Kosovo-Serbia agreement still far away

Despite this, international relations and the dialogue process do not believe that this year, or in the first part of 2023, there will be a final agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. They say this could happen next year, and that the final agreement could also affect developments in the Russia-Ukrainian war.

Dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia appears to have taken on a new dynamic, recently, especially after the direct involvement of France and Germany, which have also appointed special ministers for dialogue. Despite this, connoisseurs of international relations and the dialogue process do not believe that this year, or in the first part of 2023, there will be a final agreement on normalising Kosovo-Serbia reports.

This is true of Valon Murtezaj, professor of diplomacy and international negotiation at the University of Paris. Murtezaj, on the other hand, tells Radio Kosovo that reaching the final agreement cannot be close in mind the structure of the Government of Serbia.

The rest that is being done to the dialogue process, France and Germany, and in general the European Union and the United States, is good. However, this year or early next year no final agreement can be expected, because the process is complex and here we are dealing with the destructivity of the Government of Serbia. That's the main problem. In addition, we are now all seeing Serbia is getting even closer to Russia, at the time when each European country has imposed sanctions on Russia, due to its aggression against Ukraine”, Murtezaj says.

Despite recent developments, even political science professor Dritro Arifi is sceptical as regards quick results towards reaching the final agreement with Serbia.

I don't think we can have a deal this year. We may come closer, but this year is not! And next year, everything will depend on the end of the war in Ukraine. Because, I believe, the situation will also depend on how Serbia will be positioned, because the European Union in a way that 23 years has privileged Serbia. And these are the consequences of the privileged policy that the EU has introduced to defanziva”, Arifi told Radio Kosovo.

From August to mid-September, the European Union's envoy for dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, three times visited Kosovo. On his last visit to Pristina, Lajcak also warned of monthly meetings between Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq. The same, for the last time, met in Brussels in August.