Brussels, 04/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - The day after the local elections in Kosovo, Kosovo's Minister for Foreign Affairs Enver Hoxhaj spoke to EUROPE about the conduct of the elections, the 19 April agreement with Serbia and the European future of his country. (Interview conducted by Camille-Cerise Gessant).
Agence Europe - What is your assessment of the elections?
Enver Hoxhaj - Yesterday's elections were historic in nature and organised across Kosovo in 38 municipalities. They confirmed Kosovo has enough capacities to organise free and fair and democratic elections. At the same time, they showed Kosovo is a multi-ethnic, cohesive and inclusive state because the participation of our communities in local elections was very, very high. Secondly the elections are historic because they are a crucial instrument in order to implement the agreement between Kosovo and Serbia reached in April 2013. In that sense, it was a very important day.
The media are talking about incidents, violence, irregularities and low turnout in north Kosovo. Are these elections partly a failure?
Today the central election commission will come with some preliminary results on the election process across Kosovo. I am not in a position really to talk on their behalf because they have the data and they have the mandate to interpret the elections process. But they are really happy that the participation of the Serbs in north Kosovo, in the 4 northern municipalities, was pretty good. In the municipalities of Leposavic, Zubin Potok or Zvecan the participation was 15 to 20% - it was pretty good. I think that is enough for the time being in order to build democratic institutions. Otherwise the participation of the Kosovo Serb community across Kosovo in south Kosovo was around 50 to 60%, which means they are part of our institutions and our society because it's pretty much the same as other communities.
What kind of reaction do you expect from the EU after the elections?
The elections were very well organised across Kosovo. Kosovo passed the democratic test. It shows Europe and the other countries in the world that we are a democratic country, and we are strong enough to hold fair and free democratic elections. On that, we honoured the agreement we reached with Serbia in the north, and this is also important on our path to membership of the EU. We are hoping that the EU is going to acknowledge and recognise this.
Have the elections changed anything in your relations with Serbia?
We have been in a dialogue process with Serbia from October last year until now. We are really proud we were able to reach ten agreements with Serbia. We showed the world that with dialogue, compromise and agreements we are able to normalise the relations between independent Kosovo and Serbia. The dialogue has two goals. The first goal was to normalise the situation in the north of Kosovo, to organise local elections in the north and to build democratic local institutions in the north. (…) And secondly, the dialogue has the goal of creating a motor in terms of cooperation between independent Kosovo and Serbia - to avoid confrontation and to promote cooperation and how countries could support each other on their European paths. We still have some other items to discuss with our colleagues from Belgrade and we are going to continue in the coming days in order to see where we are and what other issues should be discussed in the coming weeks and months.
Will there be another meeting in Brussels between the prime ministers?
I'm not able to provide the exact date but perhaps this week the prime ministers might meet again. It depends on their agendas and on the agenda of High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton (Ed: Ashton's spokesperson has not been able to confirm a date).
Where are you in the implementation of the agreement?
The local elections organised yesterday are very important in terms of implementing the agreement. But we have not reached only one agreement but ten agreements - on freedom of movement, free trade, and on many other aspects of the daily life of our citizens. Some of the agreements have been implemented and some still have to be. I hope in the weeks to come and months to come we will have concrete and complete results.
How do you see your future in the EU? Do you think you will be a member soon? What about the countries which don't recognise Kosovo yet?
The European integration process in the Balkans has different speeds in different countries. Last week we started the process of negotiation between the Republic of Kosovo and the EU in order to sign a stabilisation and association agreement. We are hoping that, by spring next year, we will be able to sign this agreement, and this is the first important step in our path to membership of the EU. I am pretty sure Kosovo is going to be part of Europe in the next 10 years to come. And I am pretty sure that the five non-recogniser states from the EU will change their position and will recognise Kosovo.