“Disputed” independence: Kosovo heading for Council of Europe’s membership

Translated by Alessandra Fumagalli 

The recommendation about Priština’s request for membership in the international organization located in Strasbourg has been accepted (131 were in favor, 29 against and 11 abstentions)

Priština is nearer to the membership in the Council of Europe

On 16th April, the Parliamentary Assembly of the international organization located in Strasbourg (which do not belong to the EU’s institutions) accepted the recommendation about Kosovo’s membership: this would lead to a “reinforcement of human rights standards, guaranteeing the access to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to those who are under Priština’s legislation”. It would also be te first time for Kosovo to join an international organization, since its unilateral Declaration of Independence in February 2008: peak of a dialogue developed in the last two decades, that would “ encourage the effort of improvements in the reinforcement of human rights, democracy and State of law”.

Serbia has already condemned the preliminary decision of the Council of Europe; Albanian reaction was quite opposite. The Committee of Foreign Ministers of the Council of Europe, in its meeting in Strasburg on the 16th and 17th of May, will have the final decision.

Human rights, democracy, State of law

The Council of Europe is an international organization, whose aim is to promote democracy and human rights. Founded on 5th May 1949 in London, after a broken Europe, nowadays it is based in Strasbourg in the Palace of Europe.

Among its members there are almost 50 European states, both belonging to the European Union and extra-EU, like Turkey, Ukraine and, till 22nd February 2022, Russia (that was excluded after the Ukrainian invasion).

Membership is possible only by invitation by the Ministers Committee (executive body of the organization, made up by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of 46 Member States) to “each European state that is able to accept the principles of the State of law, as well as safeguard of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.

Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia: 16 years of “disputed” independence

Meanwhile, the highest political authorities in Belgrade have already threatened that Kosovo’s eventual membership in the Council of Europe could imply the leaving of Serbia. It is a Vučić’s blackmail, which is an open violation of the Brussels Agreement on the normalization of relations between the two country (“Serbia will not oppose to Kosovo’s membership in any international organization”).

For the future membership of Priština in the Council of Europe, decennial challenges are to be solved as well as some other “unfinished issues”, such as the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo, which should be granted administrative autonomy as a post-membership commitment.

This happens in one of the most difficult and violent year as far as the relations between Priština and Belgrade are concerned. While the official state of Kosovo is still debatable, since Serbia still considers it as its province, losing its control in 1999 instead, with a bloody war lasted 1 year and a half, its independence is accepted by 101 out of 193 UN Member States. Moreover, five European countries don’t accept it as an independent State: Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania. An eternally suspended independence in a diplomatic limbo.

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