KOSOVO’S THREE NON-RECOGNISERS FROM THE EU: GREECE, ROMANIA AND SKosovo's Three Non-Recognisers from the EU: Greece, Romania and Spain PAIN

For states, external sovereignty is a significant component of international legitimacy and is often secured through recognition by other states. Following its declaration of independence in 2008, Kosovo has been recognised by many countries worldwide and by the majority of European Union (EU) member states. Despite this progress, Kosovo has not gained recognition from some member states of the union, such as Spain, Greece, and Romania. Their persistent non-recognition poses a significant diplomatic challenge for Kosovo, given that the country has been seeking to advance its membership in international organisations.

This paper raises the question of “which domestic and geopolitical factors have sustained the non-recognition of Kosovo by selected EU member states since the outbreak of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, and whether the renewed momentum behind EU enlargement has influenced this process.” to see whether the accelerated EU enlargement initiative influenced this process in the meantime. It closely examines current conditions through content and discourse analyses to identify domestic and geopolitical explanations for the selected EU countries' non-recognition of Kosovo. I particularly focus on three cases, Greece, Romania, and Spain, to represent how their approaches differ even though they all sustain a non-recognition policy. Such a comprehensive analysis will not only help understand the obstacles to recognition but also the prospects of diplomatic steps.

The central argument of this analysis is that the lack of international recognition of Kosovo from the selected EU countries, Greece, Romania and Spain, is driven by domestic concerns with a particular emphasis on their own territorial integrity and internal secessionist voices. In addition to these domestic concerns, geopolitical dynamics further reduce the likelihood of recognition, as Greece, Romania and Spain fear that recognising Kosovo would deteriorate their relations with Serbia and jeopardise regional peace. Overall, this picture shows that recognition remains unlikely in the near term, despite some bilateral informal engagements between Kosovo and these three states. The text proceeds as follows: First, domestic and geopolitical constraints in those three states will be demonstrated separately by referring to their historical approaches to Kosovo since 2008. In the end, there will be a conclusion based on comparing the cases and estimating possible future scenarios.

Ahmet Ilhan Kaplan is a master’s degree student at the University of Jena in Germany in the International Organization and Crisis Management program. He worked at the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS) as an intern. His interests lie on Southeast European Politics, ethnic conflicts, nationalism, secessionism and irredentism. He is writing his master’s thesis on the interaction between Serbia as a kin-state and Serb populations as co-nationals in Bosnia and Kosovo to detect how irredentist attitudes evolve.

The views and opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS).