The European Union representative for the dialogue Miroslav Lajcak said that he hopes Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will hold a joint meeting in Brussels during July.
“I visited Prishtina and Belgrade with the idea of preparing a meeting between President Aleksandar Vučić and Prime Minister Albin Kurti already in July, because we believe that in addition to the main negotiators, dialogue should now rise to the level of the leaders [of the countries],” he told Euronews Serbia.
Tensions have been high between Serbia and Kosovo recently, after the Kurti’s government implemented two reciprocity measures for Serbs entering Kosovo, requiring them to get temporary local papers and put stickers on their cars.
Vucic’s cabinet retaliated with threats and unsubstantiated claims that Kurti is preparing an attack on ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo.
Under this condition, Vucic has been adamant that there will be no meeting with Kurti and Serbia will never recognize Kosovo’s independence despite a European Parliament report which states that mutual recognition is a pre-condition for Serbia’s accession to the EU.
Furthermore, the dialogue between the two countries has stalled since July 2021. While head negotiators have met on several occasions, they have yet to settle on agenda matters for a formal meeting between Kosovo’s and Serbia’s leaders.
In late June, negotiators signed a deal for the supply of energy to the four Serb-majority municipalities of northern Kosovo.
This is the first deal reached in the context of the dialogue since Prime Minister Kurti took office in March 2021.
