Kosovo, fifteen years of independence and still in search of recognition

An old graffiti proclaiming 'Kosovo is the heart of Serbia' fades in the Serbian enclave of Osojane in western Kosovo.

© Simon Rico / RFI

Text by: Jean-Arnault Dérens Follow |

Simon Rico Follow

6 mins

This Friday, February 17, Kosovo celebrates 15 years of its still disputed independence.

A quarter of a century after the war, the small Balkan state is struggling to turn the page.

A “normalization” agreement is today fiercely negotiated by the West.

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From our regional correspondents,

In 1999, Kosovo was on fire and bloodshed.

The Yugoslav security forces were fighting against the Albanian guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK).

A “technical” ceasefire was signed on June 10, after an intense NATO bombing campaign.

According to UN resolution 1244, adopted at the same time, Kosovo is still formally placed under the sovereignty of Serbia.

Independence, proclaimed in 2008, is therefore contested as such by Belgrade, with two strong supporters: China and Russia, members of the Security Council.

A complicated past

Within the Yugoslav Federation, Kosovo only had the status of an autonomous province, lower than that of the federated republics, such as that of Serbia to which it was precisely attached.

According to the 1981 census – the last to be disputed by anyone – Albanians represented 77% of the total population, alongside Serbs (13%), but also many minorities (Roma, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Turks, etc.).

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The Albanians of Yugoslavia considered themselves discriminated against, because the socialist power had not recognized their status as a constituent people despite their numerical importance and because they did not have their own republic.

The question of Kosovo was also a development issue: this land has always been the poorest in the Federation.

From the beginning of the 1980s, Albanian claims came up against an increasingly repressive policy, which culminated in the following decade after Slobodan Milosevic abolished the province's autonomy.

The strong man from Belgrade had indeed chosen to play the card of Serbian nationalism, which traditionally considers Kosovo as the “cradle” of Serbia.

This land, which was the heart of the first Serbian kingdom in the Middle Ages, still houses many monasteries and the patriarchal seat of the Orthodox Church.

The Albanians initially reacted with "passive non-violent resistance", but this strategy driven by Ibrahim Rugova, the future first president of Kosovo, did not yield the expected results, which favored the appearance of the guerrillas of UÇK, determined to obtain independence arms in hand.

The long international protectorate

In June 1999, Kumanovo Technical Agreements ended the war.

Kosovo was then placed under the provisional administration of the United Nations, without anything being decided on its status.

The NATO mission, Kfor, then deployed to ensure “peacekeeping”, is still in place, even if its manpower has increased from 40,000 to 4,000 men.

As for the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (Unmik), which assumed all the functions of the State, its powers to provide Kosovo with new functional institutions were transferred at the end of 2008 – after the proclamation of independence – to Eulex, a mission of the European Union.

As soon as the fighting stopped, the Albanians who had fled during the bombardments returned, while the Serbs were in turn driven out or forced to hide in the north of the territory or in enclaves, isolated villages, scattered across the territory.

Today, just over 100,000 Serbs are still living in Kosovo, half the number before the war.

The majority live in the “enclaves”, but the small northern sector, homogeneous and contiguous to Serbia, and especially the divided city of Mitrovica, concentrate most of the tensions.

Partially recognized independence

On February 17, 2008, the independence of Kosovo was proclaimed by Prime Minister Hashim Thaçi, former spokesman for the guerrillas.

This independence may well be “supervised” by the international community, but it is not accepted by Belgrade.

Serbia even began an active lobbying campaign against its recognition, skilfully reactivating its networks in the non-aligned movement, inherited from Yugoslavia.

While the Western “godfathers” hoped for a rapid and massive wave of recognition of Kosovo, this is still recognized by only about half of the members of the United Nations.

Within the European Union itself, five States also refuse to recognize it (Cyprus, Spain, Greece, Slovakia and Romania).

As a result, Kosovo is still not a member of the Council of Europe, it does not have the official status of a candidate for European integration, and its membership of all international organisations, even sports federations, has taken the look of a long obstacle course.

The economic situation in Kosovo has hardly improved since independence.

The enthusiasm of the large diaspora has never resulted in significant investment in the country.

On the contrary, more and more Kosovars are leaving their country.

If this exodus serves as a "safety valve", avoiding a social explosion while unemployment remains massive, the departure of the living forces jeopardizes the future of the country, whose population has been declining since the end of the war.

What agreement with Belgrade?

In early 2021, Prime Minister Albin Kurti's "Vetëvendosje" ("Self-determination") movement largely won the last elections, after two decades of highly corrupt guerrilla party rule.

Its successes are nevertheless limited: the economy remains struggling, as does the dialogue with Serbia, supervised since 2011 by the European Union.

The objective of these “technical” negotiations is to solve the concrete problems affecting the citizens, without addressing the question of the status of Kosovo, nor its possible recognition by Belgrade.

Several agreements have been signed, but they are often slow to be applied, for lack of good will in Pristina as in Belgrade.

The most controversial of these agreements concerns the creation of an Association of Serb municipalities in Kosovo, initialed in the summer of 2015, but never implemented.

Albin Kurti and Vetëvendosje have always been against it, fearing that this is the prelude to territorial autonomy, or even to a secession of the Serbian areas.

The United States and the European Union are now putting pressure on Pristina to create this Association, in “compensation” for a plan to “normalize relations” with Belgrade.

This plan would provide for Kosovo to finally be able to join the United Nations, without bilateral recognition with Serbia, on the model of the two Germanys which both sat in the UN without recognizing each other mutually.

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