The expectations of experts

From year to year, as the heaviest rains begin, a considerable part of Kosovo is flooded. Likewise from year to year elections are being held, since no government has so far completed its full term, yet, every time something is discussed, analyzed, interpreted, predicted or expected from the new elections and governments, I actually do not remember this being highlighted as one of the most important problems. All the more, that a more important expectation from the new government refers to its solution. Maybe because this is not such a big problem.

If you enter Kosovo during the holidays, during summer and winter holidays, one thing is guaranteed, waiting in endless traffic queues, even up to 10 or 12 hours. Citizens whine every year, but this, as well, is not something analysts put on the waiting list of any new government to solve. Maybe because this is not such a big problem.

There is no place in Kosovo where a human foot has stepped on and where there is no evidence of this presence left behind, a pile of waste. And this is one of the first things you will notice – waste everywhere you look, especially during the winter, when there is not enough greenery to at least ostensibly cover it. In and near rivers, streams and roads, in towns and villages. However, no one has seriously expected from a new government to put at least enough containers and try to teach citizens how to use them properly – that is, to throw waste in containers and not somewhere else. We can probably talk about recycling after four years, once we have mastered the basics of waste disposal. With the exception of the deep verbal concern expressed during World Environment Day and in the post-event communications organized by the EU Office in Kosovo, this is also not included in the important expectations of any new government. Maybe because this is not such a big problem.

“Kosovo has good laws, but they are not implemented to a sufficient extent” – this is a phrase that most people use with incredible ease to describe the key problem on the ground. Kosovo has laws that are not implemented, but to qualify them as good laws, it would probably be good to read some of them. If this is too much for you, certainly that in the analyses of many non-governmental organizations in Kosovo, in the most boring part, the “legal framework” (which even those few people who read it, just go through it in order to come to the most interesting part), you will find out what goes wrong with the laws of Kosovo and why you should think carefully before qualifying them as “good”.

During previous years much attention was attracted by two populist laws. Without entering into value judgments, a bit of concern was caused by the fact that, even despite of numerous experts and legal advisers in the Kosovo budget, such articles were found on the agenda of parliamentary sessions.

Thus, for example, at the end of May 2019, the Assembly of Kosovo adopted a law banning gambling. With a voluminous law with a total of three articles (repealed the previous law which regulated this area with 83 articles), as claimed at the time, about 4000 families in Kosovo who were left without regular monetary income were affected.

Another example of a populist law, which still remains only in the draft stage, is the Law on the Protection of KLA War Values. This slightly more voluminous law (12 articles in total) defines the “protected values ​​of the KLA war”, to which, among others, belong the “General Staff” and the “political administration (Directorate) of the KLA”, some members of which are currently in the Hague awaiting trial for war crimes. This law, however, provides for the obligation of every public official and citizen of Kosovo to “at all times and in all circumstances” in Kosovo, but also abroad “respect and protect” these values. The draft law fails to define what actions represent respect and protection of these values, but provides criminal provisions for them. Anyone who violates the provisions of this law will be punished “in accordance with the applicable laws”. This law would establish new criminal behaviors that would be punished (although it is not defined what they consist of) in accordance with laws that until now did not provide for such behavior as punishable.

I do not remember anyone emphasizing as an important thing, from any new government and legislature of the Assembly, to work on the technique of drafting laws and that it would eventually be useful if the Official Gazette of Kosovo would also publish the cleansed texts of the laws. That is, the text of the basic law to which amendments and supplementations were later added, all in one place, in order to be able to compare several different documents to be sure if any legal provision is still in force. Maybe because this is not such a big problem.

The decision of the Constitutional Court, which has led to the new elections in Kosovo, caused a lot of attention, but the most attention was not drawn by the problematic parts of the same. Respectively, with the latest decision of this court, persons who three years ago, from the announcement of the elections, were convicted with a final decision for criminal offenses, are not allowed to participate. On the other hand, someone who 5, 10 or 15 years ago was convicted of murder, rape, war crime, abuse of official position … is fully suitable to be a candidate for MP. Not to mention that there is virtually no legal impediment for a convicted criminal to hold high public office, even to be an adviser to the President or Prime Minister, as has been the case so far. Maybe this fact was not so problematic to be included in any expectation.

I believe that an even smaller problem is the traffic jams at the exit from Prishtina in the afternoon, when people finish work and it takes up to an hour to get out of the so-called “cartridge”. Regulating daily traffic is not a high enough political topic for the expectations section of any new government.

What, on the other hand, seems to me to be dominating the public sphere when we talk about the expectations from the elections in Kosovo are:

The engagement in the dialogue to reach a final agreement, the transparency of the institutions, accountability of decision-makers, the European path, stability and prosperity, membership in international organizations, the consequences of the opening of the Embassy in Jerusalem, will the new US administration have a more active or more passive approach… And this is somehow all that, as someone living in Kosovo, needs to know about expectation … but from the post-election process in South Sudan.

While waiting for the analyses, interpretations, forecasts and other considerations of many analysts, politicians and journalists in Kosovo, I often had the impression that all these are considered by “well-known experts on the Balkans”, somewhere from London, New York, Brussels. People who have not necessarily spent several years in Kosovo (they may even be somewhere in the region), or even not so much and with the knowledge they have gained from peace studies at prestigious universities, they have ultimate wisdom to understand the democratic processes in post-conflict environments.

The proverb, not used in vain, saying that all processes in post-conflict societies resemble each other and that all sides are summed up in a magic iron coin of widely applicable expectations – “the implementation of reforms, the strengthening of the rule of law, the fight against corruption and organized crime”.

All this resembles to me that we are slowly becoming those “experts on the Balkans”. We begin the consideration with a balance of geopolitical powers and their rotation around Kosovo as the most important point in the universe. Then, here and there we add some confidential information which we have received from a source which is even more confidential which is highly valued in various salons of the world (better known as a thesis of the American administration), an excellent connoisseur of diplomacy. Once we explain the big picture, then we can talk about local things. We expect the implementation of reforms, but we do not specify which ones, the strengthening of the rule of law, but we do not explain what it means concretely; We expect a fight against corruption, but what kind of fight? And of course at all levels of power. We season this with the most exciting post-election expectation – the fight against organized crime (a phrase for widespread use) and finally emphasize that to achieve all of these we need the transparency of the institutions and the responsibility of decision-makers.

So who cares about waste, floods, traffic jams, polluted rivers and air, who cares about the fact that the laws are not clear enough, that convicted criminals can take high positions in institutions … why deal with “details” when we can talk in general about everything like “experts on the Balkans”, why are they better than us?

Within Kosovo Collective Op-Ed series

Opinions expresses in this oped series do not necessarily represent those of the Balkan Trust for Democracy, the German Mashall Fund of the U.S. (BTD), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), or the U.S. Government. 

Project is supported by the Balkan Trust for Democracy of the German Marshall Fund of the U.S. and USAID.