The situation in Kosovo is escalating. While EU foreign affairs representative Josep Borrell verbally attacked the Serbs protesting in the north of the breakaway republic, the Serbian president spoke in the evening of the country being “pushed to the wall.” These were the “most difficult hours of his term in office.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has said in an address to the people that he is currently experiencing the most difficult hours in his term as President or (previously) Head of Government of Serbia. An attempt to solve the “Serbian question” by force is currently being observed, he continued, urging citizens to “keep calm.”
“We are witnessing an attempt to solve the Serbian question in Kosovo, I call on Serbs to remain calm.”
America has made “a monster” out of Kosovo over the past 23 years, Vučić polemicized. Serbia has now been “pushed to the wall,” he said. He condemned the Kosovar government’s bid to use force to disperse civil protests in the breakaway republic’s Serb-majority north and criticized the West for taking sides unilaterally:
“The barricades were not erected by anyone on a whim. Citizens protested the arrests, the mistreatment of people and the non-implementation of the Brussels agreement. Our American ‘partners’ should tell us what legal act they and Priština respect.”
Earlier, the head of Serbia’s government Ana Brnabić sharply criticized the EU. The EU will lose all its authority and credibility if it continues to insist that Kosovo Serbs remove barricades erected amid recent tensions in the breakaway region, the prime minister said Sunday. The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, had called on the Serbs to remove the barricades earlier in the day, adding that the EU would not tolerate “violent, criminal acts in the north” of Kosovo.
Ana Brnabić, on the other hand, accused the EU of neglecting the needs of Kosovo Serbs. Europeans only pay attention to them “when they are on the barricades,” she said. The erection of the barricades was not only a demonstration of “discontent and despair,” but a “call for peace and also a call for action [on the part of] the international community,” Brnabić said. She added:
“The people on the barricades are clearly expressing their protest, and they are doing it in a peaceful way. The only way to make their voices heard is, unfortunately, the barricades.”
Hundreds of Serbs erected barricades at two key border crossings in northern Kosovo on Saturday, blocking roads and obstructing traffic. The protests were triggered by the arrest of a former police officer whom Priština had accused of attacking Kosovo police patrols.
Tensions in the region had been reignited by Priština’s decision to call early elections in the four Serb-dominated municipalities on December 18. The main Serb political parties then announced that they would boycott any vote. As the barricades were erected, Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani-Sadriu announced a postponement of the vote until April 2023.
With tensions high, according to some media reports, a “stun grenade” was thrown at a vehicle belonging to the EU mission (EULEX) that was supposed to be patrolling northern Kosovo. Although no injuries or damage were reported, the alleged incident triggered an angry response from Borrell:
“The EU will not tolerate attacks on EULEX … or violent, criminal acts in the north,”
he wrote in a tweet, demanding that barricades in the region “be removed immediately by groups of Kosovo Serbs.”
