Kosovo's new constitution in place but future divided

The aim of the document is to make the government the sole decision-making authority but threatens to worsen ethnic divisions between Albanians and Serbs after February’s declaration of independence.

Its introduction will be marked with a low-key ceremony in Kosovo’s capital Pristina attended by the country’s leadership and officials from countries that have recognized Kosovo as an independent state.

The ceremony will open with Kosovo’s newly approved anthem - music with no words to avoid Kosovo’s Serbs being offended by any patriotic lyrics.

Kosovo’s Serb minority shunned the Feb. 17 independence declaration. In a sign of defiance, Serbia’s top official for Kosovo, Slobodan Samardzic arrived in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica Sunday.

He is expected to promise an assembly for the Serb-dominated north, which borders Serbia, and is seen as an attempt to bring closer a partition of Kosovo along ethnic lines. Security in the town has been increased after a gunman attacked a police station Saturday, injuring one officer.

The plan to shift Kosovo to government control envisaged a European Union team acting as overseers and taking over from the U.N. administration.

But Russia, which backs Serbia’s claim over the territory, blocked the EU from taking on the role, prompting the U.N. to stay in charge of Serb areas, while gradually handing over to the EU’s policemen, judges and advisers.

Russia said it considers the 2,200-strong EU mission illegal because it has not been approved by the U.N. Security Council, in which it has a veto.

The disagreements over Kosovo’s statehood have sparked fears of tensions spilling over in the Balkan region. To keep the new country together, NATO has deployed 600 extra British troops to the Serb-dominated north, joining some 16,000 peacekeepers in Kosovo.

Kosovo came under U.N. and NATO administration after a NATO-led air war in 1999 halted former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic’s crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists that left an estimated 10,000 dead, mainly ethnic Albanians.

Since then, majority Albanians and minority Serbs have struggled to bridge their differences. Serbs have led isolated lives and often attacked by vengeful Albanians. Most of Kosovo’s 100,000 remaining Serbs live in Kosovo’s north, in a region separated by a river from the Albanians.

An independent Kosovo has been recognized by 43 U.N.-member nations, including the U.S., Japan, Canada and most nations in the European Union.

The lack of further recognition has put the U.N. Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, in a tough spot seeking a balance between Western capitals and Russia.

Ban said he intended to "reconfigure the international civil presence" in Kosovo, "in keeping with the European Unions expressed willingness to play an enhanced operational role in Kosovo in the area of the rule of law."

Two missions on the ground - the U.N. dealing with Serbs and the EU with Albanians - would widen the ethnic divide, said Agron Bajrami, editor in chief of Kosovo’s Albanian daily newspaper, Koha Ditore.

"We are entering a process which is a very risky one in terms of having two international missions, with two different realities ... one as perceived by the Albanian community and one as perceived by the Serbian community," Bajrami said. "That could lead to the division of Kosovo."