Political status of Kosovo as strategic challenge for Serbia's integration

Abstract

In 2003 Serbia began the process of integration with the European Union. After eleven years on a difficult road to the transformation of political and constitutional contexts, Serbia received a chance to become a member of this Community. On the path to European Union membership, Serbia should to resolve a key challenge – regulate the political status of Kosovo. The European Union signaled Serbia’s urgent need to work out this issue before it will complete the accession process and presents two main reasons for this necessity. One of these was the normalization of Serbia-Kosovo relations reducing the risk of renewed conflict and the second allowed a more lasting stability for the security in the Western Balkans. The aim of this article is to indicate the position of Serbian, and Kosovo Albanian regarding the dispute over the political status of Kosovo, as well as the presentation of the process of normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo as a key mechanism for regulating the dispute. There will be identified strategic challenges emerging as a result of measures taken to tackle this problem. These may have a significant impact on the further dynamics of the process of Serbia's integration with the European Union.