Lajcak: Early spring of 2023 possible deadline for Belgrade-Pristina agreement

NEWS 02.12.202213:22
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European Union (EU) Special Envoy for the Belgrade – Pristina dialogue Miroslav Lajcak said that the early spring of 2023 could be the deadline for reaching an agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. He told Pristina’s TV RTV 21 that the proposal for the final agreement is a European proposal with the involvement and strong support of Germany and France.

Lajcak said the goal is to reach a full normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia before the beginning of 2024 and that, whatever is not done by this time may not be done at all.

He noted that both parties are repeating that they understand how important the dialogue is for them and that they want to make progress in the normalization of relations.

“Both parties also admit that the current situation takes too much of their time and energy away. But, of course, for being able to focus on normalization you must not be confronted with a crisis on the ground and, unfortunately, the issue of license plates and ID cards took so much of our time and energy in the recent months,” said Lajcak.

He stressed that he was very proud of the excellent cooperation with the United States.

“Honestly, it cannot be better. The best cooperation we ever had. We work hand in hand, very closely on a daily basis, fully informing each other about everything, exchanging information but it’s also a very clear agreement that the European Union is in the lead of the process and the United States is using its leverage and authority to support our leadership,” said Lajcak.

“For now the car license plates issue is closed. But it was agreed that the issue will be addressed and solved as part of the negotiations on the normalization of relations,” said the EU Special Representative, adding that the issue will be addressed along with many others that will be addressed as a part of the normalization discussions.

Asked what will happen if the parties fail to reach an agreement, Lajcak said: “We are here to help, to facilitate. We cannot want normalization, and when I say we I speak for the European Union but also for the United States, we cannot want normalization more than Kosovo and Serbia so if the parties don’t agree that means there will be no normalization and there will be no progress on the European path.”

“Let us do our best to use the time because we have a unique timeframe, a very favorable political calendar, we have all the ingredients in place, fully focused European Union, fully supportive United States, no elections that will distract us, and this situation will last until early 2024, because then the European Union will go into European elections, and the United States into the US elections and there will be no time or capacity to focus on the dialogue. What will happen after the elections, particularly US elections, it hard to predict so I am saying what is not done by then, by early 2024 may not be done at all, and therefore let us use this window of opportunity, use the full support and full commitment of the international community and let’s achieve as much as we can, ideally full normalization of relations,” said Lajcak.

Lajcak told the Pristina TV Kanal 10 that the November 23 agreement resolved minor issues and that the parties will now focus on the big picture, adding that the recent tensions made it impossible for the parties to focus on the normalization of relations.

“Since June this year we were working under constant deadlines, which we needed to defuse, we had five deadlines, August 1, September 1, November 1 and November 21 and November 23,” said Lajcak, adding that a great deal of time and energy was spent to preserve peace on the ground, particularly in north Kosovo. And, of course, it was impossible to focus on other issues, and especially on the most important one, and that is the normalization of relations, he said, noting that the November 23 agreement prevented an escalation of tensions.

He said the focus of the coming meetings in Brussels will be the Franco-German proposal.

We will urgently focus on the normalization of relations on the basis of the document that I presented to Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in September, with the support of Germany and France, said Lajcak, adding that this was a very important document.