A Conversation With President Vjosa Osmani Sadriu of Kosovo

President Vjosa Osmani discusses security challenges in Europe, Kosovo's foreign policy priorities amid regional instability, and the future of the country's relationship with the United States.

ROBINSON: Good afternoon. Welcome to today’s Council on Foreign Relations meeting with President Vjosa Osmani Sadriu of Kosovo.

My name is Linda Robinson. I’m the Women and Foreign Policy senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and I’ll be presiding over today’s session.

I would like to welcome you, Madam President, to the Council on Foreign Relations. We welcome this opportunity to have a dialogue about Kosovo’s foreign policy, regional security challenges, and U.S. relations.

It has been sixteen years since Kosovo’s independence, and twenty-five years since the NATO invention to stop the Kosovo War waged by Slobodan Milošević, which cost 13,000 lives and displaced one million residents. Many of our attendees here may know that some seven hundred American servicemen and women have been deployed to Kosovo in the NATO peacekeeping force, which the U.S. has been supporting since 1999.

I had the opportunity to visit you in April, and see the vibrant democracy that Kosovo has become, and talk about your twenty-year role in politics and government. Everyone here has the bio for President Osmani, but I just would like to take a moment and note a few of the highlights.

She was the chief of staff to the first president, Sejdiu. She helped draft the constitution. She has been elected five times to the parliament, and she was the first woman speaker of parliament. And she is the second woman president of Kosovo in just sixteen years of its history. So that’s really an astonishing contribution and journey that you’ve been on with your country.

I would like to jump right into the future, into the moment we are in right now, and ask you to talk about the causes of the current tensions that Kosovo is experiencing, and what you think are the critical steps needed by Kosovo and others to move ahead.

OSMANI: Well, thank you so much, Linda, for the kind introduction, and thank you all for joining. It’s a really great honor and privilege to be able to speak here today, and to have a conversation with you and everyone present on how we see the future of Kosovo, and also the future of our region as part of the European family of nations.

The Republic of Kosovo truly is a testament to what democracies can achieve when they stand together in defense of values: the values of freedom, independence, and democracy. For centuries, the people of Kosovo lived under occupation. For decades we lived under an apartheid-like regime that escalated into a genocidal war against our people.

Even today, twenty-five years after the war, you see a lot of wounds, a lot of pain among the people of Kosovo because you can’t find one single family that hasn’t gone through hell. You rightly pointed out that the vast majority of the people of Kosovo were displaced as IDPs or refugees. I was initially an IDP and then became a refugee myself, and that shapes you for the rest of your life. But at the same time, what you see among the people of Kosovo is the kind of resilience that is unmatched, but at the same time, gratefulness for those allies and partners that stood by us during the darkest hours of our history, and just this spirit of moving forward and making steps forward towards the Euro-Atlantic family of nations, which is where we belong.

Now despite of this very, very painful past, and practically rising from the ashes of war, the people of Kosovo have shown such a strong determination to make sure that the country moves towards the European Union and NATO, and just the system of values that we belong to and for which we fought and sacrificed so much.

Now in the past three-and-a-half years that I’ve been president and with the current government, we’ve focused so much on rule of law because we believe that enforcing rule of law, where all the citizens are equal before the law is so fundamental to every other success that we can achieve, whether it’s economy, or just how that reflects in foreign relations, and also development in other areas. And that has in turn—of course has had a positive effect with the country—with Kosovo becoming a country with the highest GDP growth in the region in the past couple of years, and also with quite a big prospect on so many—on so many areas. Kosovo right now is the strongest democracy in the region and, as I said, a champion when it comes to our rule of law reforms.

But focusing on rule of law meant, at the same time—rightly so—focusing on fighting mafia gangs, and we’ve been very effective at it. Of course these gangs that were situated in the north of Kosovo, they are led by criminals like Radoicic and his friends that were serving Aleksandar Vučić, the president of Serbia, are also at the blacklist of the United States, and the United Kingdom, and other countries. But they were mostly focused on making millions for themselves at the expense of ordinary citizens who live in the northern municipalities of Kosovo.

Now when we showed uncompromising fight against these gangs, of course they became more and more violent. So the very first problem that actually we faced in the north of Kosovo is a problem of rule of law. The more we showed that we do not make compromise with criminals, the more violent they become. However, failure is not an option. It is very important that when we fight organized crime, we are not going to show that we waver in front of them, that we’re not going to show that we give up in front of them. We need to show the exact opposite, and that’s exactly what’s happening.

But it is primarily a rule of law because, for too many years, these criminals were allowed to do whatever they can to make that a place of lawlessness, to terrorize citizens, to intimidate them. If, for example, Serbs in the north would work with Kosovo institutions, they would have their family members kidnapped by these gangs. There were cases when these gangs would kill Serb police—I’m sorry, politicians, and they would also intimidate even little kids who go to kindergarten if their parents would work with Kosovo institutions—a lot of intimidation and violence.

