Lajcak: Dialogue continues Monday, association will not be in order day

The European Union's envoy for dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, Miroslav Lajcak, has confirmed that the summit between representatives of the two countries will take place in Brussels on Monday.

He has said the topic of discussion will be financial and property claims.

“Theame of association will not be in the agenda because one side is not ready to discuss. But this should be addressed under the comprehensive agreement, as agreed with the leaders' meeting”, Lajcak said through a post on the social network, Twitter.

Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, at a news conference Thursday, has said the agreement for the Association of Serb-run municipalities is closed and that it will no longer be discussed.

This subject is not discussed because it is closed with the 2013 agreement and then the next agreement with the 2015 principle that actually improves the 2013 agreement. So this is not the subject that opens up in the dialogue process”, has declared Hoti.

The formation of the Association of Serb majority municipalities is envisioned with Brussels' first 2013 agreement reached in the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. Furthermore, concrete details are harmonised with general principles/elements from the 2015 agreement.

In October 2015, this agreement was sent for interpretation at the Constitutional Court of Kosovo by then Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga.

The Constitutional Court, in the ruling issued in December 2015, said the Agreement for Association on 23 points is not in line with the Kosovo Constitution.

The court had ascertained that the Association of Serb-run municipalities would be established, as envisioned with the first Brussels Agreement (of 2013), ratified by the Kosovo Assembly and proclaimed by the president of the Republic of Kosovo (v.j. Atifete Jahjaga, while the Agreement on Principles (for the establishment of Association, reached in 2015), is not entirely in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution.

The Constitutional Court had found that the judicial act of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo and the statute that implements principles to be in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution must meet constitutional standards.

In fact, it is questionable that the association is not based on multiethnicity, but unites municipalities in which an ethnic community is the majority. There are a total of ten Serb-run municipalities in Kosovo.

Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, on Thursday in an address to the media, has said Belgrade is willing to continue dialogue with Kosovo in Brussels, but stressed that the Association of Serb majority municipalities is the inevitable topic.

He has made these comments by answering the question of whether to continue the dialogue on September 28th.

Dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, mediated by the European Union, started in 2011 in Brussels.