Subscribe here: [ Ссылка ] Kosovo and Serbia “risk losing opportunities for progressing on their European paths” if they do not implement the EU-brokered agreements, the EU warned on Tuesday (19 September), doubling down amid a diplomatic fallout of the latest round of talks.

Both countries should “engage constructively and in good faith” to implement agreements they have made or risk losing “opportunities for progressing on their European paths”, the EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell urged in a statement on behalf of EU member states.

The statement also expressed concern about “the lack of implementation” of the two countries’ commitments under their agreement on the path to normalisation from March, “which both parties agreed to earlier this year, and which are binding”.

Borrell’s statement on Tuesday said that the establishment of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo – a body to represents Serbs’ interests that has been strongly advocated by Belgrade but has caused concerns in Pristina – must start “without any further delay or pre-condition”.

He also reiterated there must be new local elections in the four Serb-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo, where tensions have been high after the last polls were boycotted by Serbs.

“We encourage Kosovo Serbs to fully engage in the electoral process and publicly state their unconditional participation,” Borrell said.

“Despite repeated calls by the EU and other international partners, the steps taken so far remain insufficient and the security situation in the north remains tense,” he added.

He also accused Kosovo of violating the rule of law by “expropriations of land in the north of Kosovo, eviction orders, on telecommunication, and on the use of Special Police forces for community policing duties”.

Implementation hurdles
Borrell’s comments came after he had briefed EU foreign ministers on the outcomes of last week’s talks under the EU-brokered Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.

“What we want, what we request, is to start the implementation based on our proposal, without further delay and this includes the obligation for both parties to fully implement the past Dialogue Agreements,” Borrell told reporters in New York on Monday.

The EU had proposed the implementation of various aspects of the two countries’ agreements to “run in parallel”, which Pristina had rejected.

“During the last six months we presented seven drafts on sequencing, took comments into account, we proposed what is the only possible compromise,” an EU official with knowledge of the talks said.

But Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti said on Monday that he sees the immediate establishment of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities as being in Serbia’s favour, and argued that it should not be prioritised over the rest of the agreements.

“Either we will implement the basic agreement in full or we cannot implement what Serbia wants,” he said.

The latest talks between Kosovo and Serbia had again made no progress, with Kurti accusing the EU’s special envoy Miroslav Lajčák of being biased by taking Serbia’s side and giving false information about the talks.

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Serbia and its former province, Kosovo, have been at odds for decades. Their 1998-99 war left more than 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovo Albanians. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 but Belgrade has refused to recognize the move.

The EU has tried to help them improve ties by supervising a “Belgrade-Pristina dialogue.” At a round of meetings in June, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic refused to meet face-to-face.

After the latest meetings in Brussels on September 14 -– when the two actually did sit down at the same table -– EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell blamed Kurti for the breakdown by insisting that Serbia should take steps toward recognizing Kosovo before progress could be made.

Borrell warned that the two would find themselves at the back of the line of countries hoping to join the 27-nation bloc.

On Monday, Kurti accused the EU’s envoy to the dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, of failing to be “neutral and correct” toward Kosovo in the talks. The EU denies this, although Borrell and Lajcak come from two countries -– Spain and Slovakia –- which do not recognize Kosovo as an independent country.

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