Kosovo will soon join NATO and the EU, the USA puts "shoulders against the wall" the five countries that do not recognize Pristina, here is the great plan of the West that will shake Belgrade from its foundations

The European Union and the United States of America both welcomed the agreements in Brussels and Ohrid very well, but it seems that Washington has more reasons to be happy. According to the interlocutors of Blic, the Franco-German agreement can serve as a turning point and an important part for the realization of the plan for the five EU countries to finally recognize Kosovo. As they emphasize, this is also the easiest way for Pristina to open the doors to NATO and EU membership. Recently, the American Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, said that if the Kosovo-Serbia agreement is implemented, this would pave the way for the recognition of Pristina by the five EU member states that have not yet done so. Not only that, he said America is working on it.

The road to NATO and the EU

The "target" seems to be Spain, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Cyprus, which since 2008 have ignored Kosovo's independence. However, they recently supported the Franco-German proposal that was presented in September. After key negotiators gave the green light, the five countries approved it, following the diplomacy of EU special representative Miroslav Lajcak and State Department special representative Gabriel Escobar. The latter said that the goal is recognition, which is not surprising because the US is among the biggest supporters of Kosovo's independence. Suzana Grubješi? from the Center for Foreign Policy also reminds us of this. She points out for Blic that one of the main aspects of American support for the European plan is that the five EU members officially recognize Kosovo's independence. "It is considered to be more possible and simpler than the insistence on Kosovo's membership in the UN, which can be hindered by Russia and China's veto", Grubješi? emphasizes. "And if these countries will change their attitude towards the independence of Kosovo, it depends on their internal policies, which until now have prevented them from recognizing Kosovo as an equal state", she says.

Secure 'de facto' recognition

This is the reason why, as political scientist for international relations Dimitrije Miliç estimates for Blic, the USA has found the way to achieve the goal. "When it comes to the five EU members who have not recognized Kosovo, their attitudes differ from each other. The toughest and most politically powerful among them is certainly Spain. What Anthony Blinken is talking about is a more secure de facto recognition, where some de juro states would remain without declarations of recognition, but in a practical sense relations would work as if they recognized Kosovo," he says. The internal conditions of the countries, he notes, undoubtedly greatly affect the situation. "If the right wins the Spanish elections in December, the possibility of open recognition of Spain would drop drastically. When the right ruled in Madrid under Marian Rajoy,

Three countries are waiting for the "green light"

"We don't know how Spain and Cyprus will react, but these three countries (Slovakia, Greece and Romania) are waiting for Kurti and Vucic to shake hands and they will recognize Kosovo," Mijacic said. It was speculated that Greece might surrender first and two days ago their head of diplomacy, Nikos Dendias, was in Belgrade and on that occasion he congratulated the agreement reached between Belgrade and Pristina in Ohrid and confirmed Greece's support for the further progress of dialogue. In 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, which was recognized by 22 EU member states. Spain maintains such a position because it has been fighting Catalan and Basque separatism for decades, and Greece because it does not support the division of the northern part of Cyprus. Cyprus opposes it due to territorial problems with Turkey, while Slovakia is influenced by historical relations with Serbia. As for Romania, it seems to be unionized by the fear of secession of the Land of Szeged in Transylvania, a region inhabited by ethnic Hungarians, the situation with the Transnistria region, but also the good relations with Serbia.