BRUSSELS, 26 Feb. () –
The European Union (EU) trusts that the leaders of Kosovo and Serbia will endorse this coming Monday the new proposal on the table to relaunch negotiations to normalize their relations, with the idea of taking steps towards a legally binding agreement.
Community diplomacy has summoned the Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic, and the Kosovar Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, to Brussels for Monday the 27th, in the first meeting in months with a view to both accepting the new proposal to revive the process of dialogue facilitated by the EU, which after more than a decade has produced few results.
As confirmed by EU sources, the signals received to date are “positive” and await Vucic and Kurti’s endorsement of the new framework, with which both are already “familiar”. After a first session of bilateral meetings, a joint session will then take place in which Serbia and Kosovo, together with the EU mediators, are scheduled to discuss the implementation annex of the proposal to ensure that Belgrade and Pristina “give and receive what What are you waiting for?
A FEW MONTHS TO APPLY THE PROPOSAL
The objective of the EU is to start the implementation “as soon as possible” of this new framework, which may take “a few months”, although the important thing is to take advantage of this opportunity because, according to the sources, this option “will not be open forever”. .
With the initiative, European diplomacy wants to “break the vicious circle of the crisis” in relations between the two actors with a “change of course” and although it is not “the end of the road”, in Brussels they perceive it as the ” maximum achievable” at the moment, as it “covers most of the way” to concluding a legally binding agreement between Belgrade and Pristina.
Once approved, this new roadmap will offer new economic opportunities, facilitate the processing of certificates and provide more security and predictability, while including a mechanism that will monitor the implementation of the commitments and that will regularly report on their implementation to the States. member.
Still, Belgrade and Pristina have been negotiating in Brussels for decades with few results and a poor record of implementing the agreements already reached. The sources acknowledge that the agreement to implement the community of municipalities with a Serb majority is the “most difficult”, but stress that it is a long-term commitment that must be fulfilled.
“If the proposal is approved, the community approves; the conditions of either party are not acceptable: it must be done”, the same sources have settled, which have also highlighted the high level of unity between international actors to complete this plan.
POSITION OF THE MEMBER STATES THAT DO NOT RECOGNIZE
This process is being followed with special attention by the five countries that do not recognize Kosovo as an independent state, Spain among them, and that even so, according to European sources, have also expressed their expectations and their desire to prepare in the event of a change of situation
For its part, the EU hopes that “if there is a positive reaction on the ground, there will also be among the Member States” in order to convey to Russia, one year after its attack on Ukraine, that Europe has a positive impact on the Balkans and that the region “stands with the EU”.
The approval of this plan represents a “unique opportunity” for the European bloc in its desire to find a “success story” in the region that serves as a locomotive for the rest of the Balkan countries and that manages to generate a level of “enthusiasm”. with the EU similar to the one registered by Ukraine.
