Dr. Fatmir Sejdiu

Rede auf der 45. Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz - 06.02.2009

Dear Ambassador Ischinger,

Dear Excellencies,

Dear Friends,

Allow me to express my gratitude for inviting me to address you with a couple of words at this dinner occasion surrounded by many friends.

In a few days we will be celebrating the first anniversary of the independence of Kosovo. This year has been a year of hard work and enormous support by the international community. It has been a year in which Kosovo proved to be an equal place for all its citizens showing great commitment towards all its citizens, especially the minorities. I recall the words of Mr. Baradei today when he spoke of human and national freedom which is essential to all other things. Our effort will be to bring further peace, security and stability within our country and in the region on the basis of that human freedom. The people and institutions of Kosovo are fully committed to providing that freedom to all its citizens as we develop our modern state and accelerate our work towards Euro-Atlantic integration.

We have had great support from the international community, especially the European Union and the United States and I believe we have justified that support with our vision and commitment towards peace and development. After its independence, many thought Kosovo would engage in a period of troubles leaving no room for human wellbeing and prosperity. On the contrary, this has been handled with great care as our people expressed their joy in celebrating this event in a dignified and mature way

During its first year of independence Kosovo adopted a modern Constitution which rests on the provisions of Ahtisaari Plan, it promulgated a number of laws and managed to build a wide legislative corpus. It managed to increase its overall economic growth. It gained recognitions from 54 world states. This is a great sign of the support that is being given to us for what we have achieved. Yet harder work awaits us.

In Kosovo we have the presence of EULEX and NATO troops which we consider great supporters of the most important processes that support the overall stability within our country and in the region. EULEX will have a supporting role in the area of security and rule of law while we consider the concluding work of UNMIK a success story. We all want EULEX’s mission to be serving all the people of Kosovo with no separate privileges for any.

Likewise we are fully committed to work on our clear path towards integration, which Mr. Schwarzenberg outlined it. I want to let you know that we have great cooperation with our neighbors, Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania, as well as other regional countries that recognized the independence of Kosovo. We wish for great relations even with the Republic of Serbia. We are willing to keep our tragic past as part of our history and offer our hand of cooperation for the sake of our two countries and our future generations as move along into integrations.

For us, it is important that we have set up very important mechanisms and institutions that are essential to the security, in cooperation with NATO. We established the Kosovo Security Force in line with the NATO standards which will reflect the multiethnicity of Kosovo. We also set up other mechanisms relating to the police of Kosovo, as well as the Intelligence Agency. All these institutions are committed to work hard and cooperate in accelerating our path towards integration.

I would like, once again, to thank all the EU member states, the USA and other world countries for recognizing the independence of Kosovo and I believe that further recognitions will come as the states will have reasoned Kosovo’s cause for its freedom. Kosovo is a sui-generis case and cannot be used as a precedent for anyone.

Allow me to use this opportunity to greet the European Parliament’s passing of the resolution in support of Kosovo two days ago. At the end, I must remind you once more that Kosovo will always be a great partner of cooperation for all the processes.

Thank you!

Es gilt das gesprochene Wort!