Czechs Split Over Kosovo Recognition

Czech President Milos Zeman in Moscow in 2015. (Kremlin)

Czech President Miloš Zeman called for the withdrawal of his country’s diplomatic recognition of Kosovo’s statehood during his state visit to Belgrade this week. While a unilateral change in such foreign policy falls outside the ambit of Zeman’s presidential authority, Zeman plans to pursue a reversal within the constitutional channels of his own government. “I’m not a dictator… but what I can do is to raise this issue and see if [withdrawal] is possible,” he said.

The president, however, faces a Czech executive structure largely in favor of maintaining status quo relations with Kosovo. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš sees “no reason for the Czech government to change its standpoint,” and Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček has affirmed his stance as well. Only Defense Minister Lubomír Metnar shares Zeman’s anti-recognition sentiments, calling the Czech position taken in 2008 “a diplomatic mistake,” Zeman recalls.

The motivations, though, for this sudden push among some to change a decade’s worth of Czech foreign policy precedent remain unclear. 

Zeman himself traces his position to the Hague’s suspicions of Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj’s complicity in war crimes as a commander in the Kosovo Liberation Army. Haradinaj has now twice resigned as prime minister amid such allegations. These circumstances, Zeman claims, warrant Czech derecognition for a “country led by war criminals should not be in the community of democratic countries.”

This explanation alone, however, may not prove a wholly comprehensive assessment of Zeman’s motivations.

Zeman, in response to Syrian migration to Europe, launched an alarmist, anti-Islamic rhetorical campaign against the integration of these populations in Czechia and in Europe. These Islamophobic sentiments may fuel Zeman’s desire to delegitimize Kosovo, a majority-Muslim nation, in the European community. Local media quoted Zeman saying, as he arrived in Belgrade this week, that he “loves Serbia and the Serbian people. And, I don’t love Kosovo.”

Political opponents of Zeman interpret his policy shift as an apologetic measure towards Serbia for his consent to and failure to veto the 1999 NATO air raids of Yugoslavia on Czechia’s behalf. Such an appeal, made in a joint press conference with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, assists Serbia in furthering a longtime diplomatic goal of lobbying UN member states to renounce recognition of Kosovo’s statehood. 

Recently, Serbia’s bid for international derecognition of Kosovo seems to have caught a new life. Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dačić reports that among 15 countries to officially derecognize Kosovo, including Madagascar and Papua New Guinea, Togo has most recently annulled its recognition. If these reports prove accurate, Belgrade’s objective to counter Kosovo’s goal of securing over 100 international diplomatic recognitions has succeeded in reducing the recognizing countries from 114 to 99.

Kosovo’s Foreign Ministry, however, disputes derecognition claims made by Belgrade. While Dačić announced Liberian reversal on Kosovo’s statehood in June 2018, Kosovar Prime Minister Behgjet Pacolli has insisted otherwise. Broadly, the Foreign Ministry has expressed concerns over bribery “by senior officials of the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for [issuing] counterfeit notes regarding Kosovo’s recognition,” a claim casting serious doubt over Belgrade’s alleged victories. 

However, Kosovo does concede that it “has faced in the last three years an unprecedented diplomatic and propaganda campaign from Serbia with the support of Russia and other countries to hinder Kosovo’s integration into the international community.”

While problematic, derecognition by these diplomatically peripheral states pales in comparison to the diplomatic repercussions of EU and NATO member Czechia’s potential reversal of policy. Zeman’s plan to put the Czech apparatus in gear regarding recognition may just influence the policies of European neighbors, especially in a climate of uncertainty surrounding the future viability of the European Union.

In what could be considered the start of this split, Babiš left early from a Prague summit of the Visegrád Group, a central European bloc comprised of Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Czechia, on Balkan accession to the EU due to Zeman’s statements. Additionally, Kosovo refrained from sending its prime minister to the event, sending a message of protest against those seeking its derecognition and signaling its dismay over Europe’s disunity.