kosovo

Besides the COVID-19 pandemic that the country is dealing with, Kosovo is currently experiencing unprecedented political turmoil. While the state institutions and public health bodies have been actively faced with the COVID-19 situation since mid-March when the first protective measures were introduced in Kosovo, on the other hand the former junior government’s coalition partner - Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK), ranked in second place in Kosovo’s snap elections held on October 6, 2019 - started to angrily act in opposition to the government.

Kosovo as a state is not just a product of the popular will to self-determination, but also a product of the liberal international order that is now being dismantled. It was able to secede from Serbia and gain recognition from an overwhelming majority of Western countries (and others) based on the liberal understanding of international law that dominated in the age of US unipolar dominance. This was confirmed by the 2011 verdict of the International Court of Justice, which ruled that Kosovo’s declaration of independence was not in contradiction to international law. 

Most experts agree that Serbia has a "single-issue", the foreign policy of countersecession following Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence. This issue shapes Serbia's official discourse and foreign policy.

In 2015, the Kosovar Parliament passed a law to establish a Special Court in The Hague in order to investigate war crimes perpetrated in Kosovo between January 1998 and December 2000.

The Western Balkans – that is, the countries of former Yugoslavia minus Slovenia and Croatia, plus Albania – are faring relatively better than other regions on the edges of Europe. Unlike their Eastern neighbours, they are on track to become members of the European Union (EU).