US and EU diplomats and Kosovo: "Too many cooks spoil the broth"

US and EU diplomats and Kosovo: "Too many cooks spoil the broth"

According to "Sputnik", it seems that the U.S. team for the Balkans, which consists of Gabriel Escobar, the White House special representative for the Balkans, and Matthew Palmer, now in charge of electoral reform in Bosnia-Herzegovina, will get a third team member.

This was announced by Escobar himself, not ruling out the possibility that the United States will appoint its envoy for the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, after he participated in the talks between the opposing parties in Brussels regarding the crisis with car license plates.

How the United States "hijacks" the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina

Escobar's role in reaching an agreement remains a mystery, but, according to many analysts, it was crucial, even though the agreement was formally reached with the mediation of the EU, writes Sputnik.

His announcement of the possibility of the White House appointing a special representative for Kosovo and Metohija irresistibly reminds of what Donald Trump did by appointing Richard Grenell to that position - the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina intensified and resulted in the signing of the Washington Agreement. However, the most important achievement of Grenell's involvement in the dialogue was the "kidnapping" of the dialogue, its relocation from Brussels to Washington and the marginalization of the EU. In that light, perhaps the statement of US President Joe Biden should be read, that the Kosovo issue will be resolved before the end of his first term.

Aleksandar Gajic, an analyst at the Institute for European Studies, believes that if the United States appoints a new Grenell as a special envoy for dialogue between Serbia and its renegade southern province, Washington can be expected to suppress Brussels on all unresolved issues in the Balkans.

"We have also seen that in this situation around the license plates, although the EU was a formal mediator, in fact the presence of Escobar in the background was of great importance for both sides to agree to compromise. In this way, the Americans definitely put the EU in the background, and they even completely suppress it", said Gajić.

He added that the fact that Escobar does not exclude the possibility of appointing an envoy for Kosovo speaks of the American intention to intensify activities in the Balkans in which the EU was involved.

"And since the EU has been efficient so far, it can be expected that the Americans will either put it in the background, or even completely displace them, as happened with Grenell during Trump's mandate," Gajic says.

A combination of pressure and counter-service

What the American policy towards the Balkans will look like in such a development of the situation can already be inferred from certain statements - for example, from Matthew Palmer's message that Washington will not impose solutions in Bosnia-Herzegovina. According to Gajic, it will be a combination of pressure and offering counter-services from Washington.

"It means that they will make some offers, that they will not act exclusively with pressure on Serbia, but will probably go in the direction of a slightly softer approach. That is the principle of stick and carrot - a combined approach to pressure, threats and offering some economic benefits as Grenell did", Gajic pointed out.

Historian Sasa Adamovic reminded that Washington has always been active when it comes to the problem of Kosovo and Metohija, from the negotiations led by Catherine Ashton, the first president of European diplomacy, through her successor Federica Mogherini to the present day, and added that regardless of the participation of American representatives, there were no major changes in solving the Kosovo problem, except when Richard Grenell was engaged in solving it.

"All activities, whether originating from the EU or the United States, did not yield any special results, but all the time were aimed at forcing Belgrade or persuading it to recognize the so-called independence of Kosovo and Metohija," Adamovic said, adding that hiring another American diplomat led to "too much crowd".

"There's a saying: Too many cooks spoil the broth". The question is also the purpose of the participation of so many Western diplomats because there are no serious results, and it seems to us that there will be none in the future. "But these are all artificially imposed deadlines. We have heard all this many times and for many years, and there is no serious and real result," Adamovic concluded.