EULEX Kosovo under fire from critics

(BRUSSELS2) The EULEX Kosovo mission is in the strategic review phase. Its mandate, size and priorities will change (read here). While it has garnered some acknowledged successes, its overall effectiveness of the mission was criticized at a hearing held on Wednesday (30 May) at the European Parliament.

Poor reputation

The mission is poorly perceived by the Kosovo population. " To be quite frank, EULEX does not have a very good reputation among the locals. says Engjellushe Morina, former director of the Kosovo Stability Initiative think tank. The only speaker of Kosovar nationality, Ms Morina also regrets that no representative of her country's institutions was invited to this meeting in order to balance the somewhat too positive inventory described by the Europeans. EU representatives did not contradict her on this point, conceding that this is one of the main challenges for EULEX. There are strong criticisms of the mission among the population. Last summer, clashes had also awakened a questioning of the effectiveness of EULEX by the international press. Kosovar, in any case “ the average citizen believes that some legal cases handled by the European mission are in fact politically motivated. The general impression is that the culture of impunity still prevails. According to EU representatives, this bad reputation is due to too high hopes for the mission, which had to establish itself and develop in a very difficult context, where it was necessary to start from scratch, after what is considered a failure of the UN mission. " People expected miracles laments Hansjörg Haber, who wants to be realistic. According to Xavier Bout de Marnhac, the mission may not be popular on the ground " but the work must be done ».

In the North, no control?

It is the situation in northern Kosovo that poses the most problem. THE " EULEX center of gravity must (and will) move from Pristina to this region, explains the head of the mission. The situation seems to escape both local authorities and Europeans in this place. In what represents only 12% of an already small territory (Kosovo covers 11000 km²), organized crime and trafficking dominate. And it has been since the 1990s.” You should explain to me said Engjellushe Morina. There are however improvements according to Xavier Bout de Marnhac, in particular in terms of access to the territory.

Divisions between Member States

An inherent problem with EULEX comes from the division between the 27 Member States. Indeed, 5 of them (Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus) do not recognize Kosovo's independence. Serbia should therefore not be harmed through the activities of the mission, and EULEX therefore has a status of neutrality, which is “ counter productive according to Engjellushe Morina. On this, the Member States are clearly pointed out by Hansjörg Haber: “ it is up to the Member States to change their attitude”.