States that manage to do rather well in spite of continuing campaigns against their very existence are hardly unprecedented.

Taiwan is a case in point, given its industrialisation and level of exports in spite of Beijing regarding the island as nothing more than a breakaway territory. In the case of Taiwan, of course, United States guarantees of its continued existence are of no small significance.

Israel, while recognised as a legitimate state by the majority of the world, lives under constant attack including in the form of a terrorist onslaught against it that, without question, is funded in part by some states in the neighbourhood. Again, US support is decisive.

When Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17 2008, it long had been made clear that Washington would endorse the fledgling. Considering the ire of the Serbian eagle that felt the loss of Kosovo as an attempt to rip out its heart – and Belgrade used that terminology at the time – it mattered very much that the American eagle was prepared to nurture Kosovo in the shelter of its wings.

But after the initial euphoria on that February weekend in the streets of Pristina, the initial clamour of approval from some European Union states and other capitals too far from South Eastern Europe to really matter has dwindled. Kosovothanksyou.com, the website that solemnly declares it is not a Kosovo government project, while acting as a cheerleader for Pristina, has for several weeks not had occasion to update its list of states that have recognised Kosovo.

From the point of view of Pristina, the best news of late has been that Kosovo at least has the ability to attract financial support.

A donors’ conference held in Brussels on July 11 saw pledges of a total of 1.2 billion euro in assistance for Kosovo.

The EU and its member countries pledged a total of 800 million euro and the US 225 million euro. Germany pledged 100 million euro, the UK 28 million pounds sterling, Switzerland 47 million euro, Luxembourg 25.5 million euro, Italy 13 million euro, France 2.3 million euro, Slovenia 500 000 euro and Bulgaria 500 000 euro. Turkey committed to donate 30 million euro to Kosovo for the 2009/2011 period.

While the European Commission and the US hailed the donors’ conference as a great success, with a US state department official saying that the amount pledged had exceeded expectations, it was made clear to Pristina that EU auditors would be carefully watching how the money was spent.

European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said special attention would be paid to monitoring and the capability of the Pristina authorities to spend the funds, as strictly required by the European Parliament’s budget committee.

Interviewed by Kosovo newspaper Koha Ditore, Rehn said that the donors’ conference was of immense importance not only for the economic development of Kosovo but also for the entire region.

Rehn emphasised to the newspaper that the funds should be strictly managed.

"We will have to ensure all funds that will be used in Kosovo for economic development, education and rule of law and other needs are spent accordingly,” Rehn said.

Pristina-based news website Kosova Live quoted Kosovar prime minister Hashim Thaci as asking that those who participated in the donors’ conference should not judge “the previous politics, but the new economic reality”.

Thaci promised that the donations would be spent in a rational and transparent way.

On July 10, on the eve of the donors’ conference, Kosovo announced that it had applied to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for membership.

Protests by Belgrade and a vow that Serbia would lobby against the applications were quickly cut short when the IMF announced on July 15 that it recognised Kosovo as independent.

“It has been determined that Kosovo has seceded from Serbia as a new independent state and that Serbia is the continuing state,” the IMF said in a statement.

“Serbia continues its membership in the International Monetary Fund and retains all of its quota in the fund, and all assets in, and liabilities to, the IMF,” the IMF said.

News agency Reuters said that the IMF move was the first recognition by a premier international financial institution of Kosovo’s independence and was a critical step to attracting loans and investment to the country.

The IMF said under its rules, Kosovo’s application must first be investigated by the IMF’s board, which would also determine its subscription to the fund and the amount it would be able to borrow from the institution.

Elsewhere, however, not all was rosy.

After Kosovo announced that it would begin issuing its own passports at the beginning of the week starting July 21, some states that had declined to recognise independence were quick to say that it would not recognise the documents as valid. Unsurprisingly, among the first to do so was Serbia.

On the home front, Kosovo newspapers reported on July 15 that the two parties in the governing coalition, the centre-right Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) and the centre-left Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) were at odds over who should become Kosovo’s first ambassadors. All that they had managed to agree was that the LDK would name the envoys in London and Washington and the PDK would nominate those in other major capitals.

The same day, it emerged that Kosovo’s leaders were having difficulty in achieving agreement on key senior posts, including the minister for the security force.

Touching on perhaps the most sensitive issue of all, an opposition party held a news conference on July 15 to hit out at Kosovo’s lobbying campaign to win recognition.

As reported by Serbia’s Beta news agency, the Democratic Union of Dardanija (DSD) said that “as a result of incompetence, opportunism, and total irresponsibility, the government’s attempts at lobbying for Kosovo independence have been a complete failure”.

Although prime minister Hashim Thaci had predicted that 100 countries would recognise independence immediately after the February declaration, five months on, only 43 countries had recognised Kosovo as an independent state, the DSD said.

Serbia was due to hold a special parliamentary sitting on July 16 to affirm the new government’s continuity of its policy against Kosovo independence, and got a morale-booster from Belgrade’s staunch ally Russia the day before.

Russian president Dimitry Medvedev, speaking to a gathering of Russian diplomats in Moscow, underlined Moscow’s continuing rejection of Kosovo independence, and followed up with a blow against the EU.

“For the EU, Kosovo is almost what Iraq is to the United States...This is the latest example of the undermining of international law,” Medvedev said.