President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz made this proposal after meeting during the summit of the European Political Community held in Bulboaca, Moldova, with the leaders in conflict, the Serbian Aleksandar Vucic and the Kosovar Vjosa Osmani.
First modification:
Four Kosovar Albanian mayors were elected in ethnic Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo after the polls were boycotted by Serb voters, with the winners being elected with just over 3% of the vote.
“What we are asking of both parties is very simple: the organization as soon as possible of new elections in these municipalities. Four mayors were elected with the vote of less than 5% of the voters, which obviously is not a condition of legitimacy,” Macron acknowledged during a press conference on the sidelines of the summit.
“Courage is required from everyone involved, because they will need to play their part in positions of political responsibility to ensure de-escalation happens,” Scholz said.
A longstanding conflict
Fifty demonstrators have been injured, as well as 30 NATO peacekeepers stationed in Kosovo, as a result of the protests that have been taking place since last week, through which the Kosovar Serbs have tried to prevent the possession of the new mayors.
It is one more chapter in a long conflict that has kept NATO peacekeepers for more than a quarter of a century trying to ensure stability in Kosovo, after a conflict between 1998 and 1999 killed more than 10,000 people and leave a million homeless.
Kosovo, a former province of Serbia, declared its independence in 2008, a move Belgrade does not recognize so far.
What do those directly responsible say?
The Kosovar president on Thursday accused her Serbian counterpart of acting unfairly during meetings in Moldova, and accused the protesters of being “criminal gangs” sent to destabilize Kosovo.
Vucic, for his part, accused the Kosovar government of wanting to impose the results of elections whose winners do not enjoy representativeness, and called for both the Kosovar police and the newly installed mayors to abandon the regions with a Serb majority.
However, both parties promised to analyze the proposal of Macron and Scholz, for the implementation of which, according to Osmani, there are provisions in the laws of Kosovo.
“It is a very democratic process, we allow our citizens to determine if they want new elections,” said the president, referring to an instrument that allows analyzing the call for new elections if requested by 20% of the voters in a district.
Osmani demanded that Vucic not interfere and allow citizens to make use of their political rights, without pressure to reduce participation.
With AP and EFE
