Edi Rama’s advice that Kosovo should “forget Serbia” and simply fulfil its obligations under the Brussels dialogue sounds, on the surface, like common sense. It appeals to the fatigue that many in Europe now feel — the desire to move on, to stop arguing, to get things done.

But for those who have lived through the long cycle of Balkan negotiations, the counsel is impossible to follow. Kosovo cannot “forget Serbia,” because Serbia has never stopped remembering Kosovo — or seeking to reshape its fate.

This is not a theoretical point. History in our region repeats itself with bureaucratic precision. In Rambouillet, Serbia came to the table, performed the rituals of diplomacy, and walked away in the final hour. During President Ahtisaari’s process, Belgrade engaged meticulously in every discussion on internal arrangements, seeking to extract advantage from every clause — and then rejected the whole framework when compromise came within reach.

Later, in Brussels, Serbia signed a series of agreements it never intended to implement. It delayed, diluted, and deflected until the process itself became a parody of negotiation. Even after Kosovo accepted the creation of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities — as part of the EU-brokered Agreement on the Path to Normalisation — Belgrade once again stepped back. The pattern could not be clearer: Serbia participates to postpone, negotiates to avoid, promises to deny.

The Ahtisaari Settlement was not a gift to Kosovo. It was a painful, deliberate compromise — a moral contract with Europe that enshrined minority rights and civic equality at a cost few young states would have accepted. Kosovo honoured that bargain. Serbia did not.

To ask Kosovo to continue pretending otherwise is to confuse responsibility with submission. It rewards obstinacy and punishes consistency. It also undermines the very European project that claims to value rule-based politics. A Europe that tolerates permanent bad faith at its periphery corrodes its own credibility at the core.

Kosovo has reached the limit of patience. It cannot build its future on the shifting ground of Serbian performance. It will, instead, pursue its own path — consolidating sovereignty, strengthening institutions, and embedding itself in the Euro-Atlantic world — with or without Belgrade’s consent.

History teaches that appeasement of obstructionists never produces stability. It only delays it. The time has come for Europe to recognise that the burden of responsibility no longer rests with Kosovo. It belongs where it always should have — in Belgrade.

And as for Prime Minister Rama’s assurance that he respects the decisions of Kosovo’s elected leaders: the moment has arrived for more than respect. It is time for endorsement — for Albania, and for Europe, to stand behind Kosovo’s resolve, not merely to acknowledge it.

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Kadri Kryeziu is a Kosovar constitutional law expert, co-drafter of the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo, former First Vice President of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo (2009–2015), and publisher of The Kosovo Dispatch.