Kosovo’s future status has been one of the international community’s priorities since 2006. It is a key to stability in the region.

UNSCR 1244

At a time when Kosovo, with its mainly Albanian population, is demanding independence from Serbia, UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 10 June 1999 seems no longer to be relevant to the international situation in the Western Balkans, all the more so since Montenegro gained its independence. Even though this Resolution demonstrates the desire for a global settlement, its very basis could make it obsolete in the short term. It needs major revision.

To start with, its reference to the ‘Federal Republic of Yugoslavia’ is meaningless, and no longer corresponds to the reality of 2007. Nor does its reference to ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity’; an international partnership process has been in existence for a long time, tending towards making the current status permanent. Furthermore, the eight-year-old status of a UN Protectorate needs concerted reflection by all the parties concerned. From this point of view, the guarantees of freedom to travel and of the return home of the Serbian population of Kosovo is one of the points which needs to be very closely examined.⁽¹⁾ However, it is essentially and first of all the status itself which is the centre of attention in this summer of 2007.