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On 27 August 2022, Josep Borrell Fontelles, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, made the following announcement on his Twitter account:

This announcement followed discussions during August, with a deadline of 1 September, after the previous deadline of 1 August had been changed.

Tensions between Serbia and Kosovo flared in August in particular when Priština said it would force Serbs living in the north, who are backed by Belgrade, which has not recognised Kosovo's institutions since its unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, to start using Priština-issued license plates.

Serbia still legally considers Kosovo an integral part of its territory. Pro-Russian Belgrade claims not to have provoked tensions and conflicts there, and accuses Priština of trampling on the rights of the Serb minority. Recall that ethnic Serbs make up 5% of Kosovo's 1.8 million population, which is 90% ethnic Albanian. So in northern Kosovo there is a de facto dual administration: Serb and Kosovar. Following Kosovo's independence in 2008, Belgrade maintained parallel institutions, police stations, courts, municipalities, etc. Since coming to power, Albin Kurti's government in 2021 has sought to establish a balance of power with Serbia in order to put an end to this system, in the name of the principle of "reciprocity", and thereby assert sovereignty.

The situation calmed down after Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, under pressure from the US and the EU, agreed to postpone implementation of the law on number plates until 1 September 2022, and NATO peacekeepers, or KFOR, present since June 1999, oversaw the removal of Serb-established roadblocks. This was within the framework set last year by the announcement by the EU special representative for the Serbia-Kosovo dialogue, Miroslav Lajčák, of the agreement between Belgrade and Priština for a de-escalation of the common border.

The agreement, reached on 30 September 2021, provided for the immediate removal of Serb roadblocks and, as of 2 October 2021, the withdrawal of Special Forces from Kosovo. At the same time, NATO peacekeepers from the KFOR peacekeeping mission would be stationed at the Jarinje/Jarinjë and Brnjak/Bërnjakë crossings for at least two weeks, taking over gendarmerie duties.

Belgrade's perception is that KFOR has a veiled sense of contempt for the former Serb enemy. On more than one occasion, Serbia has said that it was prepared to take sides "to protect the Orthodox", where the reference does not have a religious connotation, but rather a strictly identity-based issue, as Orthodoxy is an essential component of the new Serbian nationalism. This aspect, as I have been pointing out in several documents, which I recommend reviewing in full at this link, is something Russia was and is increasingly interested in, with the aim of opening up a war front in the Balkan rearguard, Just as in Syria, Turkey must now contemporise its operation as well, because Russia wants to open another front there, especially with the views expressed by President Erdoğan on Crimea, which is not the first time he has done so, but it is the last time he has done so, and it has an interesting specific weight.

In October last year Russian Ambassador Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko and military attaché Alexander Zinchenko reviewed Serbian troops on the border with Kosovo, accompanied by Serbian Defence Minister Nebojša Stefanović and Chief of Staff Milan Mojsilović. In addition, the United States felt the need to warn the authorities in Republika Srpska (Bosnia and Herzegovina) to abandon any secessionist impulses and the idea of autonomous armed forces. In that context, Serbs in Kosovo's northernmost territories turned to protest against a widespread anti-smuggling operation by the Kosovo police. Serb rioters blocked several roads in Mitrovica and Zvecan, throwing stones at Kosovar officers, who responded with tear gas and deafening bombs. For the Serb community, the anti-smuggling operation was a real violation of the de-escalation agreement, which provided for the withdrawal of Special Forces from Serb municipalities, as I have explained. It also constituted a blockade on the import of primary goods such as food and medicine from Serbia. From the Kosovar point of view, the police intervention serves to prevent the Serb minority from stockpiling weapons with the intention of provoking the secession of the north of the country.

The town of Mitrovica, through which the river Ibar flows, has an interesting peculiarity, as the northern part of the town is ethnic Serb, while south of the axis marked by the river Ibar we find the Kosovar community.

Mutual distrust is exacerbated by the growing and historic ethnic intolerance sweeping the Western Balkans. Even the name of the joint Serbian-Russian military exercises was indicative: "Slavic Shield 2021". For the occasion, Russia transferred Pantsir-S anti-aircraft artillery and mobile rocket systems, as if to symbolise closeness to the "Slavic and Orthodox brother" and to underline the contextual evanescence of NATO's KFOR mission. While the Atlantic Alliance struggled to successfully implement mundane gendarmerie tasks in northern Kosovo, the Kremlin demonstrated combat readiness in southern Serbia.

