Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaçi has slammed the EU’s efforts to engage in mediating the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue following a meeting in Pristina with Chancellor Merkel and President Macron’s senior advisers Jan Hecker and Emmanuel Bonne.
During the meeting which took place today, both sides reportedly discussed current events and future perspective of Kosovo and the Western Balkans.
Regarding any potential involvement in the dialogue by the EU, Thaçi said that the union must first lift the visa regime for Kosovo.
“My stance was clear from the start: the EU must first issue a decision on visa [liberalization] then think whether they have capacities to advance the dialogue. From what I can see, the EU is completely unprepared for the second part,” Thaçi told journalists after meeting the two envoys.
Kosovo’s president escalated his critic of the EU when he tweeted: “Disappointed. Nothing new from the meeting with envoys. Nothing on visa liberalization, no new ideas for dialogue, no encouragement for EU perspective. Empty promises.”
Following the more than eight years of dialogue often led by him personally, and after the failure of talks with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic mediated by EU’s Federica Mogherini, which allegedly included exchange of territories, Thaçi has completely shifted his approach toward the EU involvement in future talks, preferring only the US as mediator. The alleged Thaci-Vucic plan took the final blow during a summit of regional leaders called by Merkel and Macron.
However, in a press conference yesterday, Thaçi brought back to public attention the topic of a possible exchange of territories. When asked by journalists whether he and Vucic have recently discussed the topic in Washington, he denied it but added that his mission remains the inclusion of southern Serbia’s territory of Presheva to Kosovo’s territory.
Merkel and Macron’s envoys also met with Prime Minister Albin Kurti and with Speaker of Parliament Vjosa Osmani.
Kurti said they discussed the EU integration of Kosovo, his government’s planned reforms, visa liberalization and talks with Serbia. Whilst he was careful not to promise the lifting of visa regime, Kurti said the government is working to that end at the Zagreb Summit in May.
Osmani told the German and French envoys that the government is the only legitimate entity to represent Kosovo in talks with Serbia.