So it’s very, very important that Kosovo police now is protecting the citizens from these gangs, and they have lost their power over the territory and over the citizens. That’s the first issue.

Secondly, of course, it’s very much a political problem because, for too many years, Serbia has been trying to use the Kosovo Serbs as hostage, to keep them as hostage so that by not allowing them to integrate into Kosovo institutions, they would kind of try to use the same instruments that they tried in Bosnia-Herzegovina. So they tried to destroy Kosovo from within. And the more Serbs would not integrate, the more Serbia would use the Putin arguments and say, oh, we’re just going to go and help our minority community, but in fact, what they care about is the territory. All they care about is to push forward these Crimea-style annexation plans while they don’t really care about the human rights of the Serbs who live in Kosovo. So it’s a mindset that belongs in the nineteenth century.

So the tensions in both cases, in fact, are created solely by one source, which is Serbia, because Vučić is the boss of these criminal gangs. They finance them, they politically support them, they incite them, they control them. And secondly, Vučić is the guy who is also politically trying to keep the Serbs in Kosovo hostage by not allowing them to integrate into what today is the strongest constitutional system of protecting human rights and minority rights in Europe. There is no stronger constitution in Europe than the constitution of Kosovo right now when it comes to non-majority communities. So instead of allowing the Serbs to use these rights so that they can progress, they can prosper, they can move forward in a multi-ethnic society, which Kosovo is, Vučić has been using methods of the past to keep them hostage so that divisions rather than integration happens; segregation rather than integration happens.

We in Kosovo believe in the opposite. Even though over 90 percent of our population is Albanian, Serbs comprise about 3 to 4 percent of the population. We’ve offered the strongest system of protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms that—as I said, that exists on European soil because we don’t want anyone to go through what we had to go through. We know what it feels to live in constant discrimination. We know what it feels to live in a country that has no democracy because we had to go through that in the past. So we want everyone to feel as an equal, safe, and to have opportunities to succeed in their home country.

So the source is in Belgrade. That’s the source of tensions. And without dealing with the core of the problem—and if we just, you know, fall into this trap of both-side-ism, it’s the exact same trap that the West had fallen into with Ukraine before the invasion. You know, everyone was like, yeah, Ukraine and Russia need to settle down their tensions and their issues. It was never Ukraine and Russia; it was always Russia causing problems in Ukraine. But this constant policy of appeasement towards Putin led to a situation where now we are talking and we are seeing the efforts for a full invasion.

ROBINSON: Let’s unpack some of this very complex story because I think it is important. Again, we have, I think, many people in the room that are quite familiar with Kosovo’s history, but I think the recent events have been quite complicated, and you have alluded to some elements I’d like to ask you to expand upon.

OSMANI: Sure.

ROBINSON: The elections that were held for the municipalities led to a low turnout and then a majority Albanian representation because Serbs did not turn out to vote in northern Kosovo, and then in an ensuing series of protests and events, finally you come to last September, and there was an armed incursion. You mentioned some of the actors from Serbia. Violence ensued, and the result of that from a law and order perspective, as I understand it, is Kosovo has issued arrest warrants, Interpol has issued some arrest warrants, but those perpetrators haven’t been brought to justice.

And on Serbia’s side—and we’ll get into, I think, some of these agreements that have bound the parties mutually, but Serbia has not fulfilled its part of the bargain, including—very critically, I think—it has stymied the efforts for Kosovo to join the Council of Europe. So could you first—

OSMANI: Exactly.

ROBINSON: —describe how you see those—Serbian side of the ledger, and what would be required to move that forward?

OSMANI: So first and foremost, why were new elections necessary? That’s because the president of Serbia had—of course through a lot of violent and intimidation means—made the Serbs in Kosovo institutions resign from their positions, including the positions of mayors in the four northern municipalities. When they resigned, our constitution requires that new elections must immediately be called, which I did as president. But then because of the security situation in the north, we gave the Serbs in the north another four months, and I postponed these local elections so that things would quiet down in terms of security, and they would have more chance to organize themselves and participate in the elections.

Unfortunately, because of all of this pressure toward Serb families who live in the north, there was a forced boycott; not a willful boycott, but a forced boycott. But because of that—because of that boycott from the Serbs, the Albanians who just ran for elections, and they weren’t really planning to become mayors, but they were elected, and our constitution does not set a threshold on how many votes one needs in order to be elected as mayor. No matter the low turnout, whoever gets the most votes, that person is elected.

I know of a lot of cases, let’s say, in European countries where the turnout is very low, and then the person who wins gets a very low percentage, but that’s the winner nevertheless, and they just move on with doing their jobs. So yes, the Albanian mayors were elected, and all that they have been doing since their election is bringing more economic projects, more jobs, building more roads, making sure that the lives of the citizens in these four municipalities become better. But we did not cause that situation. It was first the forced resignation which was forced by Vučić, and second, the forced boycott.

