Kosovo Misses Another Chance to Join the Council of Europe
Kosovo will once again not be on the agenda of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, which will convene on May 13–14. This exclusion follows a lack of progress on addressing the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities and the failure to form new institutions after recent elections.
Experts on the matter argue that Kosovo’s refusal to send the EU-drafted statute for the Association to the Constitutional Court directly contributed to the lack of support from key European allies.
Professor Dritëro Arifi stated that “Kosovo missed the train,” highlighting that the absence of a functioning government has created a vacuum in foreign policy. Meanwhile, constitutional law professor Kadri Kryeziu warned that the ongoing political crisis threatens Kosovo’s standing abroad, especially amid radical and unpredictable shifts in the U.S. administration.
Kosovo first applied for membership in the Council of Europe in 2022, but for the second consecutive year, it has failed to pass the final decision-making stage due to unmet conditions.
