Evaluating EU Actorness as a State-Builder in ‘Contested’ Kosovo

Ten years after Kosovo’s controversial declaration of independence, this article seeks to analyse how the European Union has gradually become the main external actor in the facilitation of the statebuilding process in Kosovo, how its approach to state-building has evolved in the period 2008-2018 and how the state contestation issue has shaped its actorness in this domain. The empirical analysis shows that while the EU initially adopted a state-building through conditionality approach, modelled on its enlargement policy, after 2008, the EU complemented its conditionality approach with additional tools, which made Kosovo into a key test case for its comprehensive approach to conflicts. Finally, in recent years, the EU has prioritized the normalization of relations with Belgrade in its statebuilding approach. The analysis also presents some examples of how EU actorness as a state-builder is shaped by the state contestation issue. The lack of recognition of Kosovo by five of its member states induced the EU to devise creative institutional and legal solutions in order to overcome its internal division, but it also strongly reduced its leverage. The lack of effective government induced the EU to make Kosovo become the recipient of the largest amount of EU aid per capita in the world since 1999, but the country’s weak state apparatus constrained the effectiveness of such assistance. Finally, the lack of territorial control over the north by the Pristina-based Kosovo authorities constrained EU actorness because it found implementing its policies impossible or very difficult in that part of the country.