Description
This paper analyses the communication discourses between Kosovo and the European Union concerning Kosovo’s ‘Europeanness’ and its ‘European path,’ with particular attention to the manifestation of Kosovo’s domestic agency in these exchanges. Grounded in the theoretical framework of communicative action, the study employs critical discourse analysis to examine how Kosovo articulates its ‘Europeanness’ and negotiates its position vis-à-vis the EU. Kosovo remains in an ‘in-between’ state of being European and lingering on the path towards the EU, which has acted as its primary state-building actor and, since 2011, facilitator of the Kosovo–Serbia Dialogue. The research is motivated by the widening discursive gap between the EU and Kosovo, particularly following the formation of Albin Kurti’s government in 2021. It asks: How is Kosovo’s ‘Europeanness’ and its ‘European path’ contested within Kosovo-EU communication discourses? What do these contestations reveal about Kosovo’s domestic agency and its capacity for discursive influence? By examining how local actors challenge dominant EU narratives and articulate visions of Kosovo’s European trajectory, this paper explores the potential of speech and discourse as sites of agency and meaning-making in Kosovo’s relationship with the EU.
