Kosovo to Declare Independence

It looks like Kosovo stands on the brink of declaring independence. Reports suggest that Kosovar Prime Minister Hashim Tachi was set to make the declaration on Friday but was persuaded to delay any announcement by the United States authorities. This follows Tachi agreeing to delay the independence process till after the Serbian Presidential elections, so as to not allow Tomislav Nikolic of the Radical Party a big stick with which to beat Boris Tadic. Those elections are now of course out of the way, with Tadic having been successfully reelected.

Whilst Tadic does not want to see Kosovo leave Serbia and he and the Serbian authorities will seek to stop the moves to Kosovar independence, nor will they really be in a position to prevent the country from doing so. Sure, Russia and a few other states will make noises about this, but if the people and government of Kosovo are determined to move to independence how can this practically be stopped?

This leaves the way clear for Kosovo to move forwards to independence. We all of course hope that this will be a smooth process, and there are signs that it will be. An interesting article in today's Sunday Herald suggests that it has every chance of being just such a smooth process, and it looks likely that we are now seeing the remaining parts of the old Yugoslavian state falling apart.

So, the world will have its newest nation state in Kosovo this week. This will be a nation state of 2.2million less than 15% the size of Scotland. They are moving forward to independence with confidence. I look forward to our own country joining them soon.