On Monday 13 September, the US State Department’s representative for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, underlined his government’s support for the EU-sponsored Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue.
“We will support the efforts of the EU-led dialogue to bring Serbia and Kosovo closer to the EU and work with the EU to bring the rest of the region into the EU”, he explained in his first public speech since taking office, at the debate organised by the think tank EPC.
Referring to the Washington agreements signed under the Trump administration, Escobar said they were valid. “We recognize the hard political questions being handled in the Dialogue. What we were trying to do with the Washington agreement was to create some confidence building measures on the economic side that were able to show that you can address some cooperation without addressing the status question .(...) But the focus will be on the Dialogue and we support it”, he insisted.
During the debate, the EU Special Representative for the Dialogue, Miroslav Lajčák, said that despite successive elections in both countries, there was a need to move forward in the Dialogue. According to him, there are no technical problems, because “everything is eminently political”. The EU representative, who will visit Pristina and then Belgrade this week, added that everyone knew what they had to do.
If the EU has a mediation role, German Green MEP Viola von Cramon-Taubadel believes the Union should be more involved. “It takes a much deeper commitment than just facilitating” dialogue, she observed, adding that “the majority of people in both countries would like to see more progress, more engagement, a more active role” from the EU. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)