Tab 1 lists
Tab 2 lists
Tab 3 provides a set of
Contact Group Ministers Issue Statement on Kosovo's
Future (March 15, 2006) The international community’s
Contact Group ministers, together with European Union, NATO
and U.N. officials, met January 31 in London to discuss
Kosovo’s future. The Contact Group was set up in 1994 to
coordinate international action on the Balkans and includes
representatives of the United States, United Kingdom, Italy,
France, Germany, Russia and the European Union. In a
statement issued at the London meeting, the ministers
emphasized the importance of a lasting Kosovo status
settlement that promotes a multiethnic society and said they
believe that all possible efforts should be made to achieve
a negotiated settlement in 2006.
Journal Articles
Disclaimer: The materials in this section are from sources outside the U.S. Government and should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein or as official U.S. policy.
O'Brien, James C. BRUSSELS: NEXT CAPITAL OF THE BALKANS? The Washington
Quarterly, Summer 2006, pp. 71-89.
Full text available from publisher website
We are in an Indian summer of European Union enlargement. Warm words of encouragement continue to flow from Brussels to Sarajevo, Belgrade, Zagreb, Tirana, and Skopje, but a freeze is coming. As the Dutch and French “no” votes suggest, European populations have grown tired of grand European projects, including the EU’s expansion toward countries such as those of the western Balkans, which have religious, ethnic, cultural, and even imperial histories that diverge from northern Europe’s own heritage. For three to four years, the European Commission will continue to work with the countries of the western Balkans to prepare them for membership in the EU, even as popular skepticism about further expansion grows. At that point, a confrontation is likely: the European Commission will judge the first of these aspirants ready for membership. European leaders then will face a choice: live up to their own rhetoric in favor of enlargement or bow to the expectations of their publics by deciding against it. James C. O’Brien is a principal with the Albright Group and was presidential envoy for the Balkans during the Clinton administration.
Cohen, Lenard J. THE BALKANS TEN YEARS AFTER: FROM DAYTON TO THE EDGE OF
DEMOCRACY. Current History, November 2005, pp. 365-373.
Full text available upon request (to
addresses in Belgium only)
“A decade after the Dayton agreement . . . progress is being made in the region’s overall stability and democratic development. And the role of both Europe and the United States in Balkan affairs has changed dramatically.” Lenard J. Cohen is a professor of political science at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada.
Kupchan, Charles A. INDEPENDENCE FOR KOSOVO. Foreign Affairs,
November/December 2005, various pages.Full
text available from publisher website
Given the atrocities they have suffered in the past and the autonomy they are enjoying now, Kosovo's Albanians will never accept continued Serbian sovereignty. The time has come to give them what they want -- independence. Charles A. Kupchan is Professor of International Affairs at Georgetown University and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His most recent book is "The End of the American Era: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Geopolitics of the Twenty-first Century."
