Top representatives from the European Union, Serbia and Kosovo met in the north Macedonia resort of Ohrid on Saturday. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti are negotiating an agreement that will comprehensively regulate relations between the two Balkan states. The EU is represented by its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and the special envoy for the Balkans, Miroslav Lajcak.
“The eyes of the EU and the Western Balkans are on Ohrid today,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted on Saturday. The meeting was still in progress as of Saturday afternoon. According to delegation circles, Borrell and Lajcak held individual talks with Vucic and Kurti. Kosovo, which is now almost exclusively inhabited by Albanians, broke away from Serbia in 1999 with NATO help and declared its independence in 2008. To this day, Serbia has not recognized this.
Under the planned deal, Belgrade will not recognize Kosovo under international law, but will recognize its former province’s statehood. In particular, it must recognize Kosovo passports, plates and customs documents, which it still does not do today. Kosovo, in turn, should institutionally guarantee the rights of ethnic Serbs in the country.
Already verbal approval in February
In a first meeting on February 27, both sides verbally approved the draft agreement in principle that the EU had put forward based on a Franco-German proposal. Negotiations on Saturday are about specific deadlines and dates for implementing individual points of agreement. Borrell wanted to reach a comprehensive agreement at the next EU summit next week in Brussels.
US Special Envoy for Southeast Europe, Gabriel Escobar, was more modest. “I think a deal in this calendar year is entirely possible,” he said on Thursday. In Ohrid, the focus is on the final version of the agreement and not on the signatures of the two sides, he told Radio Free Europe on Saturday.
For the nationalist Vucic, any softening of the tough stance against Prishtina poses a political risk. Before Saturday’s meeting, he had repeatedly said in Serbia: “I haven’t signed anything and I won’t sign anything either.” Kurti, meanwhile, is under pressure from a Kosovar Albanian population and constituency that is opposed to concessions to the Serb community. (apa)