EU seeking options for dialogue, following Lajcak's departure

The European Union is also considering how to approach dialogue for normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia, but also potential candidates to mediate it.

Since it has been confirmed that the EU's current special representative in this dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, has been appointed EU ambassador to Switzerland, where it should launch its mandate on September 1st, has also begun speculation about who will be his successor.

But diplomatic sources in the EU tell Radio Free Europe that the most important “of who will be in this position is what the EU and its new structures will get after the European elections This process”.

According to diplomatic sources, even the election of Lajcak's successor is in a way linked to European elections, which will take place this summer.

These sources say the EU's high representative for foreign policy and security, Josep Borrell, will not be the one to appoint Lajcak's successor to the post of special envoy for dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia, but that it will be left to the EU chief or future foreign policy chief.

“We are now in a phase where names of potential candidates for Lajcak's successor are being circulated in the role of mediator in the dialogue. But, we will expect, first, to be appointed EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security for the upcoming five-year mandate. Since he is also the leader of a high-level dialogue, it is logical that he will be able to decide whom he should appoint in the role of special envoy for dialogue“, an EU diplomat says.

The high representative's appointment is a process that can be extended because it relates to appointments to other leading EU positions, for which there should be a balance between party groups in the EU and among member states.

Immediately after the end of the European Parliament elections, to be held from June 6th to 9th, the leaders of member states will try to agree on the appointment of European Commission president. For this, they must have the qualified majority in the European Council. And when they agree on this position, they must elect the president of the European Council and the high representative.

To that end, the EU will hold two summits an extraordinary and informal one on June 17th and a formal on June 27th and 28th.

“Synnim will be that the entire package is agreed upon among the leaders of member states before the end of June. This would enable the European Parliament to confirm these appointments at the July session. Otherwise, it would have to be passed to the autumn hearings, and that would create delays“, an EU diplomat says.

If Ursula von der Leyen, the current president of the European Commission, wins another mandate in this post and she is a favourite since she is a candidate of the largest political group in the European Parliament, known as the EPP then the expectations are that the president of the European Council, as a descendant of Charles Michelel, will be among the liberals.

So only after it is confirmed who will be the EU's top representative for foreign policy and security will Lajcak's successor be appointed as the mediator of Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. This, at best, can happen during the summer.

Diplomatic sources in the EU do not expect there to be vacuum, because, according to them, if his successor is not appointed by the end of August, Lajcak will extend the mandate for several months.

Among the candidates who have been mentioned so far as his potential successor is former Slovenia President Borut Pahor. He and Slovenia's Foreign Ministry have confirmed that there is interest in the post.

But it seems that in EU structures it is urging another profile of the politician, who would take the role of continuing dialogue mediation.

Among the potential candidates, former Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Havisto and Danish diplomat Peter Sorensen, who also have experience from the Western Balkan region, are mentioned by diplomatic sources in the EU.

EU sources say that, whoever is in that position and regardless of who the EU's top representative for foreign policy and security will have to insist on implementing all agreements that Kosovo and Serbia have reached so far in the dialogue.

This, in fact, has been the attitude of both EU member states and international partners, such as the United States and Great Britain.

Sources do not deny that there is a dose of disappointment with the lack of greater progress in the so-called process of dialogue. But, the EU itself, the responsibility for this leaves the parties in the dialogue.

Kosovo and Serbia are in talks on normalising relations from 2011.

The process, mediated by the European Union and supported by the United States, has initially started on technical issues, to later move to the political level.

Out of the dozens of agreements reached so far, most have not been implemented.

Under Lajcak, in 2023, the agreement has also been reached towards normalising relations, which became known as Ohrid AgreementBut it has also remained largely unmet. /REL