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Don’t imperil reforms, Belgrade tells West

Vilified by Western powers in the 1990s as the bad boy of Europe, Serbia says the boot is on the other foot these days. According to Belgrade, it is the United States, Britain, and France that endanger stability in the western Balkans by rashly backing Kosovo’s independence. Their policy is irresponsible, illegal, and self-defeating, Serb officials claim. Non-partisan observers are blunter still: they say independence simply will not work.

Speaking in London on Monday, Serbia’s Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic warned that seven years of domestic reforms and political good behaviour since Slobodan Milosevic’s fall would be undermined if Serbia were forcibly partitioned. Kosovo’s loss was impossible to explain or justify to ordinary voters and could provoke a backlash against democracy and its foremost Western proponents.

“If Serbia falters, if we plunge back into the mindset of the past, so will the rest of the Balkans,” Mr. Jeremic warned. “We must not sacrifice European unity on the altar of communal aspirations ... If you go ahead [backing Kosovan independence], you will have de-legitimised democracy in the eyes of the Serbian people. It will be a blow from which we may not recover.” — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

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