The Normalisation Process between Kosovo and Serbia and the Prospects for European Integration

The relations between the EU and Kosovo have been ambivalent over the past two decades. Even though the biggest support in the development of Kosovo’s institutions, the rule of law and the economy came from the EU or its member states, it remains unclear how and what the path towards further integration with the EU looks like. This is due to the fact that Kosovo is still not recognized by five EU Member States and other more recent troubling events within the EU. This paper will explain how the debate about the European Integration by both the EU institutions as well as the political elites in Kosovo has been used not only to create and nurture support for it as a long process. I claim that the promise of further integration is being used as a positive leverage to give incentives and enforce difficult political decisions that the Kosovar politicians have to take. The case where this is more than obvious is that of the normalisation process between Kosovo and Serbia, which has started in 2011 with an EU-mediated dialogue between the two countries. The most recent point of heated debate is that of the “land swap” between the two countries, which has gained support by the EU institutions and is being promoted by the Presidents of both states as the solution towards full normalisation and European Integration. This idea is being refused by a large majority of the people in Kosovo, the Kosovar Government, the civil society as well as powerful Member States within the EU, most notably Germany. I will assess the narratives of the high representatives of the EU as well as the main political actors in Kosovo (and Serbia) through discourse analysis and evaluate if the agreements and recent events (Kosovo’s tariffs on Serbia) that this dialogue has produced thus far, have had any positive impact on the normalisation process. Thus I will be able to illustrate how the prospect of a swift EU accession process has been used by the major actors to come up with the idea of “land swap” which endangers the stability and peace in the region. It will also clarify why the EU has failed in this process and how it is creating an opportunity for other regional powers to gain more influence in this European Periphery.