Sep 10th 2010, 16:48 by T.J.
AFTER all the huffing and puffing it was something of an anti-climax. Serbia’s government looked at its options and gave in. Last night, September 9th, the UN General Assembly was supposed to vote on a joint text submitted by Serbia and the EU in the wake of the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion in July that Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia was not illegal. In the end, since the resolution was so uncontroversial, the assembly did not even bother to vote. The resolution was adopted, unanimously, by acclamation.
But that is not the end of this dispute. Immediately after the ICJ issued its opinion, Serbia began talking to the EU—five of whose 27 members do not recognise Kosovo—about a joint resolution at the General Assembly. But then Serbia, apparently believing that Albania was about to submit a resolution, suddenly submitted its own, which condemned “one-sided secession”. The big EU states were furious.
Serbia's president, Boris Tadić, and his government now found themselves at a fork in the road. One signpost said "inat" (a Serbian word that translates roughly as "spite") and the other “Brussels”. Vuk Jeremić, Serbia’s indefatigable foreign minister, flew around the world attempting to persuade countries to vote for the Serbian resolution while Mr Tadić received some pretty salutatory messages from the 22 EU countries that recognise Kosovo.
To ram home the message the German and British foreign ministers came calling. In essence the message was that Serbia could forget about EU membership, for which it had applied last December, if it carried on down the "inat" road. Last week four of the EU "non-recognisers" decided that they did not want to pick a fight with the 22 over the issue, and on Monday, when Cyprus, the most stubborn of the five, fell into line the game was up. Mr Tadić chose the road marked Brussels.
The resolution opens the doors to EU-sponsored talks on Kosovo's future. These may touch on a whole range of issues, including jurisdiction in the lawless Serbian-dominated north, security for Serbian monasteries, electricity, water, trade, documents etc. At present Serbia refuses to recognise Kosovo’s documents, making it extremely difficult for Kosovar Albanians to travel through Serbia.
Yesterday’s vote closes a chapter of the Kosovo story, but the new one has yet to open. Serbia’s most famous cartoonist, Corax, marked last night’s vote with a cartoon depicting President Tadić nailing a portrait of Martii Ahtisaari to a wall. Mr Ahtisaari, a former president of Finland and a Nobel Peace prize winner, is the architect of the plan that led to Kosovo’s independence but that also offered its Serbs a large measure of autonomy.
Serbian leaders will not admit it publicly, but the real issue that preoccupies them is how to get quietly rid themselves of the Kosovo problem. Serbia, with a population of 7.5m, could never reabsorb some 2m hostile Kosovar Albanians into its body politic.
Last night’s vote was a triumph for what diplomats call constructive ambiguity. To allow everyone in Serbia and Kosovo to be able to get on with the rest of their lives, we could do with a lot more of it.
the economist, eastern approaches
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