The road to normalisation between Serbia and Kosovo will still be a long one. Meeting in Brussels on Wednesday 25 June for a high-level meeting, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti made no major progress on the agreement to normalise relations between their two countries (see EUROPE 13373/8).
The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, expressed his disappointment at the end of the meeting: “Unfortunately, more than a year later, the Agreement remains unimplemented. Both parties bear the responsibility for not fulfilling what they promised to do. [The non-implementation] is a huge lost opportunity”, he declared.
The Prime Minister of Kosovo has set three preconditions for further talks: formal signature of the Agreement, withdrawal of the letter sent to the EU last December by Ana Brnabić, the former Serbian Prime Minister, and the handover to the Kosovan authorities of Milan Radojčić, the Serbian terrorist sought by Interpol.
Serbia was not prepared to accede to these demands, although the Prime Minister said he was “open to discussions” on the subject of the letter and signature.
“So the parties’ positions remain far apart on (...) how the normalisation process should continue”, deplored Josep Borrell. “We cannot want normalisation - as the European Union, alone - of the relations between the parties if [they] themselves cannot agree on how to move forward. We cannot substitute them”. (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)