Pieter Cornelis Feith, the Dutch diplomat, currently serving as the European Union Special Representative (EUSR) in Kosovo, has said that Brussels will decide on taking over jurisdiction in northern Kosovo after May 11.
Speaking in an interview on Monday, the EU’s representative to Pieter Feith said that the aim of the EU mission, dubbed as EULEX KOSOVO (European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo), is to be operational by June 15.

Feith said, “Kosovo’s new EU supervisors are watching closely whether pro-Europeans defeat nationalists in Serbia’s May election, before deciding how to tackle the Belgrade-backed Serbs in Kosovo’s renegade north.”

According to the reports, Serbs in the north “are promising to resist”, and says they have the backing of Prime Minister Vojislav Koštunica, described as “nationalist”. When asked how his office and the 2,000-strong EU police and justice mission planned to take over from the United Nations in the north, Feith said, “It would be important to see who is coming out of the elections of May 11 as the determining factor for the next government, and we’ll take it from there.”

He said, “Given the current situation we are in … we will have to continue to reflect on this and work with Belgrade and the (Kosovo) government on how this is going to be taken forward.”

Feith, the former NATO mediator in ethnic Albanian insurgencies in neighboring Macedonia and southern Serbia, underlined that Kosovo’s Western backers would “not allow Belgrade to compromise the sovereignty of the new state”.

He said, “I would not like to see Belgrade wielding a permanent veto over what happens to Kosovo.  This is an independent, sovereign state, recognized by more than 30 of the most important democracies and economies in the world. We do not see it as a helpful proposition that the sovereignty of Kosovo would be impaired in a way as we see now.”

“It will decide whether Serbia pursues a future in the European Union or turns its back on the bloc, which supports Kosovo’s 2 million Albanians. The EU hopes that a government led by President Boris Tadi?’s Democrats, though also opposed to Kosovo’s independence, will be more accommodating towards Feith’s EU mission. We are aiming at establishing a modern, multiethnic justice system, a multiethnic police, a single legal space for the whole of Kosovo, for that you need Serb cooperation,” said Feith.

On Monday in Priština, Kosovo Albanian leadership signed the “Kosovo constitution”, which was previously approved by Feith, who described the document as “consolidating Kosovo as a modern, multi-ethnic state” He called on Serbs “to chose a government in Belgrade that would give priority to its EU perspective rather than “look to the past and focus on the injustices”. Feith concluded, “The EU is clear that it does not wish Kosovo to end up as a failed state, or as a frozen conflict.”