Kosovo away from EU candidate status, Latvian President confirms: Such a decision requires unanimity

Latvia's President Edgars Rinkevic has called for the European Union to lift Kosovo's restrictive measures, which the bloc imposed nearly two years ago.

He stressed that he cannot promise that Kosovo will be granted EU candidate status by the end of the year, stressing that such a decision requires unanimity from all member states.

) As far as the state status of the candidate country is concerned is clearly the unanimous decision of all 27 member states. I'll come back and discuss with my colleagues what we can do. Before we get there, we must first remove the restrictive measures. Latvia's stance is clear, we think those restrictive measures should be removed, and for that, we contribute to the EU. But I can't promise you that candidate status will be granted by the end of the year. We believe it needs the reform process and the political process in the region. The president gave me the idea of this deal, and I'll share it with colleagues at home and we'll see what agreements can be made in the field of defence, of course we will work with the defence ministry, he said, among other things, broadcast. Periscope.