosovo to expand and affirm their sovereignty over the entire territory claimed by this entity.
In that process, all actors behaved more or less as they do today, on the eve of the reckoning of the separatist Albanian authorities with the last two “pillars of survival” of Serbs in KiM. Behind every action and act of the Albanian separatist authorities, one can clearly discern very consistent features of a strategy of conquering and affirming particular attributes of state sovereignty. What was of highest priority for Albanian separatist leaders was, for various ruling coalitions in Serbia since 2010, when it comes to the status of Kosovo and Metohija, entirely secondary. And what was and was not a priority for the various governments in power in Belgrade since 2010 was well understood by the Brussels providers of alleged good offices in the negotiations between Serbia and the separatist Albanian authorities from Priština.
AN OBJECT OF POLITICAL BARGAINING
The attitude of Serbian authorities toward Serbia’s state sovereignty in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija is strikingly illustrated by the comments with which the highest officials from Belgrade accompanied the conclusion of agreements (in 2011 and 2012) on integrated crossings in northern Kosovo and Metohija (Jarinje and Brnjak), as well as on the collection of customs duties and VAT at these crossings by Priština.
Thus, after the conclusion of the Agreement on the crossings in northern KiM, which enabled the separatist authorities for the first time to establish control at Jarinje and Brnjak, the then head of Serbia’s negotiating team, Borislav Borko Stefanović, stated that “the agreement in no way prejudges the statehood of Kosovo; not even terminologically is there any mention of any border, border crossing, or the like”. A year later, the new Prime Minister of Serbia, Ivica Dačić, justified the conclusion of another agreement with the Albanian secessionists, which enabled Priština to collect customs duties and VAT at the crossings in northern Kosovo, by expressing hope for the opening of accession negotiations with the European Union. In short, what were for the secessionist Albanian authorities necessary steps in establishing a border and consolidating the fiscal sovereignty of the so-called Republic of Kosovo were for officials from Belgrade merely objects of political trade, used to buy the favor of Brussels, the key political factor in any country on the “European path.”
TIME HAS PROVEN THE SECESSIONISTS RIGHT
Time has, unfortunately, vindicated the Albanian secessionists. The Law on Foreigners, whose implementation is anxiously expected in the coming days, was adopted (July 31, 2013) only three and a half months after the conclusion of the First Brussels Agreement on the Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations between Belgrade and Priština (April 19, 2013), by which the authorities in Belgrade officially renounced key attributes of Serbia’s sovereignty in northern KiM, effectively abolishing, among other things, the police and judiciary in that area.
In other words, the separatist authorities adopted the Law on Foreigners only once its implementation became possible after the establishment of border-administrative and fiscal sovereignty over the previously uncontrolled north of KiM. How important the consolidation of border-administrative and fiscal sovereignty of the so-called Republic of Kosovo was for the separatist authorities in Priština and their Western patrons is evident from the fact that the obligation to respect the agreements on integrated crossings and the customs stamp appears in the Implementation Plan of the First Brussels Agreement from 2013, as well as in Article 1 of the Agreement on the Path to Normalization of Relations between the so-called Kosovo and Serbia from 2023.
TRADE IN SOVEREIGNTY IN THE EU ACCESSION PROCESS
On the other hand, the fact that Serbia’s negotiations with the EU began only after the conclusion and initial implementation of the First Brussels Agreement, in January 2014, merely confirms that Serbia’s sovereignty in KiM was traded in the EU accession process. Moreover, in that trade, the Serbian authorities behaved like a coerced seller, giving everything or almost everything and receiving nothing in return.
This does not apply only to the Community of Serb Municipalities, which, as an institution of independent Kosovo, cannot serve as compensation for the voluntarily surrendered attributes of state sovereignty, but also to the mutual recognition of higher education diplomas. Namely, in 2012 Serbia adopted a Regulation on the Special Method of Recognition of Higher Education Documents and Evaluation of Study Programs of Universities from the Territory of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija that do not operate under the regulations of the Republic of Serbia, the very title of which already indicates its substantive unconstitutionality, by which it recognized diplomas and study programs of all higher education institutions established within the separatist legal order in the territory of KiM.
At the same time, in the Report on Progress in the Dialogue between Belgrade and Priština as early as 2015, the Government of Serbia indicated that “diplomas of universities from Kosovo and Metohija that are certified by the EUA (European University Association) in the Republic of Serbia undergo the same procedure as diplomas issued by, for example, the University of Vienna, Oxford, Harvard,” while “the issue of the University in Kosovska Mitrovica remains open, as its diplomas are not recognized by Priština, even with an EUA certificate”.
ALERTING THE EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY ASSOCIATION
Unlike our authorities, who at the first request of the EU recognized all higher education institutions of their forcibly seceded province, the Albanian secessionists, guided by a sovereigntist logic, have kept in their hands the card of non-recognition of the University of Priština with temporary seat in Kosovska Mitrovica, and are now using that card as a threat, in order to more easily and quickly force its employees into the framework of the “legal order of Kosovo,” whose observance the authorities in Belgrade generally committed to in 2013 through the First Brussels Agreement.
Faced with the most serious threat to their survival in Kosovo and Metohija, the employees of the University in Kosovska Mitrovica would, in the coming days, have to fight on several different fronts equally against the ill-intentioned plan for its forced integration into the separatist legal system, as well as against the ill-intentioned plan for its relocation to central Serbia. Accordingly, the University’s legal battle before the courts of the so-called Republic of Kosovo is justified only if it seeks confirmation of the status that UNMIK recognized to the University in Kosovska Mitrovica back in 2002.
The Movement for the Defense of Kosovo and Metohija has proposed that the Conference of Universities of Serbia alert the European University Association due to the adoption of the Law on Foreigners, which threatens the survival of one of the members of this European association. The adoption of such an initiative could contribute not only to the internationalization of the problem faced by Serbian higher education in Kosovo and Metohija, but also to increasing interest in Serbian public opinion regarding the status of Serbs and Serbian institutions in Kosovo and Metohija. Because, as Časlav Koprivica observed, “the fate of the University in Kosovska Mitrovica is a matter for all of us, the citizens of Serbia and all Serbs”
WHAT REMAINS FOR THE AUTHORITIES IN BELGRADE?
Unlike the employees of the University in Kosovska Mitrovica, who must improvise and act on various fronts in order to preserve this institution of the Republic of Serbia on the territory of Kosovo and Metohija at any cost, the authorities in Belgrade seem to have only one option left – to suspend the process of normalization of relations with the so-called Republic of Kosovo, which has been conducted since 2010 under EU auspices, and return it to the UN Security Council and the framework of Resolution 1244.
Today, when they have been “driven into a corner,” the alternative to such a decision, however difficult and politically risky it may be, is the loss of the last institutional footholds of the Republic of Serbia in Kosovo and Metohija. Such a loss would also deprive the current authorities of their last bargaining chip in negotiations with Brussels. After that, the EU would demand the conclusion of a comprehensive legally binding agreement, which in essence means explicit recognition of the so-called Republic of Kosovo. With such a demand, the West would place a noose around the neck not only of the current but also of all future governments in Serbia, thereby making peaceful and stable political life in the country maximally difficult in the long term.
