The next meeting of the chief negotiators from Kosovo and Serbia, Besnik Bislimi and Petar Petković, will take place in December.
This was confirmed by the European Union’s Special Representative for the Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue, Miroslav Lajčak.
In a post on Facebook, Lajčak shared details about his two-week visits to Geneva, Tirana, and Paris, where he discussed the dialogue and the way forward.
“The last two weeks have been both productive and profound, with visits to Geneva, Tirana, and Paris. I engaged in important discussions with my counterparts at the International Committee of the Red Cross, Quai d’Orsay, and elsewhere about the Dialogue and the way forward,” wrote Lajčak.
“These conversations are critical in shaping the work my team is doing as we prepare for the upcoming meeting of Chief Negotiators in December. I look forward to the upcoming period,” he added.
Klisman Kadiu, an advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Besnik Bislimi, stated that the next meeting will be held on December 17 in Brussels.
However, this was not confirmed by the EU.
“We will announce any meetings when they are confirmed,” said a spokesperson for the EU.
Since 2011, when negotiations for normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia began, discussions have been mediated by three different EU foreign policy chiefs: Catherine Ashton, Federica Mogherini, and Josep Borrell.
Each has contributed to the process, with dozens of meetings and agreements reached. However, the final goal remains far from being achieved.
The political leaders of the negotiations, Albin Kurti of Kosovo and Aleksandar Vučić of Serbia, have not met since September 14, 2023.
Ten days later, an attack in Banjska occurred, where armed Serb groups attacked the Kosovo Police, killing one officer. This escalation, the most severe in years, brought relations between the two countries to a critical point.
The outgoing EU foreign policy chief, Borrell, made one last attempt on June 26 to bring Kurti and Vučić together, but without success.
“It was the eleventh meeting of the leaders that I led. So, a meeting with the leaders, not between them. This time, there was no trilateral meeting,” Borrell stated.
The EU’s foreign policy is now expected to be led by the former Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas.
She appeared last week for a hearing before the European Parliament, where she spoke about the war in Ukraine, the Middle East conflict, the threat from China, and the strengthening of defense in Europe, among other issues. Surprisingly, she barely mentioned the Western Balkans — a region where the EU has significant influence and is directly involved in processes, including mediating the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue.
Kallas did not make any concrete statements about this dialogue, only pledging that the EU’s enlargement to include the Western Balkans would become a reality.
“I really believe we need to have a success story in the next five years because it’s not just about the prosperity of the region, but also about giving hope to it,” Kallas said.