News from the New Party

Kosovo matters

This article from the Henry Jackson Society highlights why Kosovo's declaration of independence is significant, and why it should be supported by progressives and democrats everywhere, but by the European Union in particular:

On this day just nine years ago, peace talks over Kosovo were on the verge of breaking down, the US was sending warplanes to Serbia in preparation for air-strikes and British troops were en route to Macedonia, ready to enforce the peace over the border.

Today, after almost a decade under UN protection, Kosovo has declared independence again, but this time with the backing of (most of) the international community. This is significant not just because a fledgling nation has received some restitution for the bloodshed it suffered ten years ago. Today matters because Kosovo links many of the issues and challenges we still face.

One of these is the continued importance of the US and NATO in Europe. Together with Tony Blair, the US and NATO were central to the resolution of the original Kosovo crisis in 1999. Since then, the US has pushed for independence for Kosovo sooner rather than later, while several EU countries dithered and pleaded for more time to negotiate with Serbia, apparently for fear of causing offence to the Serbs or to their historical Russian protector. All this, in spite of the fact that in a June 2007 poll conducted by the Serbian Office for EU Integration, 71% of respondents said they would be against the termination of relations with the European Union, even if Kosovar independence was unanimously recognised by the EU. In an area where the West and Russia are both vying for influence, we cannot afford to be intimidated, especially when the EU has so much more to offer the countries of the European Neighbourhood than Russia.

The conflict in Kosovo demonstrated the need for stronger European defence both within and without NATO. In 1999, NATO discovered that out of area operations were essential for its continued survival as a meaningful alliance. But the under-funded, under-resourced and unbalanced European commitment to NATO’s current Afghanistan mission is threatening to unlearn this lesson, and suggest that the alliance is sinking into irrelevance once again.

It is of the utmost importance that the EU, and in particular the European members of NATO, recognises its responsibility in these matters.  Equivocation and a predilection for a quietist "realism" in foreign policy will increase neither the security of the Union, nor the freedom and security of peoples beyond its borders.  It is time for Europe to put aside the failures of the 1990s and shirk no longer from its responsibilities.