'What are the challenges for Kosovo in the EU-accession process?

Responds Wolfgang Koeth-Political Advisor from the office of EU Commission in Prishtina

Kosovo cannot be judged the same way other neighboring countries in the region, which are potential candidates for the accession. Kosovo is not a sovereign state. The final legislative and executive power lies still in hands of UNMIK, UN administration. So, whenever we assess Kosovo institutions for, let’s say, the rule of law, we have to take into account that finally, final responsibility for this sector is not with Kosovo authorities but with the United Nations. However, this should not serve us as the excuse for Kosovo authorities. Sometimes we have the statement from local authorities that” you know but we don’t have legal competencies „. But that is not true, because Kosovo authorities do have a lot of competencies, but there is still a number of deficiencies. The area which gives us the most headaches is the rule of law. Because rule of law is not a separate sector as we have, let’s say economy, education. No, rule of law is underline, is across all these sectors. Because if we don’t have the well-functioning justice system, we won’t have any foreign investments in here. As long as the foreign investor cannot be sure that when he comes to Kosovo and when he invests his money, when he has got a legal issue, he can go to the court and exercise his rights. So rule of law is the issue which gives us the most headaches. That is mainly part to the weak capacity institutions. It can be also explained by the fact that Kosovo has no experience as the functioning state. Kosovo was a part of former Yugoslavia, then under the Milosevic regime, let’s say all Kosovo Albanians working in that sector were pushed out from their jobs, that means all judges and prosecutors and lawyer which are working here now have been under Yugoslav system and then have been without jobs for the next ten years, then started to work in a new system. All of them have received training during and after Milosevic period. The training which is inappropriate to the European standards.