The brussles agreement And decentralization in kosovo

Djukanović Dragan (Ph.D., Research Fellow, Institute of International Politics and Economics, Belgrade),

In this paper, the author analyses the situation in Kosovo related to the efforts of the international community to regulate and improve relations between ethnic communities through enhanced role of local authorities –- through decentralization and local self-government. Special attention was paid to the efforts and ambitions of the international community, especially the United States and the European Union, to improve the status of non-Albanian communities at the local authorities level in the period between 2005 and 2008, with particular emphasis on the conclusions of the Contact Group (November 2005) and the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement (Ahtisaari Plan, 2007). The unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence on 17 February 2008 was followed by the adoption of a new constitutive act as well as a number of laws and by-laws in the sphere of local self-government, which have taken over the solutions of the Ahtisaari Plan. In this sense, the First Agreement of Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations between Belgrade and Pristina (Brussels Agreement, 19 April 2013), starting from the above-mentioned solutions, envisaged the formation of a Community/ Association of Serb majority municipalities, the gradual integration of police in northern Kosovo into the Kosovo Police and modus operandi of the judiciary. The community/Association of Serb majority municipalities will have a legal basis (the Statute), administrative bodies and responsibilities in the areas of health, education, urban and rural planning and economic development planning. The aforementioned Agreement, according to the author, is the most important in a series of agreements reached between Belgrade and Priština since 2011 and ensures the continuation of Serbia’s European integration, the gradual relaxation of relations in the wider region of the Western Balkans and Southeast Europe. The author believes that it certainly has been one of the major achievements of the EU diplomacy over the past few years.

Keywords: Kosovo, local self-government, decentralization, Serbs, Serbia, European Union, First Agreement of Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations, Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement, Community/Association of Serb majority municipalities