The West ultimatum to Serbia

ef. A conflict between Serbia and Kosovo has been simmering for over 20 years. Serbia does not recognise Kosovo as its own state, citing United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 of 19 June 1999. The resolution had ended the 78-day NATO aggression against Serbia at the time; it guaranteed Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, Kosovo’s affiliation to Serbia under international law, and substantial autonomy for the province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia. Nevertheless, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence in 2008, which was subsequently recognised by NATO and EU members.
  In recent weeks, the EU and the USA have issued an ultimatum to Serbia.
  An initiative originally presented by Germany and France, the “International Settlement Plan for Kosovo”, stipulates, among other things, that the two neighbouring countries should not formally recognise each other, but should mutually accept their state existence. In addition, Belgrade would have to refrain from preventing Kosovo from joining international organisations in the future. As Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic himself said in his speech to parliament on 2 February, several points of the international plan were difficult or even unacceptable from Serbia’s point of view: the negotiators – representatives of Germany, France, Italy, the EU and the USA – had threatened that the EU accession talks with Serbia, which had been going on since 2014, could be stopped and foreign investments halted. After Vucic indicated in his speech that he was in favour of the plan, tumultuous clashes broke out in parliament. Below, former Serbian Foreign Minister Živadin Jovanović (1998-2000) comments on the “solution plan”.

If the wording of the “Basic Agreement” presented by the western “Great Five” (EU, USA, Germany, France, Italy) on Kosovo and Metohija which has been circulated for a while in the Albanian media and as of 20 January in the Serbian social networks as well, is anywhere close to the authentic one, it cannot be viewed as any sort of an agreement – but rather as an ultimatum compelling Serbia to de facto recognise the enforced secession of her Province.

Humiliation of the Serbian nation

The document, originally attributed to French President Macron and German Chancellor Scholz, leaders of two largest European democracies, stands out as another gross violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the basic principles of democratic international relations, the UN Charter, the Paris Charter, and the OSCE’s Helsinki Final Act. Inspired by their own power and greatness, this text is humiliating Serbia and the Serbian nation by telling Serbia to observe equality, sovereignty, territorial integrity and state insignia of so-called Kosovo and, for that matter, of all other states but her own sovereignty, territorial integrity and her internationally recognised borders confirmed as such by the UN, the OSCE, other international organizations, and the Badinter Arbitration Committee.
  The Scholz-Macron paper demands Serbia to not oppose the so-called Kosovo’s membership in all international organisations, including the United Nations. Therein, Serbia is expected to cooperate in deconstruction of her own integrity, own Constitutional order and international standing, so that the “Kosovo case” subsequently could not be utilised by any party as a precedent for future unilateral secessions. The authors intend to use Serbia’s yielding to ultimatum as a way for non-recognisers (Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Greece, and Cyprus), which involve five EU and four NATO members, to recognise the so-called Kosovo and thus “heal” internal disunity within both the EU and NATO. Their another objective is to transfer all responsibility for casualties, devastation and consequences of using weapons with depleted uranium during NATO’s 1999 aggression onto Serbia, even though Serbia herself was its victim. Their final objective is to incorporate Serbia into a so-called “alliance of democracies” set up to confront Russia and China alleged “autocracies”. This shameful paper will stay in the future as illustration how the expansionist objectives of the military NATO aggression against Serbia (FRY) in 1999 had for decades been continued by other means such as ultimatums, threats of economic and political coercion.

