Lajcak seeks quick Kosovo-Serbia agreement: Serbian election day approaching

EU Special Emissar Miroslav Lajcak has stressed that every day they are in contact with Kosovo and Serbia institutions to find a solution to holding Serbia's elections on April 3rd, even in Kosovo.

He said the election day is approaching, so very soon a political agreement between Kosovo and Serbia must be reached, which would not violate Kosovo's constitutionality and enable Kosovo Serbs to exercise their right to vote. Even Lajcak says such an agreement would create another atmosphere in the high-level political dialogue, which, according to him, is expected to continue after the Serbian elections.

“Takim cannot say that it was not held, because we spent 11 hours together discussing topics and various issues with Besnik Bissim and Petar Petkov. Several rounds of subjects were discussed, and in most of them there were reconciliations, and I believe we will soon reach agreement on most of them, especially on the issue of missing persons and electricity management in the north. So we are continuing to hold bilateral meetings between Brussels and Pristina and Brussels and Belgrade. This, because when we have the agreement concrete and completed topics, there is a trilateral meeting to avoid conditions and disagreements at the meeting. Therefore, we are continuing with bilateral meetings”, Lajcak said in an interview for RTK.

While, for any deadline when the finalisation of the dialogue can be expected, the EU emissary says both sides, both Kosovo and Serbia, have different expectations.

It is no secret that expectations are different from both sides, when I say both sides, is about Kosovo and Serbia, just as we refer to dialogue. These two have different expectations for dialogue. We had two different meetings between Prime Minister Kurti and Serbian President Vuciq in the month and July of last year, and were useful to create contacts and better recognise each other”, he said.

However, on the subject of missing persons, Lajcak said it is a very sensitive topic for which not only political commitment is needed.

The issue of missing persons is a sensitive humanitarian topic, and it is in interest for both sides, both Kosovo and Serbia. And so the EU wants to solve the fate of thousands of missing people. And that's why we want to make a commitment not only to political in this direction, but also to agree on measures and mechanisms to accelerate this process of work and the substance of the whole matter”, he said.