11 June 2020
By Clementine Momas
Today was quite
intense and it becomes harder for me to sit in a chair and look at the screen all
day long. Gratefully, Anne de Graaf and Nini Pieters had organized very interesting
meetings for us once again. The day started with a presentation by the Kosovo
Specialist Chambers. We got to learn about the specificities of this unique
court but also broached the topic of career paths in international relations
and law. A senior lawyer shared some tips with us and insisted on the fact that
it is particularly difficult to find a job in this field. While this further
confirmed my doubts about our limited career prospects as International
Relations students, this virtual trip to Kosovo amplified my desire to work in
the field of Human Rights. Besides, after this meeting, we got to talk with
former Peace Lab students who seemed particularly successful in using their
trip to Kosovo as an inspiration and an opportunity to conduct great projects
or find internships.
On another note, our
last meeting with Petrit Selimi was very interesting and inspirational. I feel
very honored to be meeting such busy and influential persons, who are still
willing to give us some of their time. I was pleasantly surprised by how
approachable they were, especially politicians such as Albin Kurti or
Petrit Selimi, who seemed quite open.
Building on the two
meetings, I think that their political views on the United States and the
European Union are changing with the recent involvement of the U.S. in toppling
the former Prime Minister Albin Kurti. Indeed, Kurti who was originally more
skeptical of the European Union spoke about it more positively than I expected during
our meeting. Besides, Selimi who is the CEO of a U.S.-founded foundation seemed a
little disconcerted by the recent U.S. move in interfering with Kosovo’s
politics, even though he did not openly criticize it.
He stated that their meddling is not
necessarily a bad thing as it shows that the White House still has an interest
in the country. Instead, he pointed out that Kurti failed to create a dialogue
with Grenelle, Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Kosovo. According to him,
Albin Kurti was not removed from power because of Grenelle but because he did
not manage to change his way to govern, failed to make compromises and was too
ideological. I also thought it was interesting how he argued that, in Kosovo,
the Prime Minister has to be able to make coalitions in order to stay in power,
contrary to other governments in Europe. He stated that winning the elections
is one thing, but it is not enough.
I also thought that
Petrit Selimi had an interesting stance on the delay in Kosovo’s accession to
the European Union. During this course, we learned that this was mainly due to
the on-going corruption, the failure to meet with EU standards, and the
opposition of Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania. However, Petrit
Selimi contended that the membership was also delayed because of the current
polarization in politics in the European Union between the far right and the far
left. Indeed, he argued that the far left did not want Kosovo to join, being a
country that is heavily influenced by and supportive of the U.S. On the other
end of the spectrum, the far right is skeptical of the country because of its
predominantly Muslim population, which according to them, does not share EU
values. This made me consider it as another potential factor that can help to
explain the suspension of the talks about Kosovo joining the EU, on top of the
others that we learned about in class.
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