In fact, much now hangs on Montenegro, Serbia's nominalpartner in the rump Yugoslav federation, where most people want a loosening of ties with Belgrade and a growing minority favours full independence.
"The way you put the claim together could mean the difference between a significant recovery and a nominal one, " says Ernest Martin, partner at law firm Haynes and Boone, which represents both small and large companies against insurers.
Adelina Marku, who speaks for the Tetovo-based Democratic Party of Albanians, a junior partner in Macedonia's ruling coalition government, says that the Kosovars, who declared nominal independence from Serbia back in 1991 and created a series of notional organs of state, had lulled themselves into a false sense of security.