The matter of the Province of Kosovo and Metohija has never been “shuffled from the United Nations to the European Union”, as it is often said and written. It was, it is and it will remain in the jurisdiction of the United Nations Security Council as the only legal organ authorized to make binding decision according to the international law. The UN Security Council has never made the decision to “shuffle” that issue out of its jurisdiction, to turn it over to anyone else’s decision, or to dispossess itself, that is, the United Nations, from resolving that issue.

It is not likely that the UN Security Council will ever dispossess itself of the authority that it has according to the United Nations Charter, that is, per the Resolution No. 1244, nor that it would ever accept any potential decisions made outside of the UN system and outside of that legal framework. The calculations that somebody may exclude Russia from the UN, that is, from the UN Security Council, and in doing so, deprive Serbia of the support it has enjoyed up to now, are not realistic because they have no legal basis, and because the UN would suffer the same fate as the League of Nations had on the eve of the Second World War.

The leading powers of the West are putting pressure on Serbia to impose sanctions on Russia, counting on the fact that this would align Serbia with the enemies of Russia, thus leaving it without Russia’s support in the UN Security Council, securing the UN membership of the terrorist state on the soil of Kosovo and Metohija, and dragging Serbia into the NATO.

It is true that the European Union put itself forth as a candidate to “ease the process of dialogue between the parties”, that the then-President of Serbia Boris Tadić accepted that, that the then-Minister of Foreign Affairs Vuk Jeremić officially brought the proposal to the UN General Assembly, and that the UN General Assembly “saluted the European Union’s readiness to ease the process of dialogue between the parties” in its resolution dated September 9, 2010.

The mistakes and the responsibility of the then-national leadership are undeniable, but there is no basis for fueling the idea that the fate of Serbia, as it concerns Kosovo and Metohija, is in the hands of Brussels, that is, Germany, France and Washington. No matter how imperfect, misused and limited by the policy of force the United Nations may be, they are still the only and inviolable legally valid system and framework for resolving the matter of Kosovo and Metohija.

It is harmful to Serbia when a role and authority relating to Kosovo and Metohija is credited to the European Union, which it does not have.

“Easing the process of dialogue between the parties” can hardly cover anyone’s hegemonist geo-policy, the imposition of the “Two Germanys Model”, or some sort of a so-called “comprehensive legally binding agreement”, or anything else outside of the norms of the current international law.

The systemic exaggeration of the significance of advisory opinions and non-binding resolutions on one hand and the underestimation of comprehensive, legally binding decisions of the UN Security Council is also questionable.

The UN Security Council Decision No. 1244 is the compromise of all interested factors, including the European Union, the United States of America, Russia, China. That compromise cannot be unilaterally altered or annulled by any single one of those factors, without the participation and agreement of all those who adopted the compromise, seeing in it the protection of their own interests in addition to the protection of principles.

In its advisory resolution, the General Assembly of the United Nations “saluted” the readiness of the European Union to “ease the process of dialogue between the parties”, and nothing more.

Serbia has no obligation to silently resign itself to the obvious overstepping of authority and usurpation of the rights that only belong to the United Nations Security Council.

Certain politicians and media callously throw around announcements of new illegal and illegitimate pressures, threats and blackmail, along with the worrying underestimations of the international law and the universal principles and standards of international relations running parallel. Instead of that, it is much more apt and dissuasive to point out that Serbia remains permanently open for dialogue about Kosovo and Metohija based on and within the norms of the international law, the UN Security Council Resolution No. 1244 and its Constitution, that it is open for any form of equal cooperation with the West, the East, the North and the South, but that it will not under any circumstances walk away from the integrity of its national territory, independence and military neutrality.

Živadin Jovanović