Beyond the Kosovo Status Question: The Limits to Europe's State-Building Efforts

This article seeks to analyse the scope of the EU's involvement in Kosovo. The main argument presented is that the Union's role in Kosovo is a rather problematic one, characterised by a general lack of vision and a tendency to put European rather than local interests first. This could ultimately lead to a decrease in the perceived legitimacy of the EU as a benevolent actor in the former Serbian province, and could potentially undermine local political processes. This paper makes use of the conceptual framework of international post-conflict state-building exercise and discourse. It holds that the EU's policy is in line with similar state-building efforts in various other regions of the world, and suffers from many of the same structural problems.