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00:00some analysis. Our chief foreign editor Rob Parsons joins me in the studio. Rob,
00:04what's at stake here and what are some of the key issues on voters' minds?
00:08As ever with Kosovo, the key issue is the relationship with Serbia and
00:14the relationship with its Serbian minority, about 48% of the population. So
00:19during the 1990s, when Kosovo was still part of Serbia, there was a war
00:24between the two which led to breakaway from Serbia by the Kosovo
00:29Albanians. In 2008, they became independent. Serbia has never reconciled itself to
00:36that, has sought to exploit the presence of a Serbian ethnic minority inside
00:41Kosovo. The Kosovars, for their part, have sought to impose their will,
00:47their authority on that minority and ever since that has been the key issue
00:52that has determined effectively the outcome of politics in Kosovo. What
00:58the Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, is saying is that he, more than any other
01:03Prime Minister in the history of Kosovo since independence, has managed to expand,
01:08extend, strengthen the sovereignty of the country over all parts of Kosovo. But
01:15the flip side of that is he's accused by the European Union, the United States of
01:20undermining efforts to forward and improve conciliation between the
01:27minority and the majority in Kosovo, to the detriment of political stability in
01:34the region. You know, in 2023 there was an attempt by Albin Kurti, or beyond that,
01:41he successfully appointed Albanians as mayors of Mitrovica,
01:46North Mitrovica, a Serbian majority. He banned the use of the Serbian
01:52D9 inside Kosovo, prevented Serbians from getting access at the banks in
02:00Kosovo to their pensions and so on, leading to riots in 2023, which led to
02:07the wounding of 100 NATO peacekeeping forces, the KFOR force, inside Kosovo.
02:14So, you know, these are the issues that are boiling in the background, as they
02:19always have in Kosovo since independence.
02:23And what will the outcome of this election mean for Kosovo, the current
02:27Kosovo government and the EU?
02:29Well, you know, the government will say, you know, assuming
02:33it is Kurti who wins, although he's quite likely to have to form a
02:38coalition with another party, as you pointed out in your introduction. He
02:43could just get a majority, but it's going to be very close. He will want to pursue
02:47the policies he's been pursuing up until now. But there is growing
02:51pressure from within the country for a shift in position to try to adopt a
02:56more militant policy towards the European Union. Foreign investment has
03:01plummeted over the period of his government. The EU has put on hold
03:07150 million euros of aid to Kosovo. Relationships with the United States
03:13have been soured. Richard Grinnell, who was the special envoy of the United
03:17States during the first Donald Trump presidency, said that the Kurti
03:22government wasn't to be trusted. The Kurti government, for its part,
03:26accused Grinnell of trying to start a coup against its government inside
03:31Kosovo. So that's the key, I think, going forward. How does this,
03:35whatever government it is, continue to pursue what it regards as Kosovo's
03:40national interests, at the same time as not alienating its main backers, the
03:46European Union and the United States? Because without that, you know, Kosovo is
03:50one of the poorest, if not the poorest country in the European Union. Without
03:54that support, the life for ordinary Kosovars is going to remain as difficult
03:59as it is today. Rob, our chief foreign editor, thank you very much indeed, as
04:04always.