Serbia cannot become a member of the European Union without normalizing its relations with Kosovo, said EU spokesperson Peter Stano to Radio Free Europe.
“The Ohrid Agreement currently makes this very clear: If there is no progress in normalization, there will be no progress in membership negotiations,” he added.
This statement came after the U.S. ambassador in Belgrade, Christopher Hill, said in a June 13 interview with NIN that formal recognition of Kosovo would not be a condition for Serbia’s EU membership.
The European Union, however, has not explicitly stated whether the formal recognition of Kosovo will be a condition for Serbia to join the EU. Stano reiterated that “the bloc’s stance on this issue remains unchanged.”
“The EU’s position on this has not changed and remains the same as stated in the past and outlined in the membership criteria,” Stano said.
Since Kosovo declared independence 15 years ago, the European Union has consistently stated that the recognition of Kosovo is a matter for individual member states and has maintained a neutral stance on Kosovo’s status as a bloc.
However, Kosovo has special contractual relations with the European Union through the Stabilization and Association Agreement. In the process of Serbia’s EU membership negotiations, the territory of Kosovo is not included.
The EU has always insisted on using the full normalization of relations with Kosovo as a condition for Serbia. Whether “full normalization” includes formal recognition of Kosovo by Serbia has been left for the parties to interpret themselves.
An EU official, recalling changes in the framework of Serbia’s EU membership negotiations, where Chapter 35 includes the condition of normalizing relations with Kosovo, stated that without this normalization, Serbia cannot become an EU member.
Simultaneously, the EU has stated that Serbia’s lobbying against Kosovo’s membership in international organizations constitutes a “clear” violation of the Brussels Agreement on the normalization of relations between the two neighboring countries.
“The agreement on the path to normalization is valid and fully binding for both Kosovo and Serbia. This includes Article 4. Serbia’s lobbying against Kosovo is a clear violation of this agreement,” said EU spokesperson Peter Stano to Radio Free Europe.
Under EU mediation, Kosovo and Serbia reached the Agreement on the Path to Normalization of Relations in 2023, later known as the Ohrid Agreement. However, it has largely remained unimplemented.
Serbia lobbied against Kosovo’s membership in the Council of Europe in May, which ultimately decided not to put Pristina’s membership request on the agenda, despite it passing two of the three necessary stages.
