KOSOVO: NO GOOD ALTERNATIVES TO THE AHTISAARI PLAN Europe Report N°182 – 14 May 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. THE AHTISAARI PLAN AT THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL.............................. 1 A. THE STATE OF THE STATUS DEBATE .....................................................................................1 1. The road to Ahtisaari’s supervised independence plan............................................1 2. The Security Council: options and dynamics........................................................ 3 3. The case against delay .......................................................................................... 6 4. The precedent issue: Kosovo as a unique case...................................................... 7 B. WHY PARTITION IS NOT A SOLUTION......................................................................................8 1. The Ahtisaari plan: a multi-ethnic, decentralised society...................................... 8 2. The EU objective: a multi-ethnic Balkans ............................................................ 9 3. The partition alternative: who supports it ........................................................... 10 4. The partition alternative: why it should be rejected ............................................ 14 C. OVERCOMING RUSSIA’S CONCERNS......................................................................................15 II. HOW THE AHTISAARI PLAN SHOULD BE IMPLEMENTED ........................ 17 A. BETWEEN STATEHOOD AND PROTECTORATE.......................................................................18 1. Power sharing..................................................................................................... 18 2. Legal hurdles...................................................................................................... 19 3. No quick security handover ................................................................................ 20 B. A UNIFIED STATE OR SLOW-MOTION DIVISION? ...................................................................21 1. Control over the territory.................................................................................... 21 2. One society? ....................................................................................................... 22 3. Decentralisation and the phantom Serb entity..................................................... 24 III. SECURING COMPLIANCE ON THE GROUND ................................................... 25 A. SECURING KOSOVO ALBANIANS’ COMPLIANCE ..................................................................25 1. The window of opportunity ................................................................................ 25 2. Weak political organisation ................................................................................ 28 3. Kosovo Albanian attitudes to Kosovo’s territorial patchwork ............................ 29 B. SECURING KOSOVO SERBS’ COMPLIANCE .............................................................................32 1. Enclave Serbs..................................................................................................... 33 2. Serbs in the north................................................................................................ 35 3. A bridging political organisation? ...................................................................... 35 C. SECURING BELGRADE’S COMPLIANCE ................................................................................36 APPENDICES A. MAP OF KOSOVO AND ENVIRONS........................................................................................39 B. MAP OF AHTISAARI’S PLANNED MUNICIPAL REARRANGEMENTS OF THE MITROVICA AREA .......40 C. MAP OF CENTRAL AND EASTERN KOSOVO AND ITS PROJECTED MUNICIPAL REARRANGEMENTS ............................................................................................................41 D. EVOLUTION OF KOSOVO STATUS ........................................................................................42 E. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP .......................................................................45 F. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON EUROPE................................46 G. INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES.........................................................47 Europe Report N°182 14 May 2007 KOSOVO: NO GOOD ALTERNATIVES TO THE AHTISAARI PLAN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS The debate on Kosovo’s future status has reached a meaningful and concrete autonomy arrangements. Instead crucial point. The United Nations Security Council it has tried to establish the basis for an ethnic division of (UNSC) has begun to consider elements of a draft Kosovo and partition along the Ibar River, which runs resolution to determine the entity’s future, which could through the northern city of Mitrovica. It has done so by be put to a vote in the coming weeks. The best way of trying to delay the adoption of a Security Council resolution ensuring regional peace and stability and lifting Kosovo in the expectation that this would trigger a Kosovo out of an eight-year-long limbo, with a tired, temporary Albanian overreaction, including violence, and so create UN administration and an undeveloped, low-growth the conditions for such partition. Partition, however, would economy, is a resolution based squarely on the plan of not only destroy the prospect of multi-ethnicity in Kosovo UN Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari. This would supersede but also destabilise neighbouring states. UNSC Resolution 1244 (1999), define Kosovo’s internal settlement and minority-protection mechanisms, Implementation of Ahtisaari’s Comprehensive Proposal mandate a new international presence and allow for for the Kosovo Status Settlement will pose significant supervised independence. challenges. The key to a peaceful transition lies in its extensive decentralisation measures, which offer a way to Ahtisaari presented his plan in mid-March 2007 – in the secure buy-in to a new Kosovo state by its Serb minority, form of a short “Report” and a lengthy “Comprehensive especially the majority of Kosovo Serbs who live in Proposal” – to the Secretary-General, who forwarded it to enclaves south of the Ibar. The Ahtisaari Proposal is wisely the Security Council, with his full support, on 26 March. ambiguous with regard to the powers and duration of the This followed fourteen months of negotiations – a process EU mission that will oversee this settlement, ensuring that the Council had authorised with Resolution 1244 the international community will retain the final word in mandating “a political process designed to determine Kosovo through its formative years of statehood. Kosovo’s future status” – which failed to forge a compromise between Serbia and Kosovo Albanians. There is strong support from the major Western countries for the adoption of a resolution based on the full Ahtisaari The Ahtisaari plan is a compromise that offers Kosovo plan. But it is also important to exhaust all reasonable Albanians the prospect of independence, Kosovo Serbs opportunities to achieve the greatest unity possible within extensive rights, security and privileged relations with the Council, and most importantly, to avoid a Russian veto. Serbia, and Serbia the chance to put the past behind it once and for all and realise its European future. It is the Russia has opposed a quick timetable, strongly criticised best recipe for the creation of a multi-ethnic, democratic the Ahtisaari plan, raised concerns about the international and decentralised society and fits within the European precedent Kosovo may create and hinted that it might Union’s multi-ethnic project for the Western Balkans, veto a draft that does not take its position into account. which ultimately offers the prospect of accession. The Nonetheless a compromise solution may be possible EU is already the largest donor in Kosovo and plans to and should be attempted, possibly with the inclusion of assume the lion’s share of responsibility for the post-status additional elements of conditionality in the two-year period Kosovo civilian mission. Ultimately, Kosovo is, and will before review of the international supervisors’ mandate, remain until resolved, a European problem. and the reaffirmation of the need for more progress on minority rights standards. A resolution which does this The alternative is bleak. Forcing Kosovo Albanians back and endorses the Ahtisaari Proposal but does not into a constitutional relationship with Serbia would explicitly support Kosovo’s independence may achieve reignite violence. Belgrade has offered little beyond the necessary support. proposing that Kosovo remain an integral part of the Serbian state. It has done nothing over the past eight years to try to integrate Kosovo Albanians or to offer them Kosovo: No Good Alternatives to the Ahtisaari Plan Crisis Group Europe Report N°182, 14 May 2007 Page ii RECOMMENDATIONS To Members of the United Nations Security Council: 1. The United Nations Security Council should as soon as possible adopt a resolution under Chapter VII of the Charter which, optimally, would: (a) supersede UNSC Resolution 1244; (b) endorse both Ahtisaari’s Report on Kosovo’s Future Status, and his Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement; (c) mandate specifically the new international presences in Kosovo described in the Comprehensive Proposal, including the International Civilian