Meeting in Brussels between Serbia and Kosovo, mediated by the European Union

Euskaraz irakurri: Urtebeteren ostean, Bruselan bilduko dira Serbia and Kosovoko agintariak, Europar Batasuna bitartekari dela

President Serbian Aleksandar Vucicand the prime minister kosovar, Albin Kurtyshine this Thursday in a new round of the dialogue facilitated by the European Union to normalize its relations, which will be the first highest-level meeting in more than a year, and with the EU it wants to channel the tension registered at the end of July with the border blockade in northern Kosovo.

The appointment is marked by this tension due to the blockade of border crossings by the Serbian community in protest against the application of a law – which has already been postponed for a month – requiring people from Serbia entering Kosovo to hand over their identity papers, which would become replaced by others issued in Pristina.

The situation guided the mission of the NATO in Kosovo, which recalled its commitment to security in the area and emphasized that preparing to intervene for a possible spiral of violence. The previous day, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met separately with Vucic and Kurti, whom he asked for responsibility for avoiding tensions, and recalled that his KFOR mission could be used to improve stability in the area to guarantee.

In separate press conferences at NATO, Kurti has attributed the blockades to Serbian organized gangs, “on the one hand there are police forces from a democratic state of Kosovo and on the other hand illegal structures from Serbia which are criminal gangs that build barricades”, he said. has even said, while Vucic has dismissed Pristina’s accusations of its close ties to Russia, defending “dialogue, negotiation, compromise and no blackmail against Serbia, about how it should act or what it should recognize”.

The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Policy, Joseph Borrellclaimed this Thursday “flexibility” the Serbian President, Alexander Vucic, and the Kosovar Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, to make progress in the normalization of relations.

The EU considers the dialogue between Belgrade and its former province not only as an inevitable step to improve relations after the 2008 Kosovo Independencewhich do not recognize several member states of the bloc, including Spain, but to lay the groundwork for the European path of both and to forge long-term political and economic stability throughout the Balkans.

Kurti is considered more skeptical than previous presidents of rapprochement with Serbia and has shown little inclination to make a pact if it means giving in to Belgrade. Likewise, Vucic has lost hope in the process and in statements before Thursday’s meeting has already assured that he does not expect anything special from the meeting.

The last face-to-face contact between Vucic and Kurti in Brussels dates back to June 2021, when the Kosovar leader first traveled to the community’s capital months after his election as prime minister. The meeting thus served to stage the resumption of the process, but did not yield any concrete results. On that occasion, Borrell urged the parties to capitalize on the EU’s momentum with the Balkan region and asked to focus on generating results.

Earlier in June this year, Belgrade and Pristina reached an agreement with a Serbian majority on a ‘roadmap’ to solve problems in the distribution of energy in the north of the enclave. With this pact, the parties have committed to implement the energy agreements that were made in 2013 and 2015, but which have only been partially implemented.

However, the EU-sponsored talks have gone through several stages without a major agreement being reached since they began more than a decade ago. During this period there have been periods of up to a year and a half without talks due to the political uncertainty in the region.