Surroi for the humanitarian crisis: Kosovo Serbs being forced to etnify milk and yogurt

Voice of America: Mr. Surroi, a quick response, please for what is happening in northern Kosovo, where for the second day all shops have been closed, with the reason that the fees imposed by the Kosovo government on Serbian goods have caused lack of basic products. Serbian authorities say the north is in <x0pag of the humanitarian crisis”, while those in Kosovo call the Belgrade game. Is Belgrade really a scheme?

Veton Surroi: It is a requirement that goes to the great absurdity to force Kosovo Serbs to etnify milk and yogurt. So milk should be necessarily Serbian and yogurt as well. You cannot consume Slovenian milk and yogurt, Macedonia or Kosovo in general. So it's a situation which is not only provocation, it goes up to the absurd level.

VOA: Mr. Surroi, the process of Kosovo talks Serbia is completely blocked and the sides' positions failed an initiative by German Chancellor Merkel and French President Macron to renew the process. What do you think is the way out?

Surroi: It is the end of the process that has started in Brussels. That process, although there have been some initial results, largely has been bad and harmful, especially with Mr Thaci's signing of the territorial autonomy of Kosovo Serbs. This process then degraded the bad conclusion that it was legitimising the issue of exchange of territories. Fortunately, this process reached its natural end. And what we see now is a kind of preparation period for a more serious process.

VOA: After the Berlin meeting at the end of April, it was said that “ideas for touching borders” have died, however, Serbian President Vucic says he will not recognise Kosovo at the current borders as President Thaci again insists on the requirements for uniting the Presevo Valley with Kosovo. How do you see these attitudes?

Surroi: It's not serious. Ideas of course don't die, they're always there. But the legitimacy of these ideas, international legitimacy largely has died. Kosovo has a European future and will be accommodated within the European context with European ideas, not anti-European ideas. The idea of exchange of territories is an idea which has originally originated in Belgrade and has a support or a direct connection with Moscow. It is the tendency to destabilise Europe and against Western enlargement in the Balkans.

VOA: Kosovo's Constitutional Court declared Kosovo's law on the state delegation for talks with Serbia, and that ended this delegation. Where are we now?

Surroi: That delegation had not also established a consensus in society. We have not had the participation of Vetevendosje and the Democratic League of Kosovo. The future of the negotiation process requires building a consensus in Kosovo, and I believe this will be the further incentive for Kosovo to no longer have alternative roads, but to seek a path which is right and necessary for Kosovo, and that is what Kosovo will be represented at the institutional level. But that institutional level has a comprehensive support of the Kosovo political spectrum.

VOA: We have also seen a lack of unity in the international community about the negotiation process. You said you needed more negotiating principles. What are those principles?

Surroi: I think we're experiencing the period when in intensive form Western diplomacy is building these principles. It is the moment when Kosovo can provide ideas and develop direct communication with the Chancellors by offering proposals and suggestions on the possible framework of the negotiating process.

VOA: But the main cart in this process is European integration, but can this idea be appealing when the European Union itself is in almost some chaos and tired of the enlargement process?

Surroi: The main card for Kosovo is to end the conflict with Serbia. It is the same for Serbia. We cannot live in eternal conflict. We can't live in a situation where all those things that have happened over the years have not ended. So we have to put an end to this, and this should be the biggest investment, investment in peace. Then this peace investment will be rewarded with an intensified form of freedom of communication, of freedom of communication within Europe. I believe that the form will be found that will withdraw, or further postpone the European idea in Kosovo.

VOA: The chaotic situation in Albania as well. You recently expressed yourself with an interesting phrase. Say that Albanian children born in 1989, still live on with their parents' first dilemma; with the initial dilemma if they will be able to organise free elections. What is this paradoxical situation about in Albania? So when Albania even after three decades appears with such weak and confused institutions, which oppose each other.

Surroi: Unfortunately, there is such polarization in Albania, which is not allowing the country. There's a lack of co-ordination, about an idea of state advancement. So it's about questioning the legitimacy of democracy in Albania. A question that is rightly posed. Unfortunately, though, the legitimacy of the state, state institutions, is also being exercised. And this situation is overcome only in one way, to achieve a commonity, which stems from a dialogue process with a much wider framework. With a framework that not only analyzes elections or this election date, it analyzes the state as such. What needs to change in this state, in its constitutional framework, in its other election laws. And this is an authentic product of an internal democratic dialogue, which then produces an idea of a European Albania. And it cannot have every election cycle producing the 1989 dilemma. Why should Albanians be the people, why the 30-year-old Albanians, be the only ones in Europe from Lisbon to Tallinn who question the legitimacy of their elections.

VOA: There are different ideas. Some say internationals should be a bigger part of the process, others say otherwise. What do you think?

Surroi: I think there should be an authentic will of Albanians, political parties, civil society, intellectual figures, which should participate in an activity that belongs to Albanians. It's not the issue of international flying missions that come, make quick choices and then leave. With those solutions, Albanians must live themselves.