European Voice: Kosovo independence turning to disaster
Kosovo’s unilateral independence is turning into a disaster and a bad precedent, argues the columnist of the Brussels-based European Voice, Ilana Bet-El
(KosovoCompomise Staff) Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Kosovo's independence was an "ill-conceived, amateurishly handled move, lacking consensus in the EU and in the international arena. Regardless of whether Kosovo deserved independence or not, the reasoning behind it was contorted at the best of times, laying open the deep global divisions over international law and its application," Bet-El writes.
"From a narrowly EU perspective, it was a public relations disaster that mutated into a substantive one, given the inability to deploy the much-planned EU mission Eulex, which was meant to succeed the UN mission, Unmik. That Eulex finally got some people on the ground in the past few weeks is down to another round of doubtful deals rather than clear resolutions", the European Voice's columnist argues.
"But then clear resolutions were not on offer: Kosovo paralysed the UN Security Council because of threatened US or Russian vetoes. As a result, the entire debacle became exactly that which everyone assumed it would be from the start: a bad precedent," Bet-El concludes.
