The chief negotiators of Kosovo and Serbia are in Brussels today for meetings as part of the dialogue for the normalization of relations.
Besnik Bislimi of Kosovo and Petar Petković of Serbia were invited by the European Union’s special envoy for the dialogue Miroslav Lajčák.
The Serbian Presidency also announced that President Aleksandar Vučić will meet with Lajčák during the day. Vučić is visiting Brussels on Wednesday to hold a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg to discuss the situation in northern Kosovo.
According to EU sources, Lajčák will have two main objectives in the negotiations with the heads of the two delegations.
The first is to focus on the full implementation of the Agreement that leads to the normalization of Kosovo-Serbia relations, reached in February in Brussels, as well as the annex on implementation, agreed upon in Ohrid in March.
The second goal is to discuss steps to reduce tensions in northern Kosovo.
For this, Kosovo and the EU have agreed in a meeting held last week in Bratislava between Lajčák and Bislimi.
Officially, Pristina says it has taken the agreed-upon steps, while official Belgrade has not clearly stated whether this agreement on de-escalation is acceptable to them.
The bilateral meetings began in the morning, but EU sources have not announced how long they may last.
Although EU sources state that it is intended for the delegations of Kosovo and Serbia to also meet with each other, this has not been confirmed.
An EU source said, “this will depend on the willingness and readiness of the parties, more precisely the chief negotiators, to meet with each other”, while the EU “still intends to have a trilateral meeting”.
So far, in the dialogue meetings, there have often been only bilateral meetings between representatives of the EU and the delegations of Kosovo and Serbia, respectively.
This was also the case in June when Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić were in Brussels. They had separate meetings with EU’s High Representative Josep Borrell, but not with each other.
It was Serbia’s President Vučić who refused to have a meeting with Kosovo’s Prime Minister Kurti. There have been cases where chief negotiators have also refused to sit in joint meetings.
In such situations, facilitators from the EU discuss with one and then the other party, trying to bring their positions closer.
Tensions in northern Kosovo have turned the dialogue process into crisis management and diverted the focus from the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement.
The situation in northern Kosovo – an area populated mostly by Serbs – has been tense since the end of May when the Kosovo Police assisted new Albanian mayors of Zvecan, Leposavic, and Zubin Potok in entering municipal buildings despite the resistance of local Serbian residents.
Tensions escalated into violence on May 29 when Serbian protesters in Zvecan clashed with soldiers from the NATO mission, KFOR.
Dozens were reported injured on both sides.
The international community has held Kosovo responsible for the tensions created, while Kosovo and Serbia have blamed each other.
U.S. envoy for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar said on Tuesday that he does not see the readiness of Kosovo and Serbia to implement the Ohrid Agreement, although it offers extraordinary opportunities for both countries.
