Local contestation against the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo

ABSTRACT

This article examines local contestation against the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (EULEX), manifesting itself in local actors publicly demanding a change in the mission’s mandate and/or its operations. The article investigates how EULEX’s actions and its effectiveness are perceived and reacted upon by the local actors. It shows that local contestation is mainly fueled by (1) conflicting sovereignty claims by the majority Albanians and the minority Serbs; (2) the understanding of sovereignty by parts of society as entailing exclusive authority; and (3) dissatisfaction with the mission’s effectiveness. By addressing EULEX from a bottom-up perspective—that of the local actors—the article underlines the limitations of EU policies in post-conflict Kosovo.

KEYWORDS:

• Contestation
• resistance
• CSDP
• peacebuilding
• Western Balkans

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the European Union in International Affairs (EUIA) conference in Brussels, May 11–13, 2016, conference of the ECPR Standing Group on the European Union in Trento, June 15–18, 2016, and UACES annual conference in London, September 5–7, 2016. The author would like to express her gratitude to Geoffrey Edwards, Stephan Keukeleire, Thomas Weiss, and the participants of the panels at these conferences for their invaluable comments. The author is also grateful to Sophie Vanhoonacker, Petar Petrov, editors of the special issue, editor, and reviewers for their feedback on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Ewa Mahr is a Ph.D. candidate at Maastricht University, Campus Brussels. Her research interests include the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, peacebuilding, the Western Balkans, and the EU institutions. In her Ph.D. dissertation she analyzes the contestation against EU civilian missions by local actors in the Western Balkans. She has previously held various positions in the European Parliament, including in the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

ORCID

Ewa Mahr http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3702-4770

Notes

1. Article 5 states: “We invite and welcome an international civilian presence to supervise our implementation of the Ahtisaari Plan, and a European Union-led rule of law mission” (Kosovo, 2008).

2. Altogether 6,294 news items were examined for information. Lexis Nexis Academic database was used, as it contains translated local Kosovar and Serbian news items (press articles from newspapers, articles from websites of TV stations, and transcripts of TV and radio programmes) and news from major international news agencies. Local news items were the main source of information, with international news agencies used to corroborate the information.

3. Kosovo Albanian interviewees included: journalists–interviews #4, #11, and #33; member of Kosovo’s administration-interview #12; members of judicial profession–interviews #13 and #31; organizers of protests–interviews #2, #14, #17, #19, #26, #27, and #30 (#2 and #27 senior members of Vetëvendosje); other member of civil society organizations–interview #20; politician–interview #1 (PD-opposition party); senior police officer–interview #23; think tank members–interviews #12 and #32. Kosovo Serb interviewees included: local residents (north)–interviews #8, #24, #25, #28; member of judicial profession–interview #18; politicians (north and south)–interviews #3, #7, #9, #21 (opposition, respectively, DSS, SRS, United Serbian List, SRS), and interview #10 (SLS-government party). All Serbs except for #3 and #10 participated in protests.

4. Interviews #5, #6, #15, and #29.

5. Interviews #16 and #22.

6. The situation has since improved, for instance, concerning Serbs’ participation in Kosovo’s political institutions.

7. It was a part of Six-point Plan proposed by Serbian President Boris Tadić including status-neutral arrangements on police, customs, justice, transportation and infrastructure, boundaries, and Serbian patrimony. The plan was rejected by Kosovo’s government but its principles were accepted by the UN Secretary-General (United Nations, 1999).

8. The top-down approach is probably the most common criticism concerning the international missions–see, for instance, Paris (2002) and Richmond and Franks (2009).