Kosovo
has just celebrated the 7th year anniversary of its independence
from Serbia on 17th February 2008, while the numbers of Kosovo
citizens trying to illegally enter the Europe Union is on the rise. According
to the Hungarian police report, around 4400 people from Kosovo were arrested in
a week while trying to pass the Serbian-Hungarian border illegally.
Approximately 50.000 people have left from Kosovo in recent months, according
to Kosovo Intelligence Agency. The migrants, who leave from the country with
the hope of gaining asylum in the EU countries, firstly travel to Serbia with
their ID cards and then try to pass the border of Hungary at night either by
themselves or with the help of smugglers.
After
7 years, the disputes over independence are not taking any more attention while
the socio-economic problems of Kosovo have become more visible throughout the
time. I visited Kosovo aftermath of its independence and wrote a piece which covered
that despite the fact that Kosovo is an independent country, it seems more or
less global village with the international institutions that appeared
everywhere such as the NATO and the EU. Moreover, without any doubt the biggest
challenge for the country was youth unemployment which was clearly
understandable from the first sight if anyone looked at the crowd at cafés and bar shops within the working
times. Friends from Kosovo blamed me for not being patient enough and even
criticised me as being traitor to a country which I consider as a brother land.
Main
motivation of mine was a kind of being a good and honest friend of Kosovo while
criticising institutions of Kosovo in terms of being corrupted and not working
properly. And today I am very sad to see that main problems such as young
unemployment and institutionalization have been the topics which did not get
enough attention from the politicians. There is no doubt that nation building,
institutionalization and such processes take times. Kosovo declared its
independence in 2008; however, it has been under the mandate of the UN since
1999. In other words, we should not consider the date of independence as start
point for the development of Kosovo.
Kosovo
has been under the rule of Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) with the leading
role of Hasim Thaci, one of the former-leaders of Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA-UÇK), since its independence in 2008.
Last parliamentary elections held on June 2014 and Thaci’s PDK declared slight victory which
was followed by Isa Mustafa’s Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK). There had been six months political
stalemate which ended by the deal between two major parties. Although Thaci’s PDK slightly won the elections, the
new government formed with Isa Mustafa’s LDK and Mustafa took the chair of prime minister while PDK’s Thaci, ex-prime minister, took the
position of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and kept the promise to be a nominated
as presidential candidate by two parties which enable him to be the fourth
president of Kosovo.
While
the political elites are looking for a chance to maintain their power, -as it
has been the case for Hasim Thaci- aftermath of the excitement and happiness of
having an independent state, people of Kosovo started to feel isolated by not
having visa liberalization from the EU, moreover, the stories about
independence are not satisfactory anymore. At least, the expectations from the
independence as reward of being under the UN mandate for almost 10 years have
not become truths yet.
One
of the chronic problems of Ex-Yugoslav countries except Slovenia, which has
always been different case, is political deadlocks that slow-down all
development processes, specifically the most urgent one, economic development.
Political stalemates have been occurred everywhere but never more than any
Balkan countries. Most recently it is happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
where the previous government could form after 14 months to the elections. As
mentioned above Kosovo held last elections on June 2014, however, formation of
government took 6 months. Political deadlocks and long last political
agreements cause instable environment for investors as it is case for Kosovo.
Hykmete Bajrami,Trade Minister of newly formed government of Kosovo, has said
that Kosovo experiencing a fall in foreign direct investments. According to the
minister, foreign direct investment was 121.7 million euro in the first
three-quarters of 2014 compared to 258 million euro in foreign direct
investment for the entire year of 2013.
Independence
of Kosovo was an important step and excellent work has been done by getting
recognition from 108 of 193 member states of the United Nations in short period
of time. Furthermore, the ongoing negotiation process with Belgrade should be
considered being brave and courage enough. Despite the all those achievements,
the first expectation of people of Kosovo is solution for unemployment which is
the core reason of current waves of people from Pristine bus station to
Belgrade and then to the EU countries for gaining asylum. Rivalry between
political parties and elites should be left behind for the sake of Kosovo until
the time that stable economy created, prosperity of people of Kosovo provided.
Otherwise, there will be more difficult times in which Kosovo struggled a lot,
although it’s recognized and
respectful independence.