If the international political arena was a stock exchange, the shares of the “Kosovo company” would have been in a sharp decline for a long time. They would be very close to the point where bankruptcy is declared, while the shareholders are frantically trying to get rid of the worthless property and sell the shares for nothing. There is no one in sight to take over the company, and there is no plan to reconstruct it from the ground up in order to try to bring it back to market, recovered and modernized.

As with real companies on the stock exchange, in the case of Kosovo, the reasons for the steep decline should be sought in two directions. First, in excessive, huge (political) borrowing on the international market, for which there was no plan, and especially the will to be serviced and “repaid”. And secondly, the behavior of the “board of directors”, where all previous sets were convinced that it was enough just that they exist, that they should not have any strategy and that the obligation of everyone else is just to fill their budget, bigger from year to year.

The ruling teams in Pristina, as well as the vast majority of Kosovo Albanians, have been living for two decades in the belief that their victims and suffering are so great that it gives them the right to a permanent and lifelong pension and support from abroad. At the same time, they do not act at all as passive pensioners, but as aggressive and militant bullies, who would like to arm themselves, change borders according to the model from the 19th century and oppress their own population if it is of another nation.

In Pristina, they persistently ignore warnings that it is high time to change their current “business model”. Not only do they ignore them, but they angrily reject them, even when those warnings are extremely symbolic. Two influential Americans, from different political camps, “dared” to cordially congratulate Serbs and Serbia on Vidovdan. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (Democrat) declared June 28 a city holiday, as a sign of respect for generations of Serbian emigrants, her fellow citizens. And Richard Grenell (Republican-Conservative) congratulated Vidovdan on Twitter, as a sign of honor to “heroes, Saint Prince Lazar and the Serbian holy martyrs”. One of the first associates of the previous American president first received a “lesson” from VloraCitaku and Behgjet Pacolli that no Serbs were fighting against the Ottomans in Kosovo, but the “Balkan army” (!?), and then threats of knives and cleavers started.

Grenell should not underestimate these threats, even if they were written on Twitter, because it is a typical, long-standing “business model” of Kosovo Albanians, according to which their demands, their policies and their interpretation of reality and the past simply have to be accepted, and if they are not, then they turn to arms and violence.

Much less symbolic was the recent warning by US Ambassador to Pristina Philip Kosnett that history does not begin with the government of Albin Kurti, and that Kosovo’s biggest problem is “complacency”, where people are used to the world pumping money and solving their problems, and that “it will not last forever”. This was not only a reaction to Kurti’s refusal to implement Pristina’s only obligation and form the Community of Serb Municipalities, it was an important warning that he should not deal with the unification of Kosovo and Albania, or participate in elections in another country and similar archaic projects, but resolve problems for which he is in charge. And one of the first, not the fifth or sixth as he imagined, is to cooperate in the Brussels dialogue with Belgrade.

Even if they are aware of their steep “fall on the stock market” in Pristina, and they are not, they still cannot figure out the reasons why this is happening. They are prevented from doing so by the “complacency” that Ambassador Kosnett spoke about, that is, autism, unwillingness to change for years, while they are asking for change from everyone else, especially from Serbia. They are stunned by the new American rhetoric, congratulations on Vidovdan and warnings that they cannot live forever on someone else’s back, and at the same time destabilize the entire region. But that is their problem. An even bigger problem is that they do not want to accept the fact that Serbia, its president Vučić and his strategy to fight for Kosovo with patient and rational diplomacy, gaining, not rejecting allies, and fighting for goals which are not in heavenly heights and mythical mists, but are firmly on the ground are decisively responsible for their “fall on the stock market”. 

Kosovo Albanians cannot accept that Joe Biden is another American president in a row, who considers Serbia his most important partner in the Balkans, the most politically and economically influential country in the region, and its leader Vučić an unavoidable interlocutor for all topics concerning the Balkans. It is even harder for them to understand that Serbia and Vučić speak a language they perfectly understand and respect in Washington and Brussels, while they see plans for Albanian tribal unification and rewriting of medieval history as the madness of an immature person, which is not worth paying attention to. Just as at the recent Balkan summit on Brdo near Kranj, they turned away without a word on Vjosa Osmani’s request that Serbia apologizes for the crimes in Kosovo, pay war damages and that she will sue for genocide.

Congratulations on Vidovdan from the USA are therefore not an incident, as they think in Pristina. They are only a small, symbolic part of a great message to Pristina that the arrogance and “complacency” with which they have lived for years, has a shelf life and that it expires. It is probably difficult for them that Serbia and its president have a large share in creating that new message, but that is exactly the reality that they should accept. Just as they have been asking others for years.