The member states of the European Union have agreed to extend the mandate of the EU’s special envoy for the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, Miroslav Lajcak, until January 2025. But will Lajcak’s last attempt be successful? in this process that produced few results?
In the month of May in Brussels, there was no discussion about the end of the mandate of Miroslav Lajcak, and in June he came to the region to show that he has work to do until January next year.
The former president of Slovenia, Borut Pahor, who is aiming to take this position, stated that he does not know what happened in Brussels that left the Slovak diplomat to deal with the dialogue even further.
Pahor has openly expressed his intention to succeed Lajcak as the envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, first receiving support within his country.
Lajcak’s mandate for the dialogue was extended, but Pahor said that something changed in Brussels, he does not know all the reasons
Pahor said that he remains ready to be appointed to the position of envoy for the dialogue, but said that it would be easier “if the selection process was done in May”.
Since the end of Lajcak’s mandate was not discussed in May, on the contrary, he came to Kosovo and Serbia the following month from where he announced that he will remain in this position until the beginning of next year. Although his regular term ends at the end of August and he would have to start work as ambassador to Switzerland from September 1, he said that he has been asked to hold the position he has for a little longer and that he has a lot of work to do until to leave eventually.
The visit to Pristina, and then to Belgrade, he said, was about “how to refocus in the process of normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia and what concrete steps we will take”.
The Slovak diplomat said that he is the responsible person who will evaluate the progress in the dialogue, on which the allocation of funds from the Growth Plan for Kosovo and Serbia will depend. For this reason, Lajçak said that he considered it necessary to have a meeting with the officials in Kosovo and Serbia for the steps that should be taken.
Lajçak says that neither Kosovo nor Serbia can become members of the EU before the agreement on the normalization of relations is finalized.
He recently expressed his conviction that “eventually the Association will be established”, adding that “Kosovo is obliged to do so according to international law”.
While his mediator’s mandate was coming to an end, Miroslav Lajcak was disappointed and not at all optimistic about the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia in April.
He said that he did not believe that these two countries are ready for this.
