Net migration rate Sex ratio at birth: 1. Infant mortality rate total: Life expectancy at birth total population: Total fertility rate 1. Nationality noun: Kosovar Albanian adjective: Kosovo note: Kosovo, a neutral term, is sometimes also used as a noun or adjective as in Kosovo Albanian, Kosovo Serb, Kosovo minority, or Kosovo citizen noun: Serb s adjective: Serbian Ethnic groups Albanians Orthodox Albanian The World Factbook, the indispensable source for basic information.
Serbian official Serbian The World Factbook, the indispensable source for basic information. Education expenditures NA 3. Kosovo's economy has shown progress in transitioning to a market-based system and maintaining macroeconomic stability, but it is still highly dependent on the international community and the diaspora for financial and technical assistance.
With international assistance, Kosovo has been able to privatize a majority of its state-owned enterprises. Most of Kosovo's population lives in rural towns outside of the capital, Pristina.
Inefficient, near-subsistence farming is common - the result of small plots, limited mechanization, and a lack of technical expertise.
Kosovo enjoys lower labor costs than the rest of the region. However, high levels of corruption, little contract enforcement, and unreliable electricity supply have discouraged potential investors.
The official currency of Kosovo is the euro, but the Serbian dinar is also used illegally in Serb majority communities. Kosovo's tie to the euro has helped keep core inflation low. A limited and unreliable electricity supply is a major impediment to economic development. MED also has plans for the rehabilitation of an older bituminous-fired power plant, Kosovo B, and the development of a coal mine that could supply both plants.
In August , as part of its EU-facilitated normalization process with Serbia, Kosovo signed agreements on telecommunications and energy distribution, but disagreements over who owns economic assets, such as the Trepca mining conglomerate, within Kosovo continue. Kosovo experienced its first federal budget deficit in , when government expenditures climbed sharply. Central revenues could not sustain these increases, and the government was forced to reduce its planned capital investments.
Serbia has a transitional economy largely dominated by market forces, but the state sector remains significant in certain areas. The economy relies on manufacturing and exports, driven largely by foreign investment.
MILOSEVIC-era mismanagement of the economy, an extended period of international economic sanctions, civil war, and the damage to Yugoslavia's infrastructure and industry during the NATO airstrikes in left the economy worse off than it was in Serbia has made progress in trade liberalization and enterprise restructuring and privatization, but many large enterprises - including the power utilities, telecommunications company, natural gas company, and others - remain state-owned.
Serbia has made some progress towards EU membership, gaining candidate status in March In January , Serbia's EU accession talks officially opened and, as of December , Serbia had opened 12 negotiating chapters including one on foreign trade. Serbia's negotiations with the WTO are advanced, with the country's complete ban on the trade and cultivation of agricultural biotechnology products representing the primary remaining obstacle to accession.
The government has shown progress implementing economic reforms, such as fiscal consolidation, privatization, and reducing public spending. Serbia is slowly implementing structural economic reforms needed to ensure the country's long-term prosperity. Serbia reduced its budget deficit to 1. Public debt had more than doubled between and Serbia's concerns about inflation and exchange-rate stability preclude the use of expansionary monetary policy.
Major economic challenges ahead include: stagnant household incomes; the need for private sector job creation; structural reforms of state-owned companies; strategic public sector reforms; and the need for new foreign direct investment.
Other serious longer-term challenges include an inefficient judicial system, high levels of corruption, and an aging population. For its part, the U. Under those circumstances, the best strategy may be to look for openings that will allow Kosovo to continue integrating into international institutions that will have it, and developing economic, security and political ties with the rest of the world.
They can also shift a greater part of their Balkan investment and aid to Pristina. These connections will not provide the stability that can only come with a political settlement on its independence, but by helping alleviate frustration and resentment, they may offer some modest opportunities for progress amid a situation that has been allowed to fester for far too long.
Kosovar rebels of Albanian ethnicity started an insurgency seeking independence from the Serbian state in After a period of UN administration and a failed attempt to negotiate an agreement, the U. Since then, about states have recognised Kosovo, though about fifteen countries have since recanted, and the pace of new recognitions has slowed. The impasse over recognition is costly to both parties and to regional stability.
Hide Footnote Serbia pays an international price, too, although less severe: the EU has made clear that settling its relations with Kosovo is a necessary though not sufficient condition for its membership. Estimates put the Kosovo Serb population at about , of a total population of 1. Between 60, and 70, live in four heavily Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo, on the border with Serbia.
Another 50, to 60, live in six southern Serb-majority municipalities, and the rest in villages in Albanian-majority areas. Hide Footnote. The town of Mitrovica is a sore point.
