Beyond The Kosovo Status Question: The Limits to Europe's State-Building Efforts

This article seeks to analyse the scope of the EU's involvement in Kosovo. The main argument presented is that the Union's role in Kosovo is a rather problematic one, characterised by a general lack of vision and a tendency to put European rather than local interests first. This could ultimately lead to a decrease in the perceived legitimacy of the EU as a benevolent actor in the former Serbian province, and could potentially undermine local political processes. This paper makes use of the conceptual framework of international post-conflict state-building exercise and discourse. It holds that the EU's policy is in line with similar statebuilding efforts in various other regions of the world, and suffers from many of the same structural problems.