Finally, in the event of a new case of war, Washington could opt for the use of General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper drones (also called Predator B) and fighter-bombers based at the rehabilitated Câmpia Turzii Air Base (Romania), where a $152 million investment was made for the modernisation of the Câmpia Turzii 71 "Emanoil Ionescu" Air Base in Romania. The fifteen projects at the Transylvanian aviation centre were financed with funds from the European Deterrence Initiative, the White House's European security programme, and were intended to support NATO's eastern flank on this Euro-Atlantic defence axis.

The US MQ-9 Reaper drones deployed there since January 2021 are fully capable of operating efficiently in intelligence gathering on all three sea fronts: Baltic, Adriatic, Black/Aegean. The base's position allows for rapid military intervention (bombing) in the hottest theatres in the Balkan-Black Sea area:

1/ Russia-Ukraine;

2/ Turkey-Greece (most unlikely); and

3/ Western Balkans.

The location of the "Emanoil Ionescu" base in the Carpathian hinterland allows it to escape Russian air and sea attacks from the Black Sea. It would be the multinational "Mihail Kogălniceanu" air base near the coast that would absorb the first impact in the event of war, sharing most of the losses among NATO allies and thus allowing the better-protected US air force to mount an immediate reaction and eventual recovery of positions. To this should be added the F-35 Lightning II multirole fighters, which are being acquired by countries in the region, in addition to those that the United States could place there, alongside the already present F-22 Raptor.

In addition, the budgeted works included the construction of a command centre, as Câmpia Turzii has been responding to Aviano in Italy, as well as the construction of a new ammunition depot, on which nuclear weapons could be deployed and which would be added to the bases at İncirlik (Turkey) or, more simply, Ghedi (Italy), creating a triple string of projection and deterrence.

Indeed, Romania has been trying for several years now to underline the need for a stronger US and Western political-military presence in the Black Sea region to ensure Euro-Atlantic cooperation on collective security. In this regard, Romania has worked promptly with its partners to present numerous interesting infrastructure projects characterised by both geo-economic purposes, whether we are talking about drone aviation, missiles, logistics or in the field of energy, as well as geo-strategic ones, seizing every opportunity for discussion in Bucharest's three major foreign policy forums such as NATO, the European Union and the Three Seas Initiative (Trimarium, or also 3SI).

This is how we can understand Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti accusing Moscow of fuelling Serbia's aggression, pretending to ignore that Russia's power leaders have now accepted their country's de facto independence under the circumstances. It comes to the fact that Putin has sought to legitimise the recognition of the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republic by using the precedent set in Kosovo, and in the process making it clear to the Serbian partner that it is only a matter of time before Russian recognition of Kosovo's independence comes.

But as I have already explained and as we have seen more recently, China's presence must also be noted, and with it, its interests, with Russia becoming a Chinese proxy in many respects and in any scenario, particularly after 24 February 2022. Beijing is cunningly and progressively, but already beginning to be evident, replacing and asserting itself as Belgrade's main partner, not only in commercial, but also in cultural and military terms. This is demonstrated by the delivery of HQ-22 surface-to-air missiles, whose installation can be compared to that of the Patriots in Taiwan by the United States, something that the officials of China, a player in a phase of increasingly aggressive assertion and consolidation of space have sought to underline as it strives for a definitive assault on global hegemony.

On Wednesday 29 June 2022, Kosovo announced that all vehicles with Serbian-issued license plates in Kosovo between 10 June 1999 and 21 April 2022 have until 30 September 2022 to obtain an RKS license plate. This includes cars with Serbian KM (Kosovska Mitrovica) license plates, to which it should be added that the Kosovo government also decided that "anyone presenting themselves at the border with identity documents issued by the Serbian authorities will from now on receive a temporary substitute identity document at the border crossing point". The basis for this decision would be the implementation of the agreement on freedom of movement signed by Kosovo and Serbia on 2 July 2011, which Serbia has already started to implement.

While Vučić has relatively wide room for manoeuvre in Bosnia and Herzegovina to favour the secession of Republika Srpska, his hands are tied in Kosovo, something Vučić is well aware of. NATO's military presence in the former Serb province (KFOR, currently with 3,800 troops) is enough of a deterrent to cool Belgrade's nerves.

