Despite several hours of negotiations involving the EU, Serbia and Kosovo have not been able to agree on signing an agreement to normalize relations between the two countries. “The parties involved might not find a mutually acceptable solution,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell following the marathon meeting in North Macedonia’s Ohrid in the evening.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic spent almost twelve hours negotiating a peace plan for the two states presented by the EU last month.
Serbia and Kosovo are under increasing pressure from Western states to strike an agreement that would allow relations between the two sides to normalize.
Kosovo, a country of 1.8 million people with a majority Albanian population, declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade still regards it as a Serbian province to this day. About 120,000 Serbs live in Kosovo. Both Serbia and Kosovo are striving to join the EU.
Both sides spoke of progress following the negotiations on Saturday. However, the Serbian President avoided signing the agreement “like at the last meeting in Brussels” at the end of February, Kurti said.
Vucic himself was less specific: “I think we have taken an important step towards a constructive atmosphere and we will start working on something,” said the Serb.
The EU’s 11-point document provides a framework in which both sides would commit to refraining from the use of force in conflict resolution and not to preventing the other country’s eventual accession to the EU or other international bodies.
Kurti’s government hopes an agreement would open his country’s path into international institutions, particularly the United Nations. The agreement would also mean de facto recognition of the other state, with Kosovo and Serbia accepting each other’s travel documents, diplomas, license plates and customs stamps.
An earlier meeting in Brussels at the end of February had not brought any breakthrough, even though EU representatives held out the prospect of an early agreement. Kurti and Vucic then blamed each other for the preliminary failure of the negotiations. Vucic said followingwards that he “would not sign or accept any formal or informal recognition of Kosovo”.