Serbian political analyst Dušan Janjić has spoken in an interview with RTK about the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, as well as the issue of the Association of Serb-majority municipalities. Janjić stated that Serbia has de facto recognized Kosovo, but that everything was undermined by the attack in Banjska. Regarding the Association, he said it was poorly conceived from the outset.
According to Janjić, the dialogue for normalization between Kosovo and Serbia has lost its political substance and has been reduced to formal meetings without tangible results. While the process is essentially blocked, he noted that many key issues in Serbia’s relations with Kosovo have already been resolved in practice.
“In this process, Serbia has de facto recognized Kosovo. This is embedded in agreements and documents. The narrative of ‘non-recognition’ serves only for domestic political use. Belgrade has nothing left to offer — with the Banjska attack, everything was forfeited,” Janjić said.
However, he stressed that major political problems remain unresolved. Janjić argued that the Association of Serb-majority municipalities was wrongly positioned from the beginning and cannot provide a sustainable solution.
“The Association of Serb-majority municipalities, in this form, is not feasible. Kosovo is already decentralized, and the ethnic model represents a political failure. Without clear institutional status and genuine protection of the rights of the Serb community, Kosovo has no serious path toward the Council of Europe. There are models — even Prime Minister Kurti has mentioned the Croatian model as acceptable for minority self-governance,” Janjić emphasized.
He assessed that the dialogue, in its current format, cannot be revived without a fundamental change in approach, leaving the normalization process stalled with no real progress.
“The year 2025 passed over coffee instead of dialogue. What the new facilitator is doing now is a bureaucratic attempt to revive something that cannot be revived in this form,” Janjić underlined.
According to him, although the European Union formally remains the facilitator of the dialogue, a much stronger political engagement from the Quint countries is needed, particularly from the United States and the United Kingdom. Without direct involvement and political pressure from these actors, the process will remain stuck in the status quo.
