The European Union (EU) has expressed its readiness to organise the next high-level meeting within the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue as soon as both parties indicate their willingness to participate.
In a response to Koha, EU officials in Brussels said that the bloc’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, was ready to organise the meeting, but declined to provide further details.
According to the response, the EU will announce “any upcoming meeting in due course.”
“As the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (HRVP), Kaja Kallas, has repeatedly stated, she is ‘ready to organise a high-level meeting soon’. We will announce any upcoming meeting in due course,” the response said.
A day earlier, at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the EU’s representative to the United Nations, Stavros Lamperinos, said that both parties needed to demonstrate the willingness to hold such a meeting.
“Progress towards the normalisation of relations is one of the essential conditions for both parties’ paths towards the EU. This includes the full implementation of the 2023 Agreement on the Path to Normalisation, as well as previous agreements reached and signed through the dialogue,” Lamperinos said.
Besar Gërgi, a researcher at the Group for Legal and Political Studies, said that no change in the positions of Kosovo and Serbia could be expected without a change in the EU’s approach to the process.
According to Gërgi, resuming talks between the two countries will also be difficult because of Sunday’s elections in Serbia and the possibility of a victory for the Student List, which has not clearly stated its position on these developments.
Another reason for scepticism about the future of the dialogue, he said, is the differing objectives Kosovo and Serbia seek to achieve through the process.
“Given these diametrically opposed positions, which are in no way compatible, not even tangentially, it will be extremely difficult for the EU to find a way forward. That said, the EU also has its shortcomings when it comes to the mediation process,” Gërgi said.
A month ago, Kallas held separate meetings with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić.
During those meetings, Kallas stressed the need to advance the normalisation of relations between the two countries and reminded both leaders of their obligation to implement the agreements.
The last high-level meeting in the dialogue took place in the summer of 2023, just days before the attack in Banjska.
