Kosovo-Serbia customs issue: A continuation of war by other means

Since 1999, Serbia inhibited Kosovo’s independence in many ways: it issued Serbian passports for Serbs from the North; it deprived Prishtina from access to local land registers and other documents removed to Belgrade; it limited telecommunication services and electricity to Kosovo. Finally, following Kosovo’s independence in 2008, Serbia banned entrance to goods from Kosovo. All these acts had political consequences, for between daily technical issues and politics there is often only a moot distinction. Yet the import ban issue eventually turned into a political dispute par excellence. Trade, custom stamps and checkpoint control arguments are being (ab)used as alibi to cover for the real geopolitical interest of both sides: the North of Kosovo, a region populated by some 60,000 Serbs constantly rejecting Prishtina’s authority.