EU should not bow to pressure from Kosovo

There is no guarantee that Kosovo will stay on the path to reform.

The compulsion to compromise is deeply engrained in the psyche of the European Union. An addiction to find agreement, seemingly at any cost, results all too often in outcomes that satisfy no one completely, though they may be tolerated by most: the triumph of the lowest common denominator.

In a few walks of EU life – notably competition policy and trade policy – the European Commission has sufficient power to take a purer line, though even there it often opts for compromise, perhaps out of habit. In most areas of EU policy, messy compromise is simply the order of the day.

In its dealings with the outside world, the EU’s inability to hold a firm, united line is often a disadvantage. It frequently struggles to corral its member states (now 28) into a constant common position.

Nevertheless, it is surprising and regrettable to see the EU unable to stand up to the diplomatic muscle of Kosovo, a country that has not hitherto been considered the most powerful on the European continent.

Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, and the European External Action Service, the EU’s diplomatic corps, are proposing that the EU should neuter its judicial mission in Kosovo, Eulex. That mission has, since 2008, when it took over the task from a body installed by the international community after the wars of the 1990s, been trying to apply the rule of law in Kosovo.

It has had an uphill task. The political class is riven with corruption. The judiciary is weak. The tools of order – the police and the courts – are not independent.

Nevertheless, it has had some successes – including prosecutions, trials and convictions.

So why now should the mission be ended? It seems that Ashton and the EEAS are persuaded that Kosovo has set out on the path to reform that one day will lead it to membership of the EU. The agreement with Serbia to normalise relations, concluded last April, was an important step on that path.

True enough. But there is no guarantee that Kosovo will stay on that path. Indeed, it seems more likely that Kosovo will stray if Eulex is no longer there to guide it.

State-building – establishing democratic institutions and the rule of law – is not easy. There is no miraculous gravitational effect that ensures that when a country is designated for EU membership it will automatically acquire high standards of law and order.

Indeed, the reports published yesterday by the European Commission on Bulgaria and Romania show that democratic and judicial institutions need nurturing and protecting even after admission to the EU.

That should make the EU’s member states hesitate before they fall into line with Ashton’s proposal, which looks suspiciously like a generous reward for Kosovo’s taking a constructive attitude to the normalisation talks with Serbia that she mediated. Serbia was rewarded with the opening of EU membership talks. Now it would appear that the Kosovo government, run by former rebel leader Hashim Thaçi, is to get what he wants, ie, control of the special prosecution office that has hitherto been a thorn in the side of his government – even though the Commission has expressed its reservations.

Member states should ask themselves whether they believe that Kosovo is in a condition to guarantee the rule of law. If it is not, then Kosovo will be a source of problems to the EU for years to come. Whatever the expense of Eulex, the cost of a lawless Kosovo on the EU’s doorstep will be much greater.

That urge to compromise, to settle for the lowest common denominator, should be resisted.