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After this vote in Strasbourg, the matter will proceed to the Parliamentary Assembly on April 18 and if it receives approval in this institution as well, then the final word on Kosovo's membership must be given by the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe during a meeting that will be held in May .
The Committee for Politics and Democracy of the Council of Europe has approved the report of the rapporteur for Kosovo, Dora Bakoyannis, where it is recommended that the country has fulfilled the conditions to become a full member of the Council of Europe.
The next step, according to this committee, will be on April 18, when this report will be voted on before the Parliamentary Assembly in its full composition.
Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Kreshnik Ahmeti, said that the opinion of rapporteur Bakoyannis recommends Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe "without any additional preconditions".
" None of the commitments that Kosovo must undertake are required to be fulfilled before membership. Even in point 11 it is clearly stated that the pledge must be addressed after membership" , he wrote on Facebook.
According to him, all the proposals to set new preconditions "were rejected by the majority of the Committee members, which shows that Kosovo should become a member in May of this year and the new preconditions would be unfair".
In Bakoyyanis' report, Deputy Minister Ahmeti said, the removal of the footnote that is placed before the name of Kosovo is also required, "a footnote that has been used since 2008 in every report and communication on and with Kosovo. Also, it is recommended that Kosovo be invited as a state, according to Article 4 of the Statute of the Council of Europe, and not as a country according to Article 5".
Meanwhile, the deputy of the Assembly of Kosovo from the ranks of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo, Besnik Tahiri, who was present at the meeting, said that the report was voted with 31 votes for, four against and one abstention. But, according to him, there were disagreements during the meeting.
" The deputies were divided in the Committee. On the one hand, Serbia opposed and on the other hand there was almost a consensus in support of Kosovo's membership ," he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
After this vote in Strasbourg, the matter will proceed to the Parliamentary Assembly on April 18 and if it receives approval in this institution as well, then the final word on Kosovo's membership must be given by the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe during a meeting that will be held in May .
Kosovo applied in May 2022 for membership in the Council of Europe. Its membership is opposed by Serbia.
The membership of Pristina has been updated in recent weeks, since, with the request of the Government of Kosovo to the Cadastral Agency for the transfer of 24 hectares of land in the name of the Monastery of Deçan, one of the main conditions for membership has been fulfilled.
In an interview given to Radio Free Europe on March 15, the US emissary for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, suggested that the establishment of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo and the issue of some expropriations in the Serb-majority north could be brought out. as additional conditions from several European states for Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe.
However, the president of Kosovo, Vjosa Osmani, declared earlier on March 27 that the establishment of the Association - for which Kosovo and Serbia have reached an agreement as early as 2013 - is not a condition for membership of the Council of Europe.
She said that in the report of Bakoyannis, it is clarified in paragraph 11 that "when talking about the Association, it is talked about as one of the obligations after membership, so it is not talked about this stage for the establishment of the Association".
The Council of Europe is the leading organization in Europe in the field of human rights.
46 countries are part of it, including 27 member countries of the European Union and all the countries of the region.
The European Court of Human Rights - based in Strasbourg, France - monitors the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights./ REL
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