25/2/2005
Kosovo: Standards For Final Status Talks Not Reached

A tough and gloomy appraisal of the progress of Kosovo was published by the UN this week. None of the standards which need to be achieved before the UN administered province can have a final status have yet been fulfilled, including the all important building of trust between the majority ethnic Albanians and the minority Serb community. The standards include such matters as democratic institutions, minority rights and an impartial legal system.

The report does acknowledge that some what it calls 'noteworthy concrete steps' but concludes that while work on the standards has intensified and while some elements of the Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan have been completed, insufficient progress has been achieved in many areas. The UN has run Kosovo since NATO forces drove out Yugoslav troops in 1999.

"It cannot be over emphasized that forward momentum depends on the Provisional Institutions (local government), political leaders and people from all communities actually delivering real progress on the standards," says the report
It says there were no indications during the (three-month) reporting period whether the policies adopted will be fully implemented and, to the extent that they are, whether they will diminish Kosovo Serb unwillingness to engage in the Provisional Institutions. Serb participation in the elections last October was very poor.

Security for minorities has improved since last March when, in the worst violence since the UN took over, 19 people were killed, nearly 1,000 injured and hundreds of homes and centuries-old Serbian cultural sites razed or burned.
Kosovo Serbs in particular - outnumbered by Kosovo Albanians by 9 to 1 - continue to consider themselves at risk and are reluctant to leave their communities, or to interact with members of the majority community (and vice versa), says the report, so widening an already deep ethnic divide.

The report notes the Serbian Government's opposition to meaningful Kosovo Serb engagement and calls on Kosovo Serbs to engage in a constructive way and on the Serbian authorities to encourage this. "The majority community needs to create a climate in which members of minority communities, and in particular the Kosovo Serbs, feel confident they can return and remain in Kosovo," it concludes. "Moreover, the Serbian authorities must encourage this process since it is in the direct interest of Serbs in Kosovo."