Civil society urges future prime minister to lead dialogue

According to them, Ramush Haradinaj's resignation from the prime minister's post has influenced the process of dialogue, as they say this Government has no legal competencies or political legitimacy anymore, while now only the new government can decide on reaching the Kosovo-Serbia agreement.

Life Krasniqi from the Kosovo Democratic Institute (KDI) told the Online Economy that the only institution, which has remained operational after the prime minister's resignation, is the Presidency.

The current “Process absolutely affects the process of Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, as we see that constitutional institutions are not in full place, so they are unable to exercise their full constitutional and legal functions. The impact will be direct because when we have early elections, we have no functional framework and we have a Government that doesn't have its full functions for the exercise of constitutional and legal obligations and it turns out that the only functional institution instead of the presidency”, she says.

It says how KDI has demanded that after the Constitutional Court's decision, it be the prime minister who heads the dialogue process in consultation with the president and in overseeing the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo.

According to her, the Assembly should be present all the time to oversee this process.

While he considers US support for the dialogue process positive for Kosovo, he finds it necessary to build an internal consensus and build a unique state stance towards Serbia at the table of discussion.

Despite the support we have received from the EU and the United States in recent years, we have seen that in recent years we have not achieved as a state to build a unique position, where different institutions have pushed forward various issues, the president of the border correction issue, the prime minister has been against it and the wider political spectrum, while we welcome the support of our international partners, that we be ahead of our primary obligation as a serious democratic state that we claim to be and to build a unique attitude towards the process of dialogue and then lobbie with these states<>

Even Kryeziu Progress by the Group for Jury and Political Studies (GLSP), says the Kosovo-Serbia agreement can only be reached when key institutions have full functions.

He says that given the circumstances which suggest there will be new elections, all parties involved should insist on respecting the habit created by the earliest practices and which practice shows that dialogue always ceases in times of election until the formation of the new government.

The Constitutional Court's decision on the non-competitiveity of the dialogue law has clearly established that the responsibility of representation of Kosovo and negotiating an agreement belongs exclusively and primarily to the Government. It is clear, therefore, that when it wants to resume dialogue anyone who will be in the leadership of the Government will have the constitutional and responsible responsibility for representing Kosovo in future rounds”.

As for an agreement within this year, Kryeziu is not very optimistic, as according to him, developments within the European Union (BE) have distracted attention to dialogue between the two neighbouring states.

The “is very hard to determine the time frame within which there can be a final agreement. We remember that a final agreement was expected only to occur at the beginning of this year and at the latest in June of this year, but I have to remember that major and important developments have also taken place within the EU, which developments have distracted the EU from the Kosovo dialogue- Serbia, given that they have after a concentrated attention to their institutions under the May elections of this year, and the most recent process is clear that there may now be a return of attention to the Kosovo-Serbia-Serbia dialog”.

We remember that the talks, which have started since 2011 with EU mediation, have actually been interrupted because of the tax Kosovo has imposed on products imported from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

An effort to resume dialogue has also been made by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macro. But even this initiative has not resulted in continued dialogue.