Over the past few days, violent clashes between protesters and local authorities have taken place in the north of Kosovo, where the Serb element is strong, with fears of a new flare-up in the western Balkans intensifying. The toll was dozens of wounded, including about 30 soldiers of the NATO peacekeeping force KFOR.

Berlin’s tageszeitung comments on the fact that 24 years after the end of the war in Kosovo, stable peace has not yet been achieved in the region: “The current generation of politicians, diplomats and journalists may not fully understand the lessons of the Kosovo war and, as therefore, political decisions are made that ignore the lessons of history, thus creating new conflicts. […] Politicians do not realize that the strategy of reining in nationalist and authoritarian systems through a policy of appeasement is wrong.

American and European diplomats, on the other hand, are courting the sympathy of Aleksandar Vucic, the current president of Serbia and former propaganda chief of the Milosevic regime. They want to move him away from working with Vladimir Putin and are under the illusion that they can change his course with political and economic concessions. However, Vucic is not going to change his mind because some Western diplomats, oblivious to history, are flattering him. And this makes it easier to put pressure on the non-nationalist government in Pristina, which is seriously striving for a peaceful future.”

Regarding the president of Serbia, the Süddeutsche Zeitung also observes that “what is taking place in Kosovo may not put Aleksandar Vucic in exactly an uncomfortable position, […] since now he can present himself publicly as a concerned peacemaker and appeal to the international community to bring the Kosovo government, which caused these riots, “back to the path of reason.” In the meantime, hardly anyone is talking about the mass protests that are taking place in Serbia against Vucic”.