By the latest news reports, there are not likely to be any Serbs remaining in Kosova. So their status will have been made irrelevant. This may not be fair, but it looks to be the imminent outcome.
Properly speaking, the shape of Social Europe ought to be the context for how both Kosova and Serbia are reconstructed. I am not jazzed up about language about "free market" economics being imposed. This has come to be a pretty nebulous term. Right now there is not much of an economy of any sort, especially in Kosova. Capital transfer by one means or another will begin to change that, and the direction of the society there will determine the mix between public and private.
In keeping with my view of the motivations for the war, I don't think "NATO" could care less about the economy of Kosova or Serbia. The U.S. public can barely countenance the idea of being there in the first place, let alone engaging in 'nation-building.' It will be up to the EU.
>>The sidelining of the KLA instead of negotiating with them (including
toughly) from the beginning of this year, is one of the imperialist and
foolish features of the west's policy. The KLA needs to have a leading
responsible, and accountable role. . . . >>
By the news reports I see, self-assertion is not a problem for the KLA.
>Third, I'd look to the operations of the EU in terms of strengthening
>its capabilities to build a Social Europe. This would entail progress
>in the field of tax coordination, EU-based fiscal equalization for
>poor regions (incl the Balkans), and democratizing the ECB, for
>starters.
>>Why tax-coordination? Without pork barrel politics, Europe has a problem of
how to disperse government sources of capital across the electoral area, to
reverse the centralising tendencies of private capital. One of the few
far-sighted things Hague has said is that Britain should stay out of the
Euro partly in order to compete with other parts of Europe with lower taxes.>>
Coordination facilitates greater revenue collection at lower rates. It also works against mutually-offsetting competition for capital among countries through the perverse solution of a smaller public sector. I'd say the prospect of "competing" in this manner is a conservative politician's dodge. Lowered public spending repels capital because it requires public services to function. (we're talking here about real capital assets -- plant and equipment -- not financial assets). I don't know if capital is centralizing in the geographic sense, which is the relevant factor in your remark. Concentration of personal ownership has no bearing on the effects of taxation of the business entity.
Rather than a war of all against all for investment, better to have a more uniform tax structure and a deliberate policy of fiscal equalization to encourage investment in areas that need it most through a strengthened EU.
>>
What would democratizing the ECB mean? Setting up a panel to debate its
next move in public each month, like Gordon Brown did for the Bank of
England, thereby making public policy as much as possible a matter of
administrative expertise rather than of political might? >>
This is a long discussion. There is a lively discussion and literature on this in the U.S. with respect to our Fed. Check the web site of the Financial Markets Center, or the material from the AFL-CIO on this topic. There are also activist groups here which deal with the Fed's dismal performance in regulating banks, from the standpoint of their enforcement of anti-discrimination (red-lining) law. The Bible for all this is William Greider's book, Secrets of the Temple: How the Federal Reserve Runs the Country.
Left opposition to the EU renders it (the left) irrelevant to politics, in my view. Its arguments become mere fodder for the nativist Right.
mbs