Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will meet today, July 16, in Brussels, to begin the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue anew.
The talks will be mediated by EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell and EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak.
Hoti and Vucic held a prior virtual meeting mediated by the EU on July 12.
Prime Minister Hoti has said that Kosovo’s primary aim in the dialogue with Serbia is mutual recognition and normalization of relations.
Though the meeting’s agenda has yet to be made public, the main issues Hoti hoped to discuss in the meeting include mutual recognition as part of a final agreement, locating the remains of disappeared persons, war damages, returning cadastral documents to Kosovo, economic relations and infrastructure projects.
The dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia came to a halt in late 2018, following Kosovo’s imposition of a 100% tax on goods from Serbia, in retaliation for Serbia’s derecognition campaign against Kosovo.
The tax was later replaced by reciprocity measures by the Kurti government. However, reciprocity measures were also lifted by the Hoti government in order to allow dialogue to continue.