But despite of all of this, upon my insistence, we gathered all political parties, and we decided to give the Serbs who live in the north another chance. So we created an entirely new legal infrastructure so that we can cause new and early elections in the north Kosovo, just a few months after these Albanian mayors were elected. So we gave them another chance. And Vučić had promised that if the Serbs are given another chance that he would not interfere, that they can use their right to elect mayors of their own choosing.

And even, you know, civil society in northern Mitrovica, they organized themselves, and they signed a petition, and through that petition, we organized new elections. But then again, he did not keep his word. Again, he interfered—illegally interfered. And again, it was a forced boycott. So again, the mayors were not changed. It was the same mayors that are right now.

Now the new local elections are set for next year, and the Serbs will have another chance—the fourth chance—to elect mayors of their own choosing. But it’s in a democratic process. It’s democracy. All that we want is that they use their right to choose mayors of their own choosing.

But it was not that that led to the act of aggression by Serbia last September. Serbia committed an act of aggression through paramilitary forces, as defined by the White House, and not only that that act of aggression was, of course, happening, but at the same time, they brought—according to the White House National Security Council—an unprecedented number of military forces and artillery around the border with Kosovo, which was not seen in the past twenty-five years, thereby—again, according to the White House—endangering the peace and stability in the entire region, not just in Kosovo.

From what we’ve confiscated in the north of Kosovo when these terrorists and paramilitary forces ran away after our police fired back was a lot of documents, and maps, and drone footage, and weapons, all of which showed that this was a Russia-style annexation project. They wanted to annex the north of Kosovo, situate themselves in 37 different bases so that when we wake up in the morning of the 25^th of September—of the 24^th of September, what would happen would be that there was a new factual situation on the ground so that when we go to Brussels and have a dialogue with Serbia, then there would be a new topic on who gets what piece of territory instead of talking about the practical issues that we’ve been talking about now.

So as we speak right now, of course, Kosovo will continue to reinstate its sovereignty in every part of its territory because our territorial integrity is intact, and Kosovo is indivisible, and we should not allow Russian tactics to succeed in the Western Balkans because Kosovo, in its current borders, is not just a project of the people of Kosovo; it’s the success of the Euro-Atlantic family of democracies. And when Putin talks about making sure that Kosovo fails, he says something like, I’m going to make sure that I show the world that America failed in Kosovo. So he wants to make sure that everything American, everything Euro-Atlantic in terms of the system of values that has been achieved in our part of the world is destroyed. So he’s not just against tiny little Kosovo; he wants to undo everything we’ve achieved together, which is why it’s so crucial that we keep Kosovo a success story within its current borders without any Putin-style annexation plans succeeding.

ROBINSON: Let me bring in the diplomatic component now, as you mentioned. The EU has been in charge of a negotiating process, facilitating first the Brussels Agreement, now of many years ago, and then the Ohrid Agreement, which was to begin to implement some of those mutual agreements.

And there has been, I would say, a series of pretty stark U.S. and EU statements over the past year and especially in the past month as Kosovo has gone ahead to remove what are called the parallel institutions and close some Serbian bank branches, post offices, entities in northern Kosovo, and also statements urging that the association of Serbian majority municipalities be implemented by Kosovo. So we see this urgency coming from the EU and the U.S., which always says we’re the best and closest friend that Kosovo has. I think you would agree with that.

But I’d like you to respond to the concerns about the actions that Kosovo has been taking since that violent incident.

OSMANI: I definitely agree with you that the United States, and EU member states, and other European partners even outside of the EU are Kosovo’s closest friends and most strategic partners—primarily I would say the United States has been instrumental and existential on making sure that Kosovo moves forward as a sovereign country that is still, you know, working to have its rightful place in the community of free nations.

Now the disagreement is never about where we want to go. The disagreement is never about the final goal. All of the countries that have recognized Kosovo—and primarily the U.S. as its strongest supporter—believe in a sovereign, independent Kosovo within its current borders that is fully integrated in the Euro-Atlantic community.

The disagreement has been on the approach that is taken and how to get there, and how fast. We take that path. Now there are things on which, as president of the country, I have full agreement on with our allies and partners, and that is that when we undertake certain steps that might also affect security on the ground, which then also translates into regional security and wider security, it’s never individual. We must coordinate with our allies and partners because coordination is key for our success. And history has shown that. In the past twenty-five years, whenever we did things together, they were not only successful, but they were also long term and sustainable.

So, for me, it’s been a lessons learned issue. So we’ve learned in the past two-and-a-half decades that working together brings better results, and I would say not just for a small country like Kosovo, but even for superpowers like the United States, working with allies is one of the very fundamentals of doing things good, and well, and successful.

