Europe’s War on Kosovo’s Democracy
The EU rewards fascist Serbia while punishing democratic Kosovo. Appeasement is not policy, it’s cowardice dressed in diplomacy, and it is fuelling future bloodshed.
LONDON — The recently appointed President of the European Council, António Costa, concluded his diplomatic tour of the Western Balkans with proclamations of "trust" and "consistency." He posed for the cameras, dined with Balkan leaders, and delivered well-rehearsed platitudes that betrayed neither understanding nor courage. His words, though elegantly constructed, fell flat in Kosovo, where democracy is not a slogan to be tweeted but a trial to be endured. For us, it is not a theory but a bloodied, lived experience.
Costa’s remarks about Kosovo’s need to “build consensus” and “strengthen democracy” are as hollow as they are hypocritical. He offers no assurance that the very democracy he demands of us will be safeguarded when it is attacked by Serbia’s covert operations, its weaponised proxies, and its systematic campaign to undermine Kosovo’s sovereignty. No. Instead, the EU, like a spineless maître d' in a restaurant of appeasement, insists Kosovo should "de-escalate" even as we bury our dead and patch our wounds from Serbia’s paramilitary aggression.
Worse still, he echoes the pernicious line that Kosovo must do more, when it is Serbia, a Kremlin-aligned autocracy, that signs treaties of foreign policy alignment with Moscow1, that sends weapons to Russia, that opens its arms to Russian PMCs, that hosts espionage hubs disguised as humanitarian centres, and that continues to threaten regional stability with impunity.
Democracy, Costa claims, must be "consistent." And yet, the EU's own behaviour has been anything but. Under Josep Borrell and Miroslav Lajcak2, the EU's approach to Kosovo has been a masterclass in inconsistency, cowardice, and colonial arrogance. Borrell3 and Lajcak have legitimised Serbia's bad faith, allowing it to renege on every agreement without consequence. The Ohrid Agreement? Verbal, unsigned, unenforced. Serbia walked away without punishment. Kosovo, on the other hand, is treated like a delinquent child for insisting on the rule of law.
The EU imposed punitive measures against Kosovo for merely upholding its constitutional order. Yet it rewards Serbia for aggression. In June 2023, Serbia abducted three Kosovar border policemen a kilometre inside Kosovo’s territory. There was no EU condemnation. Not even a slap on the wrist. Instead, EU officials scurried to pressure Kosovo to accommodate Serbia’s insecurities, not its crimes.
When Belgrade-backed militias, armed, trained, and inspired by the Kremlin’s “little green men” model attempted to stir rebellion in northern Kosovo, the international community watched4. Kosovo, left to fend for itself, deployed its forces to prevent bloodshed. For this, it was accused of provocation.
The attacks escalated. Bombings. Roadblocks. Assassinations. Terrorist acts against infrastructure. Intelligence reports linked it all to Milan Radoicic, a wanted terrorist enjoying protection in Serbia. Vucic, Serbia's president and former propaganda minister under Slobodan Milosevic5, paraded himself as a peace broker while sending men with guns to destabilise Kosovo’s north. The West’s response? Silence. Or worse, an invitation to Paris, Berlin, and Washington.
Costa’s arrival doesn’t mark a change. It is continuity, a continuation of the EU's dogged policy of appeasing fascist Serbia while undermining democratic Kosovo. His predecessors ignored Serbian ethnic cleansing. Costa now ignores Serbia's current subversion.
Why has the EU not sanctioned Serbia? Serbia is not a partner. It is a proxy of Moscow. It has rejected sanctions against Russia, welcomed Wagner mercenaries, and signed military deals with France to obtain Rafale fighter jets6, NATO technology, while standing with Iran, China, and Russia at the UN. This is the country being cuddled by Western diplomats.
If there is any consistency, it is in the EU’s betrayal.
And what of the United States? Once our greatest ally, Washington has shifted its calculus in a dangerous direction. Under former Secretary Blinken, the State Department operated under the delusion that Serbia could be lured away from Russia with gifts and concessions, pressuring Kosovo instead. Today, with Secretary Rubio silent on the issue and no appointed ambassador in Pristina, U.S. foreign policy appears rudderless. In the absence of leadership, former policies linger like a ghost, leaving behind confusion and resentment. What remains is not diplomacy, but the echo of extortion.
Blinken, Borrell, Lajcak, Macron, and today’s Costa, these men are not defenders of democracy. They are custodians of hypocrisy. Their legacy is a policy of moral relativism, in which Kosovo must always give, and Serbia is never held to account.
And what of the Serbian crimes? The United States itself documented them in 2001. Ethnic cleansing. Rape. Summary executions. The burning of homes. The erasure of identities. Ten thousand killed. One and a half million expelled. The perpetrators walk free. Some now sit in Serbian Parliament. One, Vucic, signs energy deals with Germany and military contracts with France.
The EU, meanwhile, refuses to enforce a single normative principle it claims to uphold. The West’s doctrine of law, order, and democracy is rotting under the weight of its own duplicity.
The European public should not be fooled. Democracy is not a deity to be worshipped, it is a social contract to be lived. Kosovo has not experienced it from the EU. Not under Borrell. And judging by Costa’s stumbling first steps, it is unlikely to see it now. His clumsy, incoherent gestures toward democracy and accountability amount to little more than noise. The tradition of undermining democracy, it seems, is not an aberration. It is an institution.
The EU must ask itself: How long will it tolerate fascism and organised crime wrapped in diplomacy? How long will it sacrifice Kosovo to keep Serbia at the table? How long will it mistake appeasement for strategy?
If the EU and US continue to abandon reason, to indulge Serbia, and to erode Kosovo’s sovereignty in the name of stability, they will lose not only credibility but a generation of Kosovar trust. Worse, they will invite other global actors like Russia whose interest in the region is strategic, not democratic to fill the vacuum.
The Western Balkans are not a chessboard. Kosovo is not a pawn. Our sovereignty is not negotiable.
It is time for Europe to remember its promises and for America to remember its principles. Sanction Serbia. Hold Vucic accountable. End the era of diplomatic double standards. Because the cost of inaction will not be paid in policy briefings. It will be paid in lives.
And Kosovo, betrayed but unbent, will continue to stand.
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Vudi Xhymshiti is the founder and chief editor of The Gunpowder Chronicles and The Frontliner Magazine. He has reported on global conflicts and political struggles for The Guardian, The New York Times, and others. This essay reflects his professional analysis and editorial judgement.
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