Kosovo talks -- Serbia, in a difficult period

The head of the Kosovo delegation for technical talks with Serbia, Avni Arifi, says the current talks are at a critical stage for the country's future. In a conversation for Voice of America, Mr. Arifi says he does not expect any results from Sunday's scheduled meeting between Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and Serbia's Alecsander Vucic. He says statements by Serbian officials are throwing a serious shadow at the meeting, as he says.

There have been different expectations again and the last meeting has actually gone very wrong. I don't have a wait. Waiting for what is happening with the agreement, I was so surprised when despite the insistence of the international community and the European Union that there is an energy agreement, it is incomprehensible and strange when the president of Serbia and the prime minister come out and say there is no agreement for energy. Such cynicism brings a shadow or a heavy shadow of this meeting and loses hope for a constructive development in this regard. I have no expectations at all, I don't think there's going to be anything good, but it's good they're meeting”, he said.

Political parties in Kosovo are involved in debates about the future of talks and their leading role. While President Thaci says that by constitution and laws he has the obligation to represent Kosovo and lead talks until the end of this process, opposition parties think it is parliament that can give the mandate to lead the talks.

Arifi says it is very important that political parties in Kosovo agree on the future of the talks.

It is good to reach an agreement at the level of parliamentary leaders, at the level of party leaders, because not only makes it difficult but I believe it also damages the process and we should be together in this process”, he said.
Kosovo President Hashim Thaci is expected to meet with Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic in Brussels on Sunday. The meeting is seen as an attempt to pave the way for reaching a binding legal agreement for normalising relations between the two countries.

But this time there will be no meeting between technical teams that usually pave the way for political talks.

Arifi says such meetings have no meaning without the implementation of agreements on Serbia's part, namely energy.

“The implementation of the energy agreement is not the process, it is an act, implementation will start immediately with only one political will in Belgrade, as long as it is in vain for us to go to Brussels when Serbia has no political will to implement the agreement. If there is no political will to implement this agreement then why should we go to Brussels, why discuss other topics when it is simply a matter of lack of political will for a very important topic for Kosovo, which closes for two or three talks”, said Mr. Arifi.

He says deep differences are also following the issue of the Serb majority municipalities' Association, since both sides are speaking different concepts.

“We have heard earlier from the Federica Moghrini then even now in Brussels that the Association of Serbian municipalities will not have executive competencies will be within the constitutional framework and Kosovo laws. However, Belgrade is continuing to claim that with association Republika Serpska in mind, and according to current actions and political positions, I don't believe we are talking about the same deal”, he said.

Serbia wants this mechanism to be established under the agreement reached in 2015, envisioning broad responsibilities in several areas, but the Constitutional Court of Kosovo had found numerous violations in the agreement, and in its opinion, association could be created only under the constitution and Kosovo laws.

Serbia seeks changes in the Kosovo Constitution to enable more executive responsibilities to the association of Serb-run municipalities.
Arifi says the position of most political forces in Kosovo is that there will be no such changes.