EU credibility in jeopardy if it fails to ensure a stable future for Kosovo

IN the coming months, a fundamental decision will be made that will challenge the capacity of the international community, particularly Europe, for conflict resolution.

The issue is Kosovo’s status — the last unresolved piece of the bloodstained Balkans puzzle. For Serbs and Albanians alike, Kosovo is a place haunted by history. But the world must not allow their freighted narratives about the past to cloud our actions to build a better future.

In the 1990’s, following its atrocities in Bosnia, Slobodan Milosevic’s Serb regime abolished Kosovo’s long-standing autonomy, suppressing the rights of the province’s overwhelming Albanian majority. NATO decided to intervene this time, before Milosevic’s forces could again devastate one of the ethnic groups of the former Yugoslavia.