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The visit to Kosovo and Serbia by Miroslav Lajcak, the special envoy of the European Union for the dialogue between the two countries, is "bureaucratic", say analysts Emir Abrashi and Dushan Janjic for Radio Free Europe.
Currently, they say, it is impossible to continue the dialogue for the normalization of relations. Also, according to them, it is impossible to achieve the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement, which has this goal.
Lajçak, during an unannounced visit to Pristina, on June 18, said that Kosovo and Serbia should take steps to implement this agreement, remembering that access to EU funds depends on it.
He met the Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo, Besnik Bislimi, while in Belgrade, on June 19, he will meet the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic.
He did not meet with the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, who leads the dialogue at the political level, due to, as was said, his trip abroad.
Kurti is staying in Germany at the invitation of the German special representative for the Western Balkans, Manuel Sarazin. There, among other things, he watched the football match between Albania and Croatia, as part of the Euro 2024 European Championship.
After the meeting with Lajcak, Bislimi emphasized the importance of "signing and fully implementing the [Ohrid] Agreement, through a balanced, equal and fair plan".
He also said that Serbia has repeatedly violated this agreement, especially the article that deals with not obstructing Kosovo's membership in international organizations.
Serbia did this last month, when Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe was being considered.
Last year, Pristina and Belgrade accepted the Agreement on the way to the normalization of relations, which became known as the Ohrid Agreement. It was proposed by the European Union, which mediates the dialogue between the two countries since 2011.
Kurti, however, insists that the agreement be signed before the start of implementation, while Serbia has already drawn the "red lines", declaring that "it will never accept Kosovo's membership in the United Nations".
According to the EU, the agreement is legally binding on both parties even though it has not been signed.
The agreement, among other things, foresees that Serbia does not block Kosovo's membership in international organizations and accepts its symbols, documents and diplomas.
Kosovo, on the other hand, has undertaken to give the Serbian community a certain level of self-management, which in practice means the formation of the Association of Municipalities with a Serbian majority.
Emir Abrashi, from the non-governmental organization Demokracia Plus in Pristina, does not believe that Lajcak will succeed in convincing the parties to sit down at the negotiating table. This, for two reasons:
"First, it is a fact that the European Union is in a transitional phase [after the elections], during which internal negotiations are taking place for the formation of new EU institutions. Therefore, the focus in Brussels is elsewhere, not on the dialogue for the normalization of relations".
"Secondly, Mr. Lajçak is nearing the end of his term, while his reputation as a neutral mediator - especially in Pristina - is very damaged", says Abrashi.
Lajcak was supposed to start his mandate as ambassador to Switzerland on September 1 of this year, but he said he was asked to remain in the position of EU envoy for the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia until the end of January. of the year 2025.
Kurti and Vucic discussed the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement for the last time on September 14, 2023, but without any progress due to conflicting positions.
A few days later, on September 24, a group of armed Serbs attacked the Kosovo police in the village of Banjské - the northern part of Kosovo - killing Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku.
Kosovo accused Serbia of this attack, but official Belgrade denied responsibility.
Representatives of Western countries, meanwhile, tried several times to convince Kurti and Vučić to sit down at the negotiating table and discuss the steps to implement the agreement, but to no avail.
Also, the heads of the negotiating teams of Kosovo and Serbia, Besnik Bislimi and Petar Petkovic, went to Brussels several times to discuss overcoming the crises, but there was no progress between them either.
One of the latest crises arose after the Government of Kosovo, at the beginning of the year, decided to remove the Serbian dinar from use - which the Serbian population in Kosovo opposed, because it receives income from the budget of Serbia.
Even Dushan Janjic from the Forum for Ethnic Relations in Belgrade does not believe that the continuation of the dialogue can happen in the near future.
He expresses his conviction that Lajcak's visit to Kosovo and Serbia has nothing to do with taking concrete steps within the dialogue. According to him, it is "a bureaucratic visit" before the EU Foreign Ministers' discussion on the removal of punitive measures against Kosovo.
On June 18, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell submitted his report to member states and, according to REL sources, recommended the lifting of measures against Kosovo.
They were decided in June of last year, after the increase in tensions in the Serbian-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo, as a result of the coming to power of the Albanian mayors.
Janjiq says that the EU must take responsibility for, as he says, the failures in dialogue and the deterioration of the security situation in Kosovo.
He adds that the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, and the prime minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, have used the space that the EU has given them "to play" with the dialogue and to create crises for personal political points.
In this context, he says, despite the dialogue, in the last ten years there has been a hardening of relations, instead of their normalization.
"The security relations between Serbia and Kosovo have never been worse, the relations between the Serbs [in Kosovo] and the Kosovo authorities have never been worse. So, we had barricades with armed men, then 'conflict management' was announced, which ended with punitive measures against Kosovo, which will now be abolished", says Janjič.
He believes that there will be no serious progress in the dialogue unless the US and Great Britain participate more actively.
These two countries have so far supported the dialogue mediated by the European Union.
Abrashi, on the other hand, says that despite the opposing attitudes, the dialogue for the normalization of relations has no alternative.
According to him, it is important that the political leadership in Pristina and Belgrade take this process seriously.
He says he expects Prishtina and Belgrade to show good will when it comes to resolving open issues.
"This can only be achieved by avoiding the escalation of tensions and by implementing all the agreements reached in these 13 years of negotiations - even if this means unilaterally," Abrashi said.
What is seen as an opportunity for increasing tensions by the international community is Kosovo's announcement of the opening of the main Ibri bridge in Mitrovica, which divides the city into the southern and northern parts.
Although there is an agreement in Brussels for the opening of this bridge, the European Union says that this should be achieved peacefully, in agreement with the local authorities.
The KFOR peacekeeping mission, whose members patrol the bridge, say that any decision to open the bridge to traffic must be made within the framework of the Brussels dialogue./ REL
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