As we can see, the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance was making this statement which Vučić had to read correctly. And no less interesting was the response from Chen Weihua, someone who is an official Chinese voice, as he is the editor-in-chief of China Daily in the EU, as well as a columnist:

It is not simply China's reaction to the unintentional bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999; it is also about defending its positions and interests. In fact, the incidents on the Serb-Kosovar border took place just five days after the meeting in Washington between Kosovar Prime Minister Kurti and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and as a result the crisis subsided when the US put pressure on Kosovo and managed to postpone for a month the entry into force of the measure according to which the Serb minority in Kosovo will have to have Kosovar identity cards and documents. Incidentally, it is not recognised by Russia and Serbia as well as five other EU members: Spain, Cyprus, Greece, Slovakia and Romania.

From Ukraine, MP Oleksiy Goncharenko announced that Kiev "is ready to act with its troops on the ground" to defend Priština "from the war of aggression" that Serbia intends to wage. This is despite Ukraine's decision in March to withdraw its 40 blue helmets from Kosovo and not even recognise Kosovo's independence, something that might (or might not) come to pass in an eventual negotiation with Russia over Ukraine.

Ultimately, Serbia has full control over the structures in the north, but Aleksandar Vućič so far seems reluctant to accept Russian pressure for what this would imply, because he does not want to enter into a confrontation with NATO. He therefore prefers Kosovo to be the cause of tension in NATO's eyes, while Priština could be taking advantage of this situation with measures to extend its sovereignty and make it increasingly effective towards the north, where the Serb minority is concentrated and Belgrade exerts an influence. As can be seen, the balance is really in NATO's hands.

Thus, looking back over the past decade, China has significantly increased its presence in the Balkans, targeting certain economic sectors such as energy, infrastructure and new technologies through large and opaque funding programmes, and China's military industrial sector has been added to this. Kosovo, which Beijing does not recognise as independent and therefore has not established diplomatic relations with Priština, has been bypassed in a so-called "surgical" manner.

China's official position is to support Serbia's territorial integrity, and Chinese state media continue to describe Kosovo as an "autonomous province" under Serbian sovereignty, i.e. the scenario until the 1999 war. But the acceleration of the hegemony transition, the formation of blocs and the strengthening of their capabilities to contend for global hegemony may lead to greater Chinese involvement in Kosovo for the following reasons:

1/ China's economic rise and growing international influence have led to a powerful strengthening of its foreign policy, with the need to capture markets of all kinds and implement its Industry 4.0, with its technology, and so on.

2/ Possible parallelisms with the international status of Kosovo and Taiwan, which could lead China to intensify its resistance to Kosovo gaining greater international recognition, precisely to prevent Taiwan from progressing in a similar way.

3/ In the context of the war in Ukraine and with increased tension in the South China Sea among other scenarios, Serbia may favour the Chinese over the Russian card and where Moscow has begun to position itself as a consequence of what began on 24 February 2022, being another factor to be contemplated in Russia's need to win in Ukraine definitively, so that in the end Beijing is the one who can truly oppose Kosovo's full entry into international institutions. Indeed, whether Kosovo ends up as a possible bargaining chip for Beijing in its quest for control over Taiwan, or in future aspects of China's relations with the US and the EU, is a scenario that must be contemplated.

Despite Taiwan's immediate recognition of Kosovo's independence after 17 February 2008, Priština has been reluctant to open even informal diplomatic relations with Taipei. Vetëvendosje's coming to power in spring 2021, however, seems to have shifted the lines slightly. In December 2021, parliamentary friendship groups were established in the parliaments of Taiwan and Kosovo with the aim of "enhancing parliamentary exchanges, improving mutual understanding between the peoples of Taiwan and Kosovo and jointly expanding the international space of the two countries".

However, Kosovo is not a member of the UN, the EU, NATO or similar institutions, and this must be taken into account.

Conclusion of the Agreement

In the end, the agreement announced by Josep Borrell states that Priština has agreed not to introduce a residence permit requirement for persons entering Kosovo with Serbian identity cards, and Aleksandar Vučić has agreed to abolish the residence permit that Belgrade imposed on Kosovar identity card holders to enter Serbia.

Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti also welcomed what he called a "victory", saying that Kosovar citizens will now be able to move "freely" in Serbia. However, no compromise has yet been announced on the equally sensitive issue of number plates. Aleksandar Vučić said he saw "no chance" of reaching an agreement on this issue, recalling that the Kosovo authorities would start registering Serbian-registered vehicles from 1 September, which the Kosovo government has officially confirmed will be completed in two months.

Geopolítica - Geopolitics