I came across this Eastern Approaches article today. I found this development arresting considering my recent spotlight on Kosovo and this European Voice announcement last week. It makes me wonder if perhaps canceling the talks was such a good idea. The rationale behind canceling seems solid enough, but perhaps they could have made headway on the stamps and avoided a possible border showdown. I can only speculate from my seat thousands of miles away, but the two events seems suspiciously correlated. There's a lot of moving pieces in politics, but why has Kosovo taken such an interest in taking over those border controls mere days after the talks were canceled? Was it to convince Serbia that it may not be the one in power, but rather economically dependent on Kosovo taking their exports?
Given the shaky nature of the world markets while the US hammers out a deal in Congress (which infuriates me to no end, but that's more tangential to this blog, so I won't write about it other than to say that my countrymen have elected some idiots who don't understand the importance of a AAA bond rating, especially after the whole Greece debacle), I can only expect Serbia to overreact to this show of power or to quietly plot some way to get back at Kosovo for trying to take control. Given Serbia's staunch position on Kosovo's status, I find it unlikely that they will back down without being subdued or coaxed with an EU ascension bid on the line. And they were looking so good after Mladić and Hadžić!
Contemporary Discussion of Eastern Europe In All Its Glory