Once a single entity, it was divided mostly along the Ibar River in and Serbs withdrew or were expelled northward after the war. Today, it comprises two municipalities, both inside territorial Kosovo: South Mitrovica which is loyal to Pristina and has an Albanian population and North Mitrovica which is loyal to Belgrade and has a Serb majority and substantial Albanian and Bosniak minorities.
The latter is the only true urban area populated by Kosovo Serbs and is home to a large university and medical complex. Tensions between the two persist, notably along the main bridge joining the two sides, periodically blockaded by Serbs and guarded by NATO. Protection for the Church sites is enshrined in existing Kosovo law, but that has not guaranteed their safety.
Many sites were badly damaged in anti-Serb violence in Hide Footnote A repeat could do irreparable damage to Albanian-Serb relations and to regional stability. From to about , Serbia employed plainclothes police and operated municipal governments and courts in Serb-majority areas; it has since mostly closed them down.
Belgrade still runs virtually all the schools, including a university, as well as health services used by Serbs in Kosovo; employs tens of thousands in various jobs; and pays welfare and other social benefits to thousands more. Many, perhaps most, Kosovo Serbs depend in one way or another on these Serbian institutions for salaries and benefits.
Hide Footnote Weaning them fully from Belgrade would cost far more than Pristina has been willing to pay. During the years before and immediately after the declaration of independence in , Kosovo Serbs backed a variety of political parties, including branches of various Serbia-based parties and homegrown ones.
That changed in , when the EU pressured Serbia to shut down its parallel municipal governments and ensure Serbs instead turned out to vote in Kosovo elections, which they had been boycotting. Belgrade complied by setting up a new party, the Serbian List Srpska Lista.
The List, which now enjoys a near monopoly on Serb votes, remains openly loyal to Belgrade, and benefits from the constitutional requirement that Serbs hold at least one ministerial post and ten Assembly seats. It is effectively a foreign-controlled presence within the Kosovo government. Kosovar leaders tend to sideline these Serb politicians. They are excluded from decision-making and, at times, are not even invited to cabinet meetings.
Hide Footnote Government neglect extends to the local level, too. When in early parliamentary speaker Vjosa Osmani visited northern Kosovo, an overwhelmingly Serb area, she stopped only in ethnically Albanian villages.
Hide Footnote Serbian is technically an official language of Kosovo but attempts to use it in government offices can result in harassment or delays as translators are sought. Hide Footnote During the pandemic, Pristina issued public health orders only in Albanian though Serbian is the second official language until Serbs complained. Left to fester, the impasse in resolving the Kosovo-Serbia dispute distorts politics and stirs up resentment in both countries, deprives Kosovo and, as concerns the EU, Serbia of access to international institutions, and entails a low but persistent risk of returning to deadly conflict.
Against this backdrop, the challenge for Pristina, Belgrade and the international actors who would help them is to speed up the search for an agreement that can finally put the core unresolved issues between them to rest and, in the meantime, to manage tensions during what may be the many years in which there is no deal. This report is about how Pristina, Belgrade and their international partners in Europe and the U. It is based on fieldwork in the region dating back to Given pandemic conditions, all recent interviews were carried out by telephone or video.
These interviews were with current and former leaders of Kosovo and Serbia, opposition politicians, civil society members, international diplomats and regional experts. Building on previous Crisis Group work, the report maps the contours of the Kosovo-Serbia problem and the possible solutions, before laying out some recommendations.
As the dispute affects neighbouring states in the Western Balkans, a forthcoming report will survey the conflict risks in this wider region. Nevertheless, European and U. Resolution , para. Hide Footnote The court found that Kosovo had not violated international law, and the General Assembly did not call for a new dialogue on status, as Belgrade had hoped. Instead, it welcomed talks focused on practical issues to improve the lives of those affected by the dispute.
Hide Footnote The sides agreed on mutual recognition of licence plates, diplomas, civil registry and cadastral records. Hide Footnote Implementation was and still is uneven but there was real progress toward better cooperation. Hide Footnote Travel between the two countries, once a complicated ordeal, is now mostly unremarkable. Instead, they introduced what they considered to be constructive ambiguity by using deliberately vague language.
Hide Footnote Whatever its name, it functioned as a normal border between two states. For Pristina and much of the EU , the term meant recognition of Kosovo in substance if not yet in form, while for Serbia it meant merely a set of pragmatic arrangements.
Instead, its centrepiece was an arrangement intended to facilitate integration of Serb-majority areas of Kosovo and to enhance their autonomy. In key respects, it has failed to do so. Kosovo more realistically viewed it as little more than a repackaging of its existing arrangements for local self-government but even so, for symbolic and other reasons, has resisted acting on it. See also Section IV. Hide Footnote The problems caused by incomplete implementation have compounded with time and remain at the forefront of negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina.
