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The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo ended their separate talks with European leaders on October 26 with no sign of progress despite efforts from France, Italy, and Germany to help them bridge their differences and start the process of enacting an agreement they endorsed several months ago.
Shortly after a series of meetings in Brussels ended, Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic began trading blame for the lack of progress.
A statement from the government of Kosovo said Kurti is ready to sign the Basic Agreement for the normalization of relations with Serbia reached in February, but the other side is not.
The statement said that Vucic refused to sign the agreement and asked for an accompanying letter to be accepted, which Kosovo said practically annuls the principles of the Basic Agreement and the terms of other proposals.
It added that “only a signature means acceptance and guarantees enforcement.”
A sticking point has been Article 7 of the Basic Agreement, which refers to the formation of an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo.
Kurti adviser Jeton Zulfaj confirmed on X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter, that the Kosovo side had accepted the proposal on the creation of the association.
“It is clear that Serbia does not want the normalization of relations with Kosovo nor self-management for Kosovo Serbs,” Zulfaj added.
But Vucic said there was “no question of signing or not signing” at the Brussels meeting and asserted that “someone is playing games to shift the blame on the other side.”
Vucic added that Serbia wants to implement all the agreements signed with the authorities in Kosovo.
He said that when he met on October 21 in Belgrade with EU officials he received a paper that represents “a good basis for the future.”
That paper refers exclusively to the formation of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities, but he said he could not talk about the details.
He added that Serbia is “ready” for the formation of the association, but it does not accept Kosovo’s membership in international organizations, including the United Nations, nor its independence.
Kurti and Vucic met separately in Brussels with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The EU’s foreign policy, Josep Borrell, also attended the meetings, which are part of a major push to get Belgrade and Pristina to set aside decades of differences.
EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano said ahead of the talks that they would be held in “support of going back to the dialogue” on normalization of ties.
“The message of the EU is that we expect both sides, Serbia and Kosovo, to return immediately and without obstacles to the obligations arising from the dialogue, to work immediately to reduce tensions and restart the dialogue,” he added.
Vucic and Kurti’s visits to Brussels came after an EU envoy, as well as diplomats from the United States, France, Germany, and Italy, visited both Belgrade and Pristina last week and presented a plan for the normalization of relations based on the previous agreement from February.
Details on the plan are not public, but Stano has said that it contains a “modern European proposal” for a statute of an association of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo.
The formation of the association, tasked with representing Serb-majority communities in Kosovo, was agreed in 2013 between Pristina and Belgrade. But it has not been established since then and Kurti has opposed the idea, insisting on formalizing Kosovo’s recognition first.
Vucic said ahead of the meetings that “most of the powerful Western countries” had already recognized Kosovo’s independence and that “they will only look for ways to convince Serbia to agree” to recognize it.
Vucic added that Serbia’s position had become even more difficult after the attack last month when some 30 armed Serbs stormed the village of Banjska in Kosovo’s predominantly ethnic Serbian north and barricaded themselves in a Serbian Orthodox monastery. Police recaptured the monastery after a shoot-out in which three attackers and a Kosovar police officer were killed.
The clashes were among the worst since Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
Kosovo has accused Serbia of orchestrating the “act of aggression” and claims that Belgrade intended to annex northern Kosovo after the attack. Serbia denied the allegations and said it suspected an ethnic Serb leader from Kosovo, Milan Radoicic, was responsible for the clashes.
The leaders of the bloc’s 27 members were expected to express “concern” about the security situation in northern Kosovo at their summit, according to the draft conclusions, seen by RFE/RL.
The document, which is not final and is yet to be approved by EU leaders, condemns the attack in Banjska, calls for the perpetrators to be brought to justice, and for Serbia to “fully cooperate.”
Even before the attack, relations between Serbia and its former province had been strained.
In February, the two sides accepted an EU proposal for the normalization of relations that envisions Serbia not questioning the territorial integrity of Kosovo and with Pristina providing a certain level of self-governance for Serb-majority municipalities, including by establishing the association.
But this agreement was never implemented after clashes erupted in northern Kosovo in late May following municipal elections that were boycotted by local Serbs.
Serbia and its former province of Kosovo have been at odds for decades. Their 1998-99 war left more than 10,000 people dead.
Both Serbia and Kosovo hope to join the European Union but their difficult relations have disrupted progress toward accession. Brussels has made normalizing ties a condition of moving forward with their membership bids.
With reporting by AP
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