For the first time after more than nine months, the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, will meet on June 26 in Brussels to develop, according to the European Union, a new round of talks for the normalization of relationships.<\/p>\n
The last meeting between them, on September 14, 2023, ended without any agreement.<\/p>\n
They discussed the implementation of the Agreement on Normalization of Relations, reached in February of that year, but did not agree on the manner.<\/p>\n
Ten days later, on September 24, the attack took place in Banjska – a village in the northern part of Kosovo.<\/p>\n
Armed groups of Serbs attacked the Kosovo police there, killing Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku. In the ensuing gunfight, three more Serb attackers were killed.<\/p>\n
Kosovo blamed the Serbian state leadership for the attack, but it denied any responsibility.<\/p>\n
Kurti said, at that time, that the dialogue for the normalization of relations with Serbia cannot continue, as if nothing had happened in Banjska.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the British newspaper, Financial Times, he said that “if there are no punishments and sanctions against Serbia after what it has done, there will definitely be no dialogue”.<\/p>\n
The calls of the international community for the de-escalation of the situation, as well as the urgent normalization of relations, intensified.<\/p>\n
Western diplomats made consecutive visits to Kosovo and Serbia, in an effort to bring the parties back to the negotiating table.<\/p>\n
At the end of October, they presented the leaders of both countries with a draft statute for the Association of Serb-majority municipalities, which should be formed in Kosovo, but it was not moved forward.<\/p>\n
That same month, Kurti and Vu\u010di\u0107 were in Brussels, where, on the sidelines of an EU summit, they met separately with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, the Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, and the chief of the European Union’s foreign policy, Josep Borrell.<\/p>\n
The EU described those meetings as “support” for dialogue, but their marathon ended without any progress.<\/p>\n
Offering a signal of normalization, in December of that year, the Government of Serbia decided to allow cars with license plates of the Republic of Kosovo – RKS – to circulate on its territory.<\/p>\n
Previously, in Kosovo, cars with illegal Serbian license plates were re-registered with Kosovo license plates. Kosovo also allowed the free circulation of cars with Serbian license plates – which was welcomed by the European Union.<\/p>\n
But, in the first days of this year, tensions rose again, when the Central Bank of Kosovo announced, on January 17, that from February 1 the only currency for cash payments in Kosovo will be the euro, stopping in this Serbian dinar mode.<\/p>\n
At that time, the Kosovo authorities also closed several parallel Serbian municipalities in the country.<\/p>\n
The chief negotiators of the two countries, Besnik Bislimi and Petar Petkovic, held at least seven meetings on the issue of the dinar – the currency in which the Serbian community, for years, accepted income from Serbia – but all were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
On this issue, Kurti and Vu\u010di\u0107 also faced each other in an extraordinary meeting of the UN Security Council.<\/p>\n
The situation continued to remain tense even in the spring months, when the Serbian community in the north of Kosovo boycotted the votes for the dismissal of the Albanian mayors of the municipalities: North Mitrovica, Zve\u00e7an, Zubin Potok and Leposavi\u010d.<\/p>\n
Their seizure of power, in the spring of 2023, brought tensions to a peak and the Government of Kosovo, under pressure from the international community, issued an administrative instruction, based on which those leaders would be replaced.<\/p>\n
But, after the call of the main Serbian party in Kosovo, Serb List, Serbian citizens boycotted the votes that would lead to new elections.<\/p>\n
Serbs in the north also resisted the population census, organized by Kosovo’s institutions, while Serbia engaged in a campaign to prevent Kosovo’s membership in the Council of Europe.<\/p>\n
Kosovo was not included in the agenda of this organization in May, when it would be decided on its membership, as it refused to take steps towards the formation of the Association of municipalities with a Serbian majority, as requested by Western diplomats.<\/p>\n
While the next Kurti-Vu\u010di\u00e7 meeting is expected, another issue that keeps the situation on edge is the main bridge over the Ib\u00ebr River in Mitrovica, which divides this city in the south with the Albanians and the north with the Serbs.<\/p>\n
Having been a place of tensions for years, its opening for circulation was updated in recent weeks by the Municipal Assembly of North Mitrovica, but increased the concerns of the international community about security.<\/p>\n
The Government of Kosovo told Radio Free Europe that the focus of the June 26 meeting in Burksel “will be the implementation of the Agreement towards the normalization of relations, the Annex for its implementation and the way forward”.<\/p>\n
Under the mediation of the European Union, Kosovo and Serbia have been in negotiations for the normalization of relations since 2011, but many of the dozens of agreements reached remain unimplemented.<\/p>\n
Kosovo considers Serbia a threat to its security, Serbia sees the Government of Kosovo as such for the Serbs in Kosovo.<\/p>\n
The EU has conditioned both countries’ progress towards membership in this bloc with the normalization of relations.<\/p>\n
Regarding Kosovo, the EU also maintains some punitive measures, which were taken after the de-escalation of tensions in the north, in 2023, but, last week, warned that they will be removed “partially and gradually”.<\/p>\n
In the past three years, Kurti and Vu\u010di\u0107 held a total of eight meetings, but all of them ended without any signed agreement.<\/p>\n
The eyes of opinion in both countries will be in Brussels on Wednesday to see how the ninth will end.<\/p>\n
It follows the visits that the EU’s special envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, made last week in Pristina and Belgrade.<\/p>\n
Did something happen behind the scenes regarding the Banjska attack that preceded this meeting? It is not known. The former vice-president of the Serbian List, Millan Radoicic, who took responsibility for the attack, remains at large and sanctions against Serbia were not taken.\/Radio Free Europe<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the first time after more than nine months, the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, and the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, will meet on June 26 in Brussels to develop, according to the European Union, a new round of talks for the normalization of relationships. The last meeting between them, on September 14, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":70113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[163,1803],"tags":[1204,4103,945,6712,308,150,243,151,3297],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n