KOSOVO — Dragan Nikolic worked for two decades in the Kosovo Police before quitting in November 2022 after the Belgrade-backed Serbian List party called on all ethnic Serbs to leave Kosovar institutions amid a dispute with Pristina over license plates.

Now a driver in Kosovo’s Communities and Returns Ministry, he regrets the decision he said he made under pressure and hopes someday to return to his previous line of work maintaining law and order.

“The news that we had to leave the institutions deeply affected me. I still cannot come to terms with it,” Nikolic, who is from Leposavic in northern Kosovo, told RFE/RL this week. He said he is one of many Kosovar Serbs hoping to turn back the clock on their careers, describing himself and others as “victims of pressures and someone’s politics.”

When Pristina began to enforce a law in late 2022 that all cars registered in Kosovo must have Kosovar license plates, the influential Serbian List party kicked up a political storm, urging ethnic Serbs to leave their jobs and triggering what would become the biggest crisis in the region in years.

As tensions boiled over, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, a populist whom experts say yearns to create a Greater Serbia that includes northern Kosovo, ordered several thousand troops to the border just as the United States and Europe were bogged down with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

If Vucic was hoping to cause an uprising that would allow him to regain northern Kosovo, a province of Serbia until its independence in 2008, he miscalculated. Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti used the mass resignations of ethnic Serbs to fill jobs with ethnic Albanians and dismantle the remaining Serbian institutions that gave Belgrade leverage in its former province.

On September 13, Vucic demanded that Kosovo rehire ethnic Serbs who quit government institutions, such as the police and judiciary, and hold regional elections. It was part of a package of demands aimed at making progress on talks to normalize relations. Serbia does not recognize Kosovo’s independence.

Two years after his life was upended by Belgrade’s gamble, Nikolic now feels “betrayed and deceived.”

Returning To Work?

The ball is now in Kosovo’s court, and local Serbs might not be able to turn back the clock.

Kurti’s office has declined to comment on Vucic’s demands. Kosovo’s parliamentary speaker Glauk Konjufca, a member of Kurti’s party Vetevendosje, told reporters on September 16 that rehiring en masse those who quit would be unconstitutional.

Meanwhile, Kosovar Foreign Minister Donika Gervalla sees a Trojan horse in Vucic’s proposal, claiming the Serbian leader is seeking to “instrumentalize” the ethnic Serbs in Kosovo.

The European Union, which is facilitating the talks between Belgrade and Pristina, said it would like to see the hundreds of ethnic Serbs who quit their jobs in protest return to work.

“The EU has consistently called for Belgrade to encourage and for Pristina to enable the reintegration of Kosovo Serbs,” Peter Stano, spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, said in an e-mailed response to RFE/RL.

“We welcome the willingness expressed by President Vucic to continue engagement in the EU-facilitated dialogue,” he added.

When contacted by RFE/RL, Kosovo’s Interior Ministry and the Kosovo Police declined to comment on the issue of reintegration of ethnic Serbs who quit.

The Kosovo Prosecutorial Council (KPC) told RFE/RL it would consider requests by ethnic Serbs to return to work but added it had not received any requests to date from former prosecutors.

In their response to RFE/RL, the Kosovo Judicial Council said reintegration “will be examined when the [council] deems it the right time” and “according to the established procedure for such situations.”

Even if there was the political will, there might not be an easy way.

Former Constitutional Court Vice President Kadri Kryeziu told RFE/RL that the reintegration of Serbs into Kosovar institutions would be possible but not automatic.

As for rejoining the police, he said there are legal hurdles. “Those who resign from the police cannot return. Only in cases where someone is sick or has family issues…otherwise, they cannot return,” Kryeziu said.

Astrit Kolaj from the Kosovo Institute for Justice said police officers like Nikolic can’t automatically return to their old job but could legally apply for an open position.

The situation is different with judges and prosecutors, Kryeziu said, since their resignations have not been formalized and thus relevant institutions could consider their return.

Kolaj said reintegrating judges and prosecutors “would be a kind of goodwill gesture, which would demonstrate that the Republic of Kosovo is just and equal for all its citizens.”

Squeezing Out Serb Institutions

Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo have been guided for decades by Belgrade and its parallel structures in the region, including Serbian banks, a pension system, and unemployment benefits. As a result, the area often turns into a hotspot of tensions when those structures are threatened.

This year, Kurti’s government took several steps to dismantle those parallel structures in an effort to extend Pristina’s authority in the north as much as possible. His government has also phased out the Serbian currency, the dinar, which many Serbs received their salaries or pensions in, replacing it with the euro.

While the integration of ethnic Serbs into Kosovar institutions has been part of agreements between Pristina and Belgrade, Western governments criticized Kurti for the timing of those steps with tensions still running high.

Speaking to RFE/RL on September 16, a State Department spokesperson called for both sides to act responsibly.

“We call again on Serbia and Kosovo to refrain from further escalatory rhetoric, uncoordinated actions, or legislative acts that run contrary to the normalization of their relations or jeopardize stability and security,” the spokesperson said.

Branimir Stojanovic, a member of the Serbian National Movement in Kosovo, told RFE/RL he did not expect Vucic’s demands to improve the lot of ethnic Serbs.

“Nothing will change on the ground,” he said. People are “demoralized and disappointed with the circumstances in which they live.”

He pinned the blame on Serbian List’s strategy.

“A bad policy has collapsed, and now the ordinary people will pay the price. Politicians or officials won’t pay it,” he said.

Serbian List did not respond to RFE/RL’s request for comment regarding Vucic’s demands or the local Serbs’ criticism of the party.