So I believe in the same principles for my country. Not everyone in Kosovo necessarily agrees with this approach that I just explained. There are some in Kosovo who want to do things in a quicker way, in a different approach—not by disrespecting our allies. However, patience is a virtue, as they say, but it’s not as present everywhere because, you know, the people of Kosovo are—rightly so—asking where are the results? Where are the tangible results? Does this dialogue with Serbia going on for the past thirteen years—we signed forty-two agreements. Where are the results? Why isn’t Serbia implementing any of the things that they’ve agreed on? So of course there is less and less patience on—when it comes to seeing the results.

So I agree that we must coordinate with our partners, but at the same time, when we were recognized as a sovereign and independent country in its current borders, sovereignty means, you know, making sure that it’s ensured in all of your territory—number one.

Secondly, sovereignty means the ability to enter into international relations. So when that sovereignty is exercised, and also Kosovo’s right to enter into international relations is also recognized, so we hope to have more and more support by international partners in making sure that Kosovo sovereignty remains intact, but also that Kosovo joins international organizations.

Now, what we see right now is a very imbalanced approach by the EU, which has, you know, the institutions that led the dialogue in Brussels. So you have two parts. It’s around the table, and one of the parties, Kosovo, is under measures by the EU. Serbia, on the other side—which is the party on the other side of the table, they are facing zero consequences despite of committing an act of aggression against Kosovo, which has been recognized also as a terrorist attack by the highest officials in the European Union. And the U.S. went even one step further and called it an aggression that was committed through paramilitary groups, which is exactly what it was. So despite of all of this, Vučić still remains the spoiled child of Europe because there is this active appeasement policy. So for ten years, this active appeasement policy toward the president of Serbia yielded these results. Serbia went from a 96 percent alignment with the EU to a 46 percent alignment with the EU. Serbia went from one of the countries that had OK relations with Russia to the top country in Europe, with an 83 percent approval rate for Putin. Serbia went from a country that was working also with the European Union quite closely to a country that has multiplied its military cooperation with Russia, China, and Iran.

When we come here in New York, I meet with U.S. officials, the president of Serbia meets with the president of Iran, probably the only European leader to meet with the president of Iran, to ask for the help of the president of Iran on how to deal with Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and so on and so forth. You can imagine what kind of advice that is.

When we multiply our cooperation with the U.S. and the EU on defense and align—by the way, we are at a 100 percent alignment on every foreign policy and security decision—Serbia sits down and signs a new Gazprom deal just days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. When we have more of U.S. and EU in our country, Serbia opens more Russia today. And they also open a so-called Russian Humanitarian Center, which according to the American DOD, is a Russian spy center. So that’s the result—

ROBINSON: Yes, I hear you.

OSMANI: —of this active appeasement policy. So the point is, in this entirely imbalanced table, it’s entirely upside down. It’s so hard to see results that are sustainable, that are long term, that truly help our region move forward.

And my final point—there is this agreement which we achieved last year which says Kosovo will form the ASMM, it’s called self-management for the Serbs, and Serbia will in turn not object to Kosovo’s membership in any international organization. Their obligation is Article 4; ours is Article 7.

What we’re being told now is forget about Article 4. Forget about Article 1, 2, 3, which by the way, calls for countries to respect each other’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, principle of non-aggression. We’re being asked to forget about all of the other articles in that agreement, a.k.a. contract—pacta sunt servanda—and to unilaterally only implement our obligation.

This imbalanced approach is quite unprecedented even in this dialogue with Serbia that has been continuing for the past thirteen years or so because it started in 2011 with the 2010 resolution adopted here in New York. It doesn’t give any hope. The principle of equality of parties is the basic principle in any negotiation process. If the parties feel that there is no equal footing process, of course it’s really hard then to produce results.

So our hope is that now, with the new leadership in the European Union, at least there will be equality on the table. And then I believe we can truly move on with so much of what has been agreed, and there is also potential for new agreements to be achieved so that practical issues that truly matter for the lives of our citizens can be resolved.

ROBINSON: Thank you very much. I would like to just say what I’m hearing you say is that, with the new leadership in the EU—and of course there are some other changes of personnel at State Department and otherwise—to maybe get more clarity around the exact timing and mechanism for the association to be formed—

OSMANI: Yes.

ROBINSON: —which Kosovo is not saying it won’t form—

OSMANI: Definitely not.

ROBINSON: —but to have it happen in concert with in a much more precisely defined way, the entry into—as a first step—the Council of Europe, which you’ve already received two levels of approval, and in May we thought that would be going ahead. If I could—

OSMANI: Yes, so a parallel implementation is what we’re asking—

ROBINSON: So that there is real coordination.

OSMANI: —not just one party doing, or exercising, or completing its part of the deal and the other party doing nothing and getting a green pass for constantly violating it.

ROBINSON: So I’d like to leapfrog with one last maybe brief question—

OSMANI: Sure.

