An Albo-Serb Soap Opera

Some, however, would have you believe that we are set for a happy ending. The relationship between Edita Tahiri and Borko Stefanovic has undoubtedly morphed into a cheesy Latin American soap opera with signs that all is going to end well, at least in this fictional world.

But don’t be fooled: our fellow citizens in northern Kosovo have read a different script - the barricades may be coming down but it’s difficult to imagine that barricaders have given up on the return of Tsar Lazar.

And opposition parties on both sides of the border, or administrative crossing or whatever “integrated” terminology the EU wants to you to use, are busy trying to stop their respective governments from “sacrificing the national interest” and injecting a new plot twist in this tragicomedy.

MPs from Kosovo’s Vetevendosje movement have rolled their sleeves up for a motion of no confidence to overthrow the guy who, according to them, is selling northern Kosovo to Boris Tadic and enabling Serbia to get closer to the EU. Opposition parties LDK and AAK were quick to express their unwillingness to back the motion, although that’s unlikely to stop Albin Kurti’s men trying.

Similarly, opposition leaders from Serbia are also very outspoken about the Serb national interest and saving Kosovo. The leader of Democratic Party of Serbia, Vojislav Kostunica, has stressed that Serbia should forget the EU membership and it must consolidate itself as an independent country. He can give up on the EU, but that will not change the fact that Serbia has a new neighbour.

The risk to Tadic, however, is that if Serbia does not get EU candidacy status his party will lose the upcoming elections to radicals, and Serbia will be floating on a fresh wave of nationalism. Then we can expect Serbia to attempt to change its capital to Gazimestan.

Thaci too has pledged what is left of his reputation on visa liberalisation and real progress towards the EU. News coming from Brussels indicates that the EU supports the “purpose” of starting the visa liberalisation negotiations. Now it remains to see how long it takes to move on from the “purpose” of starting the process to actually having tangible results. The ghetto of Europe certainly is a long way away from visa free travel.

On the other hand, the head negotiators are once again busy thinking of creative ways of presenting the agreements in Brussels as major victories for their own respective governments. Edita claims that Serbia recognised our borders.

But, wasn’t she the one yelling until now that it’s all technical? Borko, too, says that Kosovar police and customs are there as monitors with no executive power because Kosovo is a Serb province. If that was the case, why doesn’t Vojvodina have monitors? The weeks and months ahead of us have the potential to destabilise the whole region, or to stabilise it.

But, as long as Edita and Borko keep posing and shaking hands in front of the media, we can all at least pretend that we are civilised and keep watching the Latin American Soap Opera, as if it was real life.