Meantime, even partial integration of Serb-majority municipalities under which Serbia maintained parallel governments in Serb-majority areas came at a steep price to Kosovo, especially in the north. Pristina relied on the EU to pressure Serbia to push the local Serbs to integrate — to accept Kosovo documents, vote in its elections and work in its institutions.
Hide Footnote Belgrade, which was the only actor that, as a political matter, could deliver the Kosovo Serbs, did so by assuming full control over their leadership, which had previously been largely independent. The Serbian List quickly co-opted almost all other parties and is today the only parliamentary party representing ethnic Serbians. It is in effect a subsidiary of the Serbian Progressive Party, the ruling party in Serbia proper. Until about , Kosovo Serbs were represented by a range of parties, including the pro-integration Independent Liberals; the nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia; the moderate Serbia, Democracy and Justice party; and the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party.
Hide Footnote It removed police officers from its payroll and pressed them to take posts with the Kosovo police. Serbs turned out to vote in Kosovo elections. Hide Footnote Yet a degree of parallelism remains. Many municipal officials are dual-hatted and hold posts in the Serbian crisis staffs; as a recent example, some of these applied Serbian rather than Kosovo orders in the pandemic, leading to confusion.
Hide Footnote The new round of talks added deals on energy, telecommunications and a bridge joining North and South Mitrovica. Likewise, Kosovo Serb energy was to come through a subsidiary of Serbian companies registered locally. Crisis Group video interview, Kosovo Serb civil society leader, 19 May Hide Footnote The dispute aside, it is unclear what real difference such an entity would make, and whether it would materially improve the lives of Kosovo Serbs. The discussions culminated in a draft agreement meant to be put before the UN Security Council.
Hide Footnote Russia and the U. Crisis Group telephone interview, person familiar with the talks, July Hide Footnote Their acquiescence proved insufficient, however.
Once it became public, the idea of adjusting borders immediately aroused fierce opposition. A number of EU member states, led by Germany, protested strongly enough to halt the talks.
Hide Footnote Berlin objected in part because other Balkan countries, notably Bosnia and North Macedonia, were opposed, and in part because its diplomats felt out of the loop.
Hide Footnote The tariff measure was popular. Hide Footnote Yet they also had the intended effect of scuttling dialogue. Hide Footnote Washington welcomed the approach, and successfully pressured Pristina to lift its tariffs. As before, the deal under discussion — originally developed the previous year in EU-led talks — reportedly included recognition and a border adjustment.
This initiative again attracted intense opposition from several European governments. Hide Footnote Europeans felt that they were kept in the dark, a situation they particularly resented given the higher stakes for them in resolution of a dispute in their own backyard.
Hide Footnote Both comprised a repackaging of earlier commitments, with a number of promises to honour U. Finally, the arrangements concluded in Washington provided for Israel to agree to recognise Kosovo, while Belgrade and Pristina agreed to open embassies in Jerusalem. Over the same period, Brussels mediated talks on missing persons, returnees and the economy. Hide Footnote The dialogue has continued, without agreement, since then. There has been no visible progress toward resolving core issues that will have to be addressed for the two states to enjoy a normal relationship.
If future rounds, whether the dialogue in Brussels or a revived U. In earlier rounds, talks on practical issues at least had the merit of preparing the ground for a final deal. Neither Belgrade nor Pristina has much appetite for a long, open-ended process and neither sees much to be gained from further technical talks. But while it is time for talks to push past the limits that have hindered earlier phases of the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, the EU in its mediator role is in some ways hampered by ambiguities and technicalities of its own.
These are discussed in Section V. The EU and its member states will also likely need to enlist U. Crisis Group video interviews, European officials, 12 May ; former senior Kosovo government official, 13 May Member states opposing visa-free travel, notably France and the Netherlands, ought to change their position but are unlikely to do so while migration remains such a potent and polarising issue in their domestic politics.
Kosovar leaders have done little to prepare the public for the kinds of compromise necessary for a deal. In Serbia, powerful populist President Aleksandar Vucic, a former ultranationalist, insists that any solution must be a compromise in order to last. International officials are hoping to restart talks between Serbia and Kosovo. Both nations must normalize ties if they want to advance toward EU membership. No breakthrough would mean prolonged instability, economic decline and constant potential for clashes.
Sections U. Science Technology Business U. A Kosovo Serb woman is framed by Serbian flags as she attends a protest against Kosovo police action in the northern Serb-dominated part of ethnically divided town of Mitrovica, Kosovo, Wednesday, May 29, Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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