ROBINSON: —and then open up to the folks here who will have plenty of questions of all sorts.

The leapfrogging a bit down the road. I did hear the EC president, Ursula von der Leyen, reinforce the desire to continue the EU expansion and particularly with regard to the Western Balkans. There is this issue of five countries in the EU still, for their own reasons, do not recognize Kosovo.

How do you see that broader path? You signed the stabilization and assistance agreement in 2016. You’ve been getting aid and moving along a path. Do you think that can also accelerate?

OSMANI: It certainly can. We have applied for membership in the European Union. However, our application has not been looked at from the European Union yet. Now I know that oftentimes this argument of five non-recognizers is mentioned, and yes, that makes things really, really complex. But as we’ve seen in the past twenty-five years, but especially in the past sixteen years, that Kosovo is independent, when the countries who have recognized us take a leadership role in making something happen, they make it happen. A compromise formula is found that makes all of the EU member states raise their hands and vote in unanimity, as rightly so pointed by you.

When we drafted and when we approved and signed the stabilization and association agreement, which normally until that point had been signed only with countries that had been fully recognized by all EU member states, well, what did we do? You know, we found a way forward, we added Article 2 into this contract, which says that signing this stabilization and association agreement between the EU and Kosovo creates no prejudice when it comes to the individual member states’ positions on Kosovo’s independence. And of course, the International Court of Justice has clarified that the issue of recognizing a country or not, it’s not an issue for international organizations, but it’s an individual or bilateral political issue of each country.

And finally, the European Court of Justice has clarified that when it comes to the criteria of the Lisbon Treaty, Kosovo meets the criteria of being a state within that meaning. So there are no legal hindrances. There is a formula that has been used in 2016. All of the countries, including Spain, and Greece, and others, voted in favor at that time. So we can use that exact same formula that does not change the bilateral position of a country towards Kosovo to simple adopt a candidate status for Kosovo because, I mean, a candidate status is not really a huge deal because we’ve seen North Macedonia spending seventeen or eighteen years in that status. However, it gives you hope. It gives you an incentive to move on with reforms. And although we’re the top reformer when it comes to European reforms and rule of law, economy, and so on, yet it would really give hope, and it would not just remain, you know, a phrase any longer.

Since Thessaloniki 2003, we’ve been hearing about the European perspective of the Western Balkans. We have to move beyond that. It should not be just, you know, a phrase any longer. It needs to be something tangible. It’s doable. The five non-recognizers have voted in favor of such a formula before. Now they can just take a decision within the EU Council to mandate the EU Commission to work with Kosovo on a candidate status by adding the same article they’ve added back in 2016. If it was OK for them then, it should be OK for them now. So I think it is absolutely doable.

ROBINSON: Thank you. And President, let’s now go to the floor and take questions from our members. I’d like to remind you all that we are on the record for this session.

(Pause.)

I’m not seeing the first question. Thank you very much. Please come ahead.

Q: Hi, thank you. Mark Hannah with the Institute for Global Affairs at Eurasia Group, a nonprofit. Thank you, President. My question is about your level of—you said you were the sort of most democratic country in the region. I did hear you refer to your adversaries as terrorists and kind of assailing the both-sides-ism of some of, you know, the U.S. outlook on the world.

The question is do you worry about political legitimacy when people in your country are voluntarily abstaining from or boycotting votes. I know that you are concerned about your neighbors to the north interfering in your internal affairs, but it does seem like people have their own sort of agency. So when you have groups that don’t participate in your democracy, does that worry you?

And the second question—you said you were a hundred percent—was your term—lockstep on foreign policy with the United States. As a Muslim majority country, I’d be curious to know your position on the U.S. policy on the Israel War right now.

OSMANI: Should I answer immediately or do you want to take—

ROBINSON: Yes, yes.

OSMANI: OK. Well, I mean, the terms that are used are not only my terms. They are used by the European Union, as well. So the EU produces country reports for all of the countries in the Western Balkans, and they calculate that percentage of alignment. And according to the EU, five out of the six Western Balkans are at a one hundred percent alignment with the EU when it comes to common security and foreign policy, whereas—of course one is not. I mentioned which one is not.

Secondly, again, the term terrorists has not been only mentioned by us, but both the United States and the European Union has used that term for the group that committed the incursion, the act of aggression. Let me be clear: they only carried out an order. The order came from the politician, so for months before that act of aggression they were trained in military bases in Serbia—state military. They were carrying weapons which were under the chain of custody of the country. And they were working under the clear political order of the president of the country. And they are now being protected as fugitives; they are being protected by the president of Serbia. So it was an act of aggression to begin with, but the people who carried that out, that act, are terrorists, but also members of paramilitary forces.

