How do young people feel about normalising Kosovo-Serbia relations?

“Serbs accept reality and independent Kosovo”.

Thus, Petra is commented by Leposaviqi and Leona by Pristina both students dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia on normalising relations.

Now more than a decade, this process takes place in Brussels, under the European Union's mediation.

According to Petra, serious topics for the Serb community in Kosovo are not discussed in the dialogue, while Leona says that in this process, the past cannot be restored, but that the present should be accepted.

In the future, these two nineteen-year-olds will deal with similar professions, because both are registered at philological faculties é Petra at the University of Belgrade and Leona at Pristina University.

However, they have different views of the future of dialogue and its outcome.

Some things always negotiate that are not important for us [Serbian community]. It is not even clear what exactly they agree to... And what breeds distrust is that there are no joint meetings to make some decisions together. It seems to me that there is no agreement and that it will never be reached”, Petra tells Radio Free Europe.

During this year, the Government of Kosovo has made several decisions for extending its authority to municipalities in the north, inhabited by Serb majority, refusing to negotiate for them within dialogue.

These decisions include removing the Serbian dinar from using and closing institutions that worked under the Serbian system.

Our people are dead, their people are dead. Can we agree? We have to reach an agreement and leave the past in the past”, Leona says.

She believes Serbia wants “divides Kosovo's” north and that continued tensions in that part negatively affect the local Serb population and its integration.

Serbs in northern Kosovo left all of Kosovo's institutions in November 2022, due to the Kosovo authorities' decision to replace license plates issued by Kosovo's Serb license plates.

“Set up compromise”

The register, 26, from Pristina, says Kosovo and Serbia should resolve their differences through dialogue and find a compromise solution.

However, he says he supports the Kosovo Government's positions within the dialogue, because “ne must protect our rights, in any circumstances”.

Of course, this does not mean that we should not live in peace with other minority communities. If we persist [in our positions], perhaps a neutral solution can be found, compromise”, he says.

For Milan, an 18-year-old student from Gracanica municipality territory, the process of dialogue for normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia “has been inclined to fail since the beginning of”.

Who is guilty of being stuck in Kosovo-Serbia dialogue?

By arguing this stance, she says political leaders of both countries have never been ready for a real compromise, so she doubts there will be reconciliation in the near future.

THE only country that really reflects dialogue is in the processes of civil society, through informal activities, which is not enough for full progress and for a final decision, which would be favourable to all participants in the dialog”, says Mila.

The youth perspective on dialogue was the theme of a panel of discussion in Pristina on December 18th, organised by nongovernmental New Social Initiative and the Institute for Social Policy “Mousine Koklari”.

Focusing on this panel was the young generation's perception of dialogue and its impact on their lives.

What does normalizing relationships mean for young people?

Alba Jakupi from the Academy for Dialogue said normalising relations should mean the co-existence of Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo.

There are no young people interested in different communities meeting, being part of another community... We are not in direct contact to be able to draw our conclusions”, she said.

During panel discussions, Nikolina Kllajjic, an international relations student, said the language is a major obstacle between Serbian and Albanian youth.

According to her, she needs to get used to “to better understanding with each other”.

“We have a similar culture, the difference between us is the language”, she said.

Laberion Nitaj, who graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Pristina, said young “suffer the consequences of abnormalisation, due to politics”.

We as young people have to overcome these challenges, get ourselves the” initiative, he said.

Aleksandar Shluka, who comes from Belgrade and works in Kosovo under the civil sector, said that young people in Serbia link normalisation of relations with Kosovo's status and political dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade.

The political “Elites focus normalisation on political issues and thus eliminates perception that normalisation means normalising two societies”, he said.

Kosovo and Serbia launched dialogue on normalising relations in 2011 and, two years later, signed the first agreement as part of the political level dialogue.

Since there was no progress on the ground last year, the EU proposed an agreement on the road to normalisation of relations, which the parties accepted but did not yet implement at all. /Radio Europe Free