EU seeks agreement between Kosovo, Serbia, conditions for summit

Following last week's failure to reach agreement on plates, a European bloc source has told reporters Monday, 25 April, that the parties have been sent invitations to continue discussions on the issue and other topics.

This source said about REL that at recent meetings the Kosovo side was interested in reaching permanent solution to the license plates, while the Serb side was more interested in preserving the status quo.

The interim agreement between the two countries for the license plates envisions the sticky cover of state symbols on car plates when they cross each other's territory.

According to this source, the parties are “very close to” to reach two other agreements, energy and unemployment.

The “as to the issue of the found, virtually only two words remain to be solved, so a half sentence, so that we can have the deal”, this source said.

In the EU, they say it is necessary to have agreements soon in order to create conditions for the high-level political meeting between Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq.

The two have told representatives of the EU and Quintus (United States, France, Germany, Italy and Britain) that they are ready to come to meetings, under dialogue, whenever a EU official has said to be invited by the EU”.

However, top European diplomat Josep Borrell has said earlier that he would not invite the parties to such a meeting unless there are clear signals that they are willing to achieve progress at such meetings.

Reaching agreements on license plates, energy and unskilled ones would create conditions even for high-level meetings think in the EU.

This EU official has clarified that there has been no deadline for expiring the agreement on the provisional regime use of stick cards, but the six-month mandate has been only for working groups to present options.

These groups have met eight times in six months. But in no way has there been agreement between them.

EU sources have also clarified that only Kosovo authorities can issue car license plates to Kosovo territory, and that Serbia has already agreed to it.

But, however, in the EU, they fear that the forced implementation of any decision on the part of Kosovo could create unnecessary tensions, so they have called for no pressing and unilateral actions.

The agreement reached on September 30th last year in Brussels has emerged after several days of unrest in northern Kosovo, where some local Serbs have blocked roads to reject the then government's decision to reciprocity measures.

With those measures -- Serbia's license plates -- once it enters Kosovo territory -- has had to set temporary license plates like Kosovo license drivers did when they entered Serbia.