On 17 February 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia, receiving recognition from over half of the UN member states, the majority of the European Union, Council of Europe and NATO member states, as well as the most industrialized states in the global economic forum. However, Kosovo did not receive recognition from Serbia, China, Russia, India, certain states with diplomatic grievances with the USA, communist dictatorial states like North Korea, and five EU member states, including Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Slovakia, and Spain. This article focuses on Spain’s possibilities and reasons for recognizing Kosovo or not. Using qualitative methodology, five university professors—two from Madrid, one from Barcelona, and two Kosovar professors, one from the University of Pristina and the other from the University of Winchester, England—were interviewed with open-ended questions in November-December 2023. The research identified opportunities and reasons for Spain’s hesitation in recognizing Kosovo, including Spain’s domestic context, historical relations with the Western Balkans and the newly formed countries after the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, as well as the European and international political context. The research results show that Spain has been hesitant to recognize new states quickly, not only in the case of Kosovo, due to the context of autonomist aspirations within Spain and reluctance to draw parallels between Kosovo and Spain’s autonomous regions.

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