Kurti's Hotel: How he explained the plan during confrontation with the opposition

Following the public acceptance of the European plan by Serbian President Aleksandar Vuciq, international pressure was transferred to Pristina to the Kurti Office, which after initial declaration that it considers the plan a good basis for discussion, he hesitated to say he accepts it, until he continued openly rejecting the foundation of association.

For the latter, Kurti first presented six conditions only through which he would accept his foundation, while later at a working lunch with the European emissary, Miroslav Lajcak, Kurti announced he said yes to the EU plan, known as Franco-German.

However, he had a lot of criticism for nontransparentness as to whom exactly Kosovo has said yes and what agreement Kosovo is accepting. These questions, Kurti tried to answer them at yesterday's Assembly session when he was crashing against the opposition.

According to him, the EU's plan does not absolutely imply that Kosovo and Serbia are finalising the customs agreement in Brussels. He said this is not a final deal, because he would never accept it if there is mutual recognition at the center of it.

The final agreement without mutual recognition at the centre cannot have it as final”, Kurti said at the beginning of his argument why the Franco-German plan is in favour of Kosovo.

He suggested that there are many terms that need to be clarified in detail and that work is needed.

“Within the prembula is also the legacy of the past, but you have to understand it; it's not just two pages. It's a very general and short text. When said in English, "legacy of the past, it takes a lot of work to determine how to address it. So in this sense we are really beginning. In preambles, there are also reference to national minorities. But what will be done with this range of words again depends on political developments and the further negotiating process”.

Kurti said the positive answer he gave Lajcak at lunch in Pristina is essentially the same as the initial answer he had given for the plan.

What I've said from September on this proposal is that this proposal provides good grounds for further discussion and at the same time solid platform to move forward. I refused the proposal, but I said that further discussions on this base could become”.

Kurti reiterated what he had said about association after statements by European and American diplomats that it should be founded indispensably.

“You cannot select an agreement from 33, nor can you put one before the other”

Prime Minister Kurti warned that a major political and diplomatic battle is under way “here.

He said the Serbian side's insistence that the entity, including the Association, be returned to the centre or become the preamble of Kosovo.

And the other battle is that within the EU proposal, the 10th article, which refers to earlier agreements with a kind of strain and insist on getting ready in preambles. This is unacceptable to us. In the European proposal is the last sentence in Article 10. Article 10 is neither Article 8, nor Article 2, nor preambles. But, Belgrade is making it the biggest battle, which Article 10, respectively, has its last sentence released in preambles so that the Association of Serb majority municipalities signed 10 years ago is a precondition, or at the centre. But for us, it is neither a prerequisite, nor in the center, and for this European proposal is very much in our favour, since the association of sʹe has neither a prerequisite nor a centre”.

In the end, Kurt also addressed those who are accusing him of disparity.

Believe me, they can barely wait to accuse us of revealing the details. The dialogue process should be transparent, but at the same time the privacy of the talks should be there”.