We’ve seen these kind of models in the past. For example, in early ’90s, just before Milosevic’s Yugoslavia started the wars against Croatia and Slovenia, initially they would use these paramilitary forces to create incursions and to attack these countries. So it’s not that we’ve never seen this happen before, but it’s dangerous because it’s happening twenty-five years after the war, and we’ve have never seen something like that in these past twenty-five years.

Secondly, when it comes to political legitimacy, Kosovo is offering all of its minority communities the kind of constitutional, legal, and practical protection that no other European country has ever offered. Yes. Let me just mention a few examples.

Well, when our constitution was drafted, the chapter on minority community rights was entirely drafted by American and European experts. They wanted to make sure that we don’t leave something out in Kosovo. They wanted to make sure that the highest system of protection that exists out there is given to non-majority communities. And we agreed.

But which other European country gives a minority of 3 to 4 percent the right to block any constitutional amendment? So we have 120 members of parliament. Even if 110 agree on something, we can’t vote without the ten seats that Serbs have—and not just constitutional amendment. And we don’t have a constitution of ten articles; it’s a very detailed constitution regulating quite a bit of areas of life.

Secondly, every law of vital interest—including human rights, minority rights, religious rights, property rights, law on special zones, education rights, local election rights—we can’t change any of that without the ten Serb MPs. So the will of the rest of us—and when I say the rest of us, I don’t mean just the Albanian majority, but also all of the other minority communities that live in Kosovo—doesn’t matter, if they don’t agree.

So I come from an academic background. For the past four mandates we have been trying to reform our higher education system. We’re not being able to—you know why? Because the ten Serbs in the parliament don’t want to vote to reform the higher education system because—not that they don’t agree with the law, but because of completely other political issues. So the law on higher education is being blocked for four mandates. We’re not being able to reform that.

The law on local elections—the European Union is asking us after every election to reform our law on local elections. We can’t do it because all the 110 MPs agree; ten are blocking everything. And we’ve replicated this right to veto over the most important decisions in our country that affect the lives of our citizens. We’ve replicated at the local level as well. So every single municipality has that same system so that they can feel they can push forward their interests.

So, look, again, they had a right to vote once. They had a right to vote twice. They had a right to vote the third time, and they had the right to vote four times. They have the right to vote in a democratic country with the full protection of all security institutions. But if they constantly get threats from Serbia through these gangs, and they see that their neighbor’s car has been burned down, they see that the other neighbor who was a Serb politician was killed from these gangs, and then they see that all of those who are actually showing up at the polls are being kicked out of their jobs, and then they see that the rest of the neighbors can’t even send their kids to school, that is massive intimidation. And, again, to quote the European Union and the U.S. State Department, even in the elections when the Serbs participated, the level of intimidation, violence, threats against the local Serbs in these four northern municipalities has been massive, from the Serbs—these Serb gangs. Again, these are quotes from European Union and State Department reports.

So Kosovo institutions have full legitimacy. That’s not to say we don’t want to work even more with local Serbs in the north to make sure that they’re protected, they’re included, they can pursue their rights. But we cannot allow a bunch of gangs, who have become millionaires at the expense of ordinary citizens, to make decisions on the behalf of the citizens. That’s, I believe, the difference that we need to make. And don’t forget, two-thirds of the Serbs don’t live in the north. Only one-third lives in the north, about 30,000 people. The rest live in other municipalities around Kosovo, fully integrated. And they haven’t resigned from their positions. They are running their municipalities.

ROBINSON: President Osmani, I’d like to follow up on this to ask you what the vision is for moving ahead to address the daily lives of the ethnic Serbs and the other minorities. As you point out, the association is intended to deal with the minorities’ needs. In the case of the Serbs, it’s a matter of dependence on jobs, on the Serbian dinar, on health care and social services, education. There’s a language barrier. So there is this collection of things that keep the ethnic Serbians of Kosovo from being able to integrate fully. Now, with these different organizations being shut down, the parallel institutions, how does Kosovo intend to help them move ahead? And, just from a human level, how is Kosovo preparing to support them?

OSMANI: All of our citizens are able to receive payments in euros because our constitution requires that there shall be only one currency used in Kosovo. And for more than twenty years, that has been the euro. It’s like here in New York, you go to a shop, and you want to pay, and they only take dollars. It’s as simple as that. The illegal institutions that—of course, you can convert money, the same way that you can convert money in Kosovo. But that is not the issue that has been keeping Serbs from integrating. When the Serbs get their pensions and their payments in euros, they don’t refuse them. They very well take them. The most important for them is to get the pension, not the currency in which they get them.

In fact, getting them in dinars had hindered them from further integrating because they could use those dinars only in a little portion of our territory. They cannot use them when they go south to Mitrovica. They cannot use them when they go to Pristina, or when they go to another Serb municipality like Strpce or, you know, Klokot, and so on and so forth. So it has—it’s at their own benefit as well to make sure that they use the currency that is used, not just in Kosovo but in the rest of Europe as well.

