Kosovo’s chief negotiator, Besnik Bislimi, called the meeting in Brussels about the dinar a failure, saying that the Serbian side came with new proposals on the issue, and not with answers.
Speaking to journalists after several hours of negotiations, Bislimi said that he does not expect any more meetings on this topic.
According to him, the mediator of the talks, Miroslav Lajçak, will no longer invite the parties, unless they would be constructive.
He made these statements after a tripartite meeting between him and Serbia’s chief negotiator, Petar Petkovic, under the mediation of the European Union. This new round of talks was a continuation of efforts for the parties to find a solution to the issue of banning the use of the Serbian dinar in Kosovo.
On February 1, the new regulation of the Central Bank of Kosovo (CBK) entered into force in Kosovo, which foresees the euro as the only currency for making payments.
This was the seventh meeting between the chief negotiators in recent months on this issue, since in the six previous meetings they did not reach agreement on any compromise solution.
A day earlier, the mediator of the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Miroslav Lajçak, said that he expected the parties to be ready to find a practical solution.
Even the spokesperson of the EU, Peter Stano, expected the parties to demonstrate their willingness to find a temporary practical solution, which would help the citizens affected by the CBK decision.
Serbs in Kosovo have been receiving social assistance and other payments from the Serbian budget for years.
“We expect the parties to have European behavior and find a compromise solution. Chief negotiators tend to find solutions through confidential discussions, and these are the European way of finding solutions. The EU continues to help them to find the compromise which is necessary because it affects people’s lives”, Stano said on May 13, when he confirmed the holding of the new round of dialogue.
The EU wanted Wednesday’s meeting to be the last on the dinar issue, but that, the bloc said, would depend on the parties’ willingness to accept a solution.
Lajcak presented a proposal to the parties, which the EU says is “practical and offers a temporary transitional solution”, but no details were given about the proposal.
In the EU, they say that the time and energy that are being spent on finding a solution to the dinar issue is affecting other issues that are not being dealt with within the dialogue process for the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia.
Although Wednesday’s meeting was called for a specific issue, that of dinar, in this meeting the issue of official visits from Serbia to Kosovo and vice versa can be raised, after several refusals that have been made, which the EU has described as a violation of obligations of the agreement regarding official visits. as a violation of obligations from the agreement.
On May 14, the EU criticized the decision of the authorities in Kosovo not to allow the visit of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, calling it a violation of the Agreement on official visits reached within the dialogue./REL
