Parliamentary elections in Kosovo: 'Key issue is relationship with Serbia'

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00:00some analysis. Our chief foreign editor Rob Parsons joins me in the studio. Rob,

00:04what's at stake here and what are some of the key issues on voters' minds?

00:08As ever with Kosovo, the key issue is the relationship with Serbia and

00:14the relationship with its Serbian minority, about 48% of the population. So

00:19during the 1990s, when Kosovo was still part of Serbia, there was a war

00:24between the two which led to breakaway from Serbia by the Kosovo

00:29Albanians. In 2008, they became independent. Serbia has never reconciled itself to

00:36that, has sought to exploit the presence of a Serbian ethnic minority inside

00:41Kosovo. The Kosovars, for their part, have sought to impose their will,

00:47their authority on that minority and ever since that has been the key issue

00:52that has determined effectively the outcome of politics in Kosovo. What

00:58the Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, is saying is that he, more than any other

01:03Prime Minister in the history of Kosovo since independence, has managed to expand,

01:08extend, strengthen the sovereignty of the country over all parts of Kosovo. But

01:15the flip side of that is he's accused by the European Union, the United States of

01:20undermining efforts to forward and improve conciliation between the

01:27minority and the majority in Kosovo, to the detriment of political stability in

01:34the region. You know, in 2023 there was an attempt by Albin Kurti, or beyond that,

01:41he successfully appointed Albanians as mayors of Mitrovica,

01:46North Mitrovica, a Serbian majority. He banned the use of the Serbian

01:52D9 inside Kosovo, prevented Serbians from getting access at the banks in

02:00Kosovo to their pensions and so on, leading to riots in 2023, which led to

02:07the wounding of 100 NATO peacekeeping forces, the KFOR force, inside Kosovo.

02:14So, you know, these are the issues that are boiling in the background, as they

02:19always have in Kosovo since independence.

02:23And what will the outcome of this election mean for Kosovo, the current

02:27Kosovo government and the EU?

02:29Well, you know, the government will say, you know, assuming

02:33it is Kurti who wins, although he's quite likely to have to form a

02:38coalition with another party, as you pointed out in your introduction. He

02:43could just get a majority, but it's going to be very close. He will want to pursue

02:47the policies he's been pursuing up until now. But there is growing

02:51pressure from within the country for a shift in position to try to adopt a

02:56more militant policy towards the European Union. Foreign investment has

03:01plummeted over the period of his government. The EU has put on hold

03:07150 million euros of aid to Kosovo. Relationships with the United States

03:13have been soured. Richard Grinnell, who was the special envoy of the United

03:17States during the first Donald Trump presidency, said that the Kurti

03:22government wasn't to be trusted. The Kurti government, for its part,

03:26accused Grinnell of trying to start a coup against its government inside

03:31Kosovo. So that's the key, I think, going forward. How does this,

03:35whatever government it is, continue to pursue what it regards as Kosovo's

03:40national interests, at the same time as not alienating its main backers, the

03:46European Union and the United States? Because without that, you know, Kosovo is

03:50one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in the European Union. Without

03:54that support, the life for ordinary Kosovars is going to remain as difficult

03:59as it is today. Rob, our chief foreign editor, thank you very much indeed, as

04:04always.

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