Official Discrepancies: Kosovo Independence and Western European Rhetoric

This article examines approaches and official discrepancies characterising Western European rhetoric with regard to the Kosovo status question. Since the early 1980s, Kosovo has been increasingly present in European debates, culminating with the 1999 international intervention in the region and subsequent talks about its final status. Although the Kosovo Albanians proclaimed independence in February 2008 and the majority of EU Member States decided to recognise Kosovo as an independent state, Western European rhetoric has been rather divided. This article shows that in addition to five EU members who have decided not to recognise Kosovo from the very beginning, and thus are powerful enough to affect its further progress, both locally and internationally, some of the recognisers, although having abandoned the policy of ‘standards before status’, have also struggled to develop full support for the province – a discrepancy that surely questions the overall Western support for Kosovo’s independence.