🧵1/ The upcoming 18 March Ohrid meeting between #Serbia’s 🇷🇸 President Aleksandar #Vučić and #Kosovo 🇽🇰 Prime Minister Albin #Kurti is already a bust. Odds that anything of substance will be signed are the same as the odds that Donald #Trump will stop coloring his hair.
2/ This is part of a game of chicken between Vučić and Kurti. Vučić swerved first on 27 February in #Brussels, where it became apparent that Kurti was willing to keep his foot on the gas pedal longer. The faces at the meeting speak eloquently of winners and losers.
3/ Vučić had bet that Kurti wouldn’t sign on to the Franco-German plan. This gave Vučić the room to pretend to go along with #EU/#US policy goals, simply by taking one step further than Kurti, but without doing anything of significant substance.
4/ For Kurti and previous Kosovo politicians, the stumbling block was forming an Association of Serb Municipalities (ASM), a commitment that Kosovo's leadership had made in 2013 as part of the Brussels' Agreement.
5/ Kosovo Albanian politicians view the ASM as the creation of a Trojan Horse for Belgrade, a Kosovo version of Republika Srpska in #Bosnia 🇧🇦, which would bring with it risks of secession and territorial disintegration.
6/ Up until early February, Kurti had refused all 🇪🇺 and 🇺🇸 entreaties. On 6 February, Lajcak met with Kurti. For the first time, Kurti showed signs he might agree to an ASM.
7/ On 18 March in Ohrid 🇲🇰, Vučić and Kurti will meet with Josep #Borrell, High Representative of the EU🇪🇺 for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy . The international community hopes Kurti and Vučić will sign on to the 🇫🇷-🇩🇪German plan. eeas.europa.eu/eeas/belgrade-…
8/ Already we see significant signs that nothing can or will happen in Ohrid. For starters, Serbia’s media space will require approximately 5-7 years of preparation in order for any Serbian politician to sign any document relaxing Serbia’s approach to Kosovo’s status.
9) In recent months, rather than attempt to prepare the media space, Vučić has doubled down on anti-western, anti-opposition, and anti-Albanian rhetoric. For example, Vučić’s SNS party has put up posters throughout Belgrade with a photograph of Kurti in a striped prison uniform.
10) Certainly, Vučić cannot sign any agreement with a man he portrays to the public as a criminal. Vučić is currently in the midst of a massive internal political struggle, caused in large part by 11 years of his anti-western, anti-EU, pro-Russian media messaging and policies.
11/ During these 11 years, he has outdone #Hungary’s Victor #Orban by destroying Serbia’s hapless and narcissistic political opposition. He has sharply restricted media space through coercive means and attacks on journalists.
12/ He has strengthened SNS control over the judiciary and prosecution. Serbia’s police also appear to be under his control. Some would question whether Vučić is on the road to becoming a Balkan Lukashenko.
13/ Over the past 11 years, the west has done little to address Vučić’s behavior, due entirely to their conviction (based on Vučić’s behind closed door assurances) that only Vučić can resolve the Kosovo status issue. This follows the “Only Nixon could go to China” logic.
14/ But this presupposes that Nixon wanted to go to China, and had prepared the media space. Vučić neither wants to move forward with Kosovo, nor has he prepared the media space to support progress in this direction.
15/ If Vučić were to attempt to sign the current 🇫🇷-🇩🇪German plan, he would sign his own political death warrant. Given the never fully-resolved deep state actions to assassinate prime minister Zoran Đinđić, signing the plan could also be a literal death warrant.
16/ Especially in the current media climate that Vučić so successfully created.
17/ On 2 February this year, Vučić held a carefully orchestrated circus in the Serbian Parliament in which he attempted to obtain support for moving ahead with the Franco-German plan. He pinned his hopes on roping in the political opposition.
18/ During this carefully choreographed Kabuki performance, the ultra-right wing parties made a farcical attempt to rush the podium where Vučić was seated, but his security failed to react, and he himself sat there with a smug look of amusement on his face. Clearly it was a stunt
19/ Since then, Vučić has attempted to push all the opposition parties to run out ahead of him on Kosovo and support the Franco-German plan. To date, all have declined.
20/ All opposition parties, on both sides of the spectrum, know full well that if they support the Franco-German plan, Vučić will use it at a later date to crucify them. In fact, their refusal has led to sharp attacks from Vučić and the SNS.
21/ Over the past three weeks, Vučić’s media has intensified its attacks on the opposition. During the past week, the SNS has plastered Belgrade with posters mocking opposition politicians.
22/ The SNS and Vučić are increasingly unpopular, due to high inflation, high prices, low wages, rampant corruption, state-sanctioned criminal activity, sinking buildings, and increasingly dysfunctional public services.
23/ Vučić’s level of political desperation has led him to kick off a massive Serbia-wide tour to form a new political movement, the People’s Movement for the State” (narodni pokret za državu).
24/ This ill-defined “movement” appears to be an attempt by Vučić to create maneuvering space outside of his own current political party and distance himself from the failures of the SNS and his governments.
25/ Some are joking that Vučić will accuse the current government and governing party (his own) of theft, corruption, and making Serbia go backwards. This is just more Kabuki theater to delay having to do anything about Kosovo and to try and get other parties to accept blame.
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