The European Union and United States share the vision for the advancement of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, their envoys Miroslav Lajcak and Gabriel Escobar have stressed during their ongoing visit in Prishtina.
The two senior officials met with President Vjosa Osmani and Prime Minister Albin Kurti on Monday, while more meetings with political parties and civil society are scheduled for today.
In a press conference with Kurti, Lajcak said that this joint visit of the two diplomats was unique, as it sent a clear message regarding the EU and US collaboration and their shared vision for Kosovo and the normalization of relations with Serbia.
Escobar added that the dialogue will still be facilitated by the EU, and highlighted the US full support for Kosovo’s independence and territorial integrity.
The statements follow what many considered separate approaches to the Kosovo-Serbia dispute by the EU and US during the Trump administration, with suggestions for the two countries to swap lands before reaching a final agreement.
Prime Minister Kurti stressed that his government will defend the Constitution and rule of law in the country, possibly hinting at the pressure on Kosovo to establish the Association of Serb Municipalities (ASM), which the Constitutional Court has deemed in breach of the constitution.
A Brussels agreement from 2013 between Kosovo and Serbia prescribed the establishment of an association for Serb-majority towns, but a second agreement in 2015 added to it what the current Kosovo government and presidency consider to be executive powers. In the same year, the court also found the second agreement in breach of the constitution.
While Serbia insists on its formation as a condition for the dialogue to move on, the EU top diplomat Josep Borrell has also pressured Kosovo by prioritizing the implementation of this single agreement over the 32 others most of which Serbia has implemented only partially or not at all.
Lajcak and Escobar’s joint visit is rumored to aim at discussing possible formats for establishing the ASM in compliance both with the Brussels agreements and the Kosovo court decision. It remains to be seen whether this is possible at all, and at what costs and benefits for Kosovo. No proposal has been made public to date.
In their meeting with President Osmani, the two envoys promised to speed up the process for finding the over 1,600 Albanians missing since the defeated genocidal Serbian regime left Kosovo in 1999.
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