Analysts pave the way for Thaci, say Parliament can monitor dialogue

According to them, the claims of some MPs for the Parliament to take over the dialogue process should be taken in reservations. The role of the Parliament is seen as crucial only to the supervision and ratification of the agreements, but not to the leadership of the talks.

Political dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia is under way in Brussels with the ease of the European Union, and as a final goal is said to have normalisation of reports between the two countries.

Given their dissatisfaction with President Hashim Thaci's leading role in the talks, opposition parties have demanded that the Assembly take the lead role in the process.

But how much could the Parliament have the leading role in these talks?

Political affairs analysts say the Kosovo Assembly should have only an monitoring role, rather than an executive role in this dialogue.

According to analysts, the Constitution of Kosovo has defined the competencies of institutions, both of the Government and President's Assembly and these competencies, as defined in the case of dialogue with Serbia.

Political affairs analyst Ilir Ibrahimi says that to expect the Parliament to build an executive body to lead dialogue with Serbia, it is not logical, nor is it in the mandate of this institution.

“In terms of leadership of talks with Serbia, I do not see it reasonable or possible for the Kosovo Parliament to take on the role of leadership of dialogue. The Kosovo Assembly under the Constitution has the highest mandate in the country, and any agreement reached must be voted in the Assembly. That is what makes the Assembly important because regardless of what agreement is reached, that agreement must be ratified in the Kosovo Assembly”, Ibrahim told Radio Free Europe.

Negotiations and talks with Serbia, Ibrahimi adds, should be led by the Government and the President and that this mandate is recognised by the Constitution of Kosovo, respectively, recognises the country's right to representation in the international arena, while the Parliament, according to him, could contribute to other forms in the process.

“The Assembly must build a platform which would be discussed by political parties and that platform to mandate the executive body, whatever it is, the Government or the President, and this platform becomes the basis of dialogue with Serbia and have some kind of continued supervision of this body, respectively, to see how dialogue is going until a final agreement is reached. It is not that the whole Assembly can do this, it can be established the commission, which will establish the role of the UN”, Ibrahim said.

On the other hand, Kosovo Democratic Institute political affairs analyst Albert Krasniqi told Radio Free Europe, except that it is not possible for the Parliament to lead the dialogue with Serbia, there are no capacities either.

According to him, this process is not in the nature of the Parliament.

Kosovo's “Assembly should have only a role to supervise foreign policy, but not to be an institution that is directly involved and that will make decisions for any meeting that could be held. The Assembly could ratify the final agreement with two-thirds of MPs' votes, but not be directly included in this process, not make decisions”, Krasniqi says.

He adds that the Assembly would need to focus on monitoring dialogue with Serbia, draft the platform, as well as define red lines of what Kosovo should not negotiate in this process and present its plans as it thinks this phase should take place.

“What the Parliament can do in this process is mandate a negotiating team that will lead talks with Serbia. The Assembly would have to find a compromise and would have to go beyond the political resentments we've seen in Kosovo and think of general interest, without aiming for the current political points. We are not looking at this until now and we are just lagging behind and this consensus” needs to be worked out, Krasniqi says.

Dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia has started since 2011. According to the European Union at the end of this process, the two countries must reach an agreement on normalisation of reports, which, in addition, leads the two countries towards European integration.