Now, how do we aim to make sure that they integrate? I would say the more economic projects, the more economic development, the more jobs, the more multiethnic economic projects, the more people just work with one another. And, you know, they have to provide for their families. And after a few months, it’s easier, when you get to know your neighbor. By, you know, building walls, by separated people, they never integrated. They need to exchange. They need to work together. They need to talk to one another so that integration is possible.

And that’s the reason why we even created all of these Serb municipalities, so that they can, you know, have the rights to run their own municipality, but at the same time there would be multiethnic lives. So they would, you know, go to the market, and you would have Serbs and Albanians and Turks and others just selling stuff together and buying stuff together. That is possible. If it was possible in the rest of Kosovo, it is possible in the north of Kosovo as well. So economic development, I think it’s key, creating new jobs. Because when we talk to Serbs in the north they deal with the same exact problems that we deal with. You know, they want more jobs. They want better paying jobs. The women face domestic violence cases. They need better protection, a stronger system in that regard. So it’s like everyone else. Therefore, the solutions need to be the same kind of solutions that we use for every other citizen, no matter their ethnic background.

ROBINSON: Going to take this question. The man here.

Q: Thank you. Earl Carr, representing CJPA Global Advisors. And thank you, Linda, and Your Excellency for a fascinating discussion.

I’m curious to know, you stated that Kosovo and the United States are in 100 percent alignment on foreign policy. I’m curious, when you look at China’s economic engagement in Kosovo—and in particular the Western Balkans, which has seen something like a billion on average since 2011 in Kosovo. Kosovo has also been a member of the China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The United States is not part of Belt and Road. Is that not an example of a divergence? And also, China doesn’t acknowledge Kosovo’s independence as well. Thank you.

OSMANI: No, there’s no divergence. Actually, Kosovo is the only country in the Western Balkans that is not part of the China Road and Belt Initiative. All of the other Western Balkans countries are, but Kosovo is not. We believe that that is a malign influence. We believe that that has not led the other countries in our region towards more prosperity. Actually, it got them mostly in trouble. And we absolutely align our foreign policy, both on the question of the Middle East that was asked earlier but also on the question of China, Russia, with the United States as well.

When it comes to the alignment, normally that is calculated for the EU. But we also align our foreign policy with the United States, especially when it comes to sanctions. We don’t cooperate with China. We haven’t allowed China to use any of its instruments to influence whether policymaking or even opinion making in Kosovo. Of course, they try. They do try. However, we do not align with China on any of the issues that that you mentioned. And we’re not part of the Road and Belt Initiative. And we’re not planning to become part of that initiative.

ROBINSON: Please.

Q: (Off mic)—Hajdari. I am a CFR term member and also a former member of parliament in Albania.

Thank you so much, Your Excellency, for your opening remarks. I think that it’s always amazing when I hear your passion when talking about Kosovo. At this juncture, I feel like we should be a little bit worried about Kosovo because it feels like Kosovo is being very isolated from the rest of the world. And you spoke about Kosovo having excellent relations with the U.S., but it just seems, at least in the last year or two, the Secretary Blinken has been very open about his criticism towards Albin Kurti, the prime minister. And there have been some concerns about the way that the elections have been handled. So my question to you would be—and you mentioned also EU being unfair to Kosovo in this partnership. So my question to you would be, how do you foresee this going forward? Do you—how do you foresee Kosovo getting out of this very rocky road where Kosovo has never been, you know, so isolated as it is now, at least since its inception—its independence? So I’m very curious to hear about what you—what you see going forward.

OSMANI: Actually, since in our constitution is the president that leads foreign policy, I can tell you—and that is easily confirmed—that Kosovo has never been more present internationally than in the past three years. It’s very easily, you know, confirmed, both in terms of statistics but also in terms of the value of the international presence. In the past three years, as a country we’ve managed to be in fora and summits and, you know, initiatives that Kosovo has never been before. Just yesterday, I was invited by President Biden to the second summit on Ukraine, among thirty leaders from around the world. And that is one of the—one of the very few countries in our region, I would say. And that is a testament to the very proactive role that Kosovo is playing in the international arena. And I would say that no other country is more active internationally than the Republic of Kosovo. And, again, that is easily, easily confirmed. So Kosovo has not been isolated from any international initiatives so far—none, zero.

Kosovo is present everywhere. Now, yes, Kosovo is suffering some measures from the EU because of what they call uncoordinated action of the government in 2023. However, if you look at what Kosovo has done and why it’s being put under measures, which measures mean mostly some economic projects of the EU have been blocked, but internationally we were not blocked. As you can see, I participate in every EU-Western Balkans summit, every European political summit, in meetings with all European leaders, and so on. But the damage has been on the economic projects that have been blocked because of the disagreements with the government on how that issue should have been approached. So isolation is absolutely not happening in terms of Kosovo’s presence internationally.

