How the EU Abandoned Democracy in Kosovo

The EU's punishment of Kosovo for defending its sovereignty exposes Brussels' moral collapse and strategic cowardice, appeasing autocracy while betraying democracy at Europe's own peril.

The European Union has found itself once again on the wrong side of history, this time in the Western Balkans, where its policy toward Kosovo has morphed from strategic blunder to outright sabotage. A new report by the GAP Institute¹, a respected Pristina-based think tank, reveals that over €600 million in vital development funds have been frozen or indefinitely delayed as a result of punitive EU sanctions against Kosovo. The sectors most affected energy and environment are not merely bureaucratic categories, but existential pillars for a country battling post-war fragility, chronic underdevelopment, and the urgent need to transition away from coal dependency.

This financial strangulation did not emerge in a vacuum. It is the result of a geopolitical farce in which the EU, in its eagerness to appease Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, has punished the only functioning democracy in the region for exercising its sovereign rights within its own territory. The so-called "measures" were imp…