Veton Surroi: Kosovo must be part of any initiative in Balkans, Europe

According to Surroi, the talks have come to a point that should become serious, meaning there should be talks on the current state of relations between Kosovo and Serbia as states and how they can normalise.

“As long as there are issues like knowing license plates and others like these that get attention and energy, then the talks have made no difference to relations between the two countries. Unfortunately, the dialogue has entered a micro-management phase, not now, but for years now. So the main challenge is how to start a dialogue where the parties face their concerns”, he said in an interview with Ilva Taren for #Balkans Debrief of the Atlantic Council.

Surroi also, unlike Kurti, suggests that Kosovo should participate actively in any regional or European initiative to express its positions.

Kosovo must participate and be a full member, or observer, to express its views on any reasonable initiative that is in the Western Balkans and any other initiative in Europe”.

Our goal is to participate in any multilateral process in Europe, outside Europe and the world. We must actively express our opinions”.

He has also spoken of the Russian chief diplomat Sergey Lavrov's statement, in support of the “Balkan Open”, saying Russia supports co-operation among Balkan countries.

“Russia is not a supporter of co-operation among Balkan countries. It has attempted in the past 10 years in secret, half-secret, or no secret, to hinder co-operation among Balkan countries. Montenegro has been destabilised by Russian actions. There have been attempts in northern Macedonia, so I would not pay much attention to his statement on these questions”.

Veton Surroi is of the opinion that Pristina and all sides of the six Western Balkan countries should engage in the Berlin Process.

“We need to achieve the goals that have been outlined in the Sofia agreement to help the Common Regional Market. Our goal is to reach the Joint Regional Market among all Balkan countries within a relatively short time. We need to establish measurable expectations, for example, what are the 10 things we need in the next six months to reinforce the process and have concrete results”.

The publisher says the idea of the Joint Regional Market means that all sides are equal.

You can't have Regional Trade first without people's free movement. So this is the first test, let's try it. Within 6 months all citizens of six Western Balkan countries will travel with biometric identification tools. And that's easy. It's not a difficult thing to achieve, it's technical, it's not political issues. ”