US und EU ignore UN Security Council Resolution 1244

The so called Scholz and Macron proposal now turned into a US-backed EU initiative, coupled with the latest activities of the “Big Five” in Belgrade, are nothing short of usurpation and prejudging the prerogatives and decision of the UN Security Council as the only body in charge of deciding on issues pertaining to the peace and security; they ignore UN Security Council Resolution 1244 as a universally binding legal act of the highest force and seek to drag Serbia, a peaceful and militarily neutral country, into a global confrontation. This reckless, one-sided and arbitrary course of action, in addition to being anti-Serb, is fraught with unforeseeable consequences.
  Kosovo and Metohija is not a frozen conflict, as purported by the West and echoed in Belgrade, nor can it be resolved by presenting an ultimatum to Serbia. A hypothetical acceptance of ultimatum would not save either peace or safety of Serbs in the Province, only help the conflict potential accumulate, other separatisms encourage, and humiliate Serbia and the Serbian nation. The root cause and the essence of the problem concerning Kosovo and Metohija lies in the geopolitics determined by the dominance of the leading Western powers and their expansion to the East. NATO does its utmost to turn Kosovo and Metohija, as well as the entire Serbia, into a springboard for its incursion eastwards, to pit Serbia against Russia and China.

Serbia must not give in

The issue of the status of the Province of Kosovo and Metohija, however, cannot be resolved by accepting any ultimatum but instead by insisting on the observance of the Constitution, as well as of the internationally recognised borders and UN SC Resolution 1244. Even if Serbia surrendered to ultimatum, the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija would remain unsafe, their illegally occupied property would not be repossessed, some 250,000 expelled Serbs and other non-Albanians would remain unable to return to their homes freely and safely, Serbian state-owned and socially-owned property would remain usurped. If anything, Serbia should be aware that yielding to ultimatum could only result in speeding up dangerous trends of confrontation and escalation, at the regional and the European level just the same.
  A potential consent given by Serbia to the so-called Kosovo joining the United Nations and other international organisations would be tantamount to the recognition of the latter’s international legal personality, entailing all sorts of consequences, beginning with an escalation and going all the way to the creation of Greater Albania at the expense of state territories not only of Serbia but also of few other Balkan states. Is there a soul in Serbia believing in new guarantees and promises given by the West? Was it not Angela Merkel who recently cautioned us to not trust their assurances! Or has our gullibility already entered the stage of no limits!

Unconvincing diplomatic cosmetics

The promises involving self-governance for Serbs, the Community of Serbian Municipalities (albeit one established ‘pursuant to the Kosovo Constitution’, according to Chollet), and ‘formalising the status of the Serbian Orthodox Church’, do not in the least alter the true character of the Scholz-Macron (EU’s) ultimatum. Why? Because its essence lies in the request that Serbia firstly tacitly and later on formally legally, recognise the independence of the so-called Kosovo and accept its membership in the United Nations and other international organisations. The rest is merely a part of a more or less convincing diplomatic cosmetics and the tactics to ‘save the face’ of the victim.
  History warns that peace, stability, and better life cannot be preserved by means of conceding to ultimatum at the expense of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Let us recall that the Munich Agreement of 1938 on carving out the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, an ultimatum made behind Russia’s back, was also publicly touted by the then-leaders of Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom as the one saving peace in Europe. It is very perilous that those countries’ contemporary leaders are unaware of past lessons.

Serbia’s survival as a conribtion to peace

The position taken vis-à-vis the Constitution, UN SC Resolution 1244, internationally recognised borders of Serbia, and international law, is not a matter of an ultimatum or of a one-off deal, but rather the matter of the position taken vis-à-vis the survival of Serbia as an old European state, and of Serbian nation as a factor contributing to peace, stability and progress in the Balkans, Europe, and the world. Such status and reputation of Serbia are reaffirmed by the majority of countries in the world, by some two-thirds of the planet’s population, who did not and wish not to recognise this illegal construct as a state; among those is a not so small number of countries which, at Serbia’s request, withdrew their previous recognitions without fearing ultimatum-fashioned pressures from the West not to do so.  •

* Živadin Jovanović  is President of the “Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals”. He studied law at the University of Belgrade, from 1964 to 2000 he worked in the diplomatic service of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (from 1992 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia FRY). From 1988 to 1993 ambassador in Luanda/Angola, from 1995 to 1998 deputy foreign minister, from 1998 to 2000 foreign minister, in 1996 member of the Serbian parliament and in 2000 in the parliament of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In addition to numerous articles and interviews, he has published the following books, among others: “The Bridges” (2002); “Abolishing the State” (2003); “The Kosovo Mirror“ (2006).
Živadin Jovanović sent the text on 21 January 2023.