Kosovo after Request to Lift Tariffs: Kurti under Pressure

Albin Kurti (Beta/Armenija Zajmi Besevic)

A request to lift tariffs on products from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina has cut a deep rift in Prime Minister Albin Kurti’s newborn cabinet, so deep in fact, that Kosovo’s ruling coalition rallied around Kurti’s Self-Determination and Isa Mustafa’s Democratic Alliance of Kosovo might fall apart. Washington strongly supports a decision to lift the tariffs, as a precondition for talks to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo to continue. The new customs rates had been introduced by Kurti’s predecessor, Ramush Haradinaj, who planned to use the 100-percent tariff to force Serbia to give up a campaign among small states across the world to withdraw an earlier decision to recognize the independence of Kosovo.