But how can we overcome some of the disagreements that are happening between our government and our partners? I think the more we coordinate, the more we sit down and communicate, the less disagreements are there. And different people, different politicians use different approaches. My approach has constantly been, and I’ve been in institutions for the past twenty-five years, to work with partners even when we disagree. It might take a little bit more time to get what we need, but then when we do things we’re so much stronger because we don’t walk on that path alone, but we walk together with partners. But some people in the government believe that, you know, it’s been enough of waiting. Things need to be done immediately.

But that doesn’t make the action illegitimate or unconstitutional. I simply think that we need to coordinate more. We need to talk more. And we—but we also need to be very honest with our partners. I strongly believe that when the EU uses this active appeasement policy towards Vučić, that is endangering our region. The president of Bosnia-Herzegovina yesterday spoke at the U.N. very clearly about how this concept of what Serbia calls Srpski svet, the Serbian world, the copycat of the Russian world, is endangering everyone else in the region. And if we don’t see that danger, I think we are doomed to see some very dark times ahead. We need to understand who the true source of instability is. And that is solely Serbia.

So Kosovo is present, but at the same time I’m not trying to paint a rosy picture and say that everything is perfect. There are disagreements on the approach and on the timing. But there are no disagreements with partners on what is the final goal.

ROBINSON: Thank you. We have time for one last question here, please.

Q: Madam President, Bob McClure. I’m a Council member.

I also happened to be in Kosovo the summer of ’99. It sounds like things have not changed in Mitrovica since then. So my question really goes the other direction a little bit from what you just talked about. What else can Kosovo do with things internally to help provide a path forward for itself and the rest of the Kosovar citizens? And I’ve been following this for about twenty-five years now, so congratulations.

OSMANI: Thank you. Thank you. In fact, a lot has changed in Mitrovica. Now there are two Mitrovicas. (Laughs.) Which now there are two different municipalities. But tensions, unfortunately, sometimes prevent economic development to the extent that we would like it to be in Mitrovica. Kosovo has become a vibrant democracy to be proud of. Kosovo has had the highest GDP growth in the region post-pandemic, and Kosovo is a top reformer on rule of law at a European level, not just within the country. These are achievements that are moving the country forward.

Yes, of course, there are still enormous challenges. And, again, coming from an academic background, I believe we should focus more in our education system. I believe we should focus more on reforming our health system. Because when people are not happy, it’s mostly because, you know, young families who have kids and they really want a much better public school, public health system, and I do understand that. And that’s, I believe, where we need to do so much more. But when it comes to rule of law, I’m really proud of the reforms we’ve made. When it comes to economic reforms, many have been made, but we can do much better. And we will. New jobs are being created. Unemployment is really going down, compared to the time when you were there.

And, you know, businesses are thriving because of the entrepreneurial spirit among our people. We have the youngest population in Europe, multilingual, tech savvy, brilliant youth who have made Kosovo the country with the highest IT competitiveness index in the entire region. We have multiplied exports to the United States, to Germany, to Switzerland, other countries in Europe. Economic cooperation is flourishing with the rest of the world. But, again, we can do so much more. And I think, you know, the more we work together with the private sector in supporting them, the more—the more we invest in our education and health system, the better the lives of our citizens, the higher the prosperity.

And therefore, all of our citizens, no matter their ethnicity, will see much better days ahead. And then, you know, people don’t think of tensions any longer. They think about how they can really prosper, how they can succeed. And our young people really, really deserve that. Of course, the security problems that Serbia creates to Kosovo from time to time, they take a lot of our time. But that doesn’t mean that we just stop and don’t deal with the internal problems. We do. And in fact, that has been the focus of our work in the past couple of years. And that, in turn, again, has—according to international indices—has made Kosovo the strongest democracy with the highest GDP growth and the strongest system of protecting human rights and freedoms.

So Kosovo is a shining example. And I don’t shy away to say it. I’m really proud of my country. I’m really proud of the resilient people of Kosovo. And we truly believe that multiethnicity is a value. Is a value that we should protect at every cost. But multiethnicity cannot be protected by building walls. It’s by having bridges that connect people, by integrating them so that we can have schools where both Albanians and Serbs can go together. We can have factories where they work together. We can have, you know, civil society where they work together.

That’s the way to integrate them. No matter the nationality or the language, people should think about how to move forward in the Euro-Atlantic family of nations, rather than, you know, allow the dark forces of the past to bring us back. So we are really looking forward and trying to push our country forward with that vision.

ROBINSON: I’d like to thank you and thank everyone for joining this meeting. And know that it will be posted on our website. And we’re very grateful to President Osmani for making time to be with us today. Next will be the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, for those of you who wish to stay. Thank you, again, Madam President.

OSMANI: Thank you so much. (Applause.)

(END)

This is an uncorrected transcript.