Holtgen: Kosovo is not on Council of Ministers' agenda

Kosovo's “issue is not in the Council of Ministers agenda next week, and in this period we cannot say when it might be”, said organisation spokesman Daniel Holtgen, but without giving more details.

The council meets next week and is expected to vote on Kosovo's request, which last month received the green light from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, boosting confidence in Pristina in meeting that goal and anger in Belgrade.

The issue of the establishment of the Association of Serb-run municipalities in Kosovo appears to have become Achilles' “rever in Kosovo's efforts, as is the hottest point of talks for normalising its relations with Serbia.

Some of the Western countries, including France and Germany, made it conditional on their vote to take concrete steps from Kosovo for the establishment of association, according to a draft status drafted by Western diplomats who surrendered to the parties in October last year. But Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti named “absurd” and unacceptable such conditioning.

“Draft (Miroslav) Lajcak's statute and the other Emisars of Quinti as a document failed to be formalised after refused. As such is a nondocument, so it's a non-paper. The Kosovo government cannot send documents which it has not accepted and are not official in the Constitutional Court, this demand has been and remains absurd”, Prime Minister Kurti said on Wednesday.

Two days ago after a meeting with diplomats of the major Western countries in Pristina, he called for membership in the Council of Europe not to be confused with normalising relations with Serbia, since these processes are divided.

But, the American envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, who is at the end of the mandate, said these processes “are very linked”.

The Council of Europe, he said, has to do with the treatment of minorities, and Kosovo has made clear pledges to the treatment of minorities, and that includes Association”.

Kosovo and Serbia agreed in 2013 on the establishment of association, while in 2015 they agreed on its principles.

But that same year, the Constitutional Court of Kosovo found that a large part of these principles are contrary to the Kosovo Constitution.

In October of last year, European and American diplomats handed over to the parties a draft Association statute, which should undergo review of its constitutional constitution before the establishment.

Its establishment is part of the agreement on normalising relations the parties agreed on last year in Brussels and Ohrid.

Serbia was put in a campaign against Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe, although with the Ohrid Agreement it vows not to oppose Kosovo's membership in international organisations, reports VOA.