Democracy Digest: Balkan Deja Vu and the Limits of EU Influence

With snap elections now in the offing, his resignation has left experts scrambling to assess the fallout in a country struggling to make progress in terms of European integration.

While some see economic peril and unfinished legislative business ahead, others think it might actually help ease the political logjam with neighbouring Serbia, which does not recognise Kosovo, BIRN's Perparim Isufi writes on Balkan Insight (paywall).

"By resigning, he has won political points among potential voters, and also has opened the way for others to open the final chapter of [the dialogue on] normalisation of relations with Serbia," one source says.

Balkan Insight's Guerrilla, Politician, Suspect: The Legal Battles of Kosovo's Haradinaj explains the sense of déjà vu that many in Kosovo feel since this is the second time he has stepped down as prime minister after being summoned to respond to war crimes allegations (the first time was in 2005).

Writing in Emerging Europe, Anita McKinna notes that much has changed in the intervening years. "Fourteen years on, thankfully, Kosovo is far more stable, with no real expectation that high-profile invitations or indictments by the Specialist Chambers would be met with violence on the streets."

But judging by much of the reaction to Haradinaj's resignation, she adds, "it appears that dealing with the past in Kosovo is no higher on the agenda than it was in 2005".

German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the West Balkan Conference in Berlin in April 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/MIKA SCHMIDT

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