Although all eyes in Brussels will be on Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti, on Wednesday, June 27, the special envoy of the European Union, Miroslav Lajčak, will also be at the table.
How important this experienced Slovak diplomat, whose career was honed in the Balkan crises, is in the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina, is shown by the fact that it was first announced that his mandate was ending, and then that it was extended until January.
For the so-called process of normalization of relations, Lajčak is an important link because he knows regional conditions very well - he has been involved since the referendum for the independence of Montenegro in 2006.
However, his success for dialogue is half-hearted, assesses Vladimir Medjak from the European Movement in Serbia.
"During Lajčak's mandate, the Brussels agreement was reached, but the implementation of the agreement was largely absent.
"The issue of license plates and documents has been resolved, he has an inheritance, but the main thing - Community of Serbian municipalities (ZSO) - has not been done, and Kosovo is still under sanctions," Medjak told the BBC in Serbian.
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Vučić and Kurti at the table for the first time after Banjska
For Lajčak to remain in the post of envoy for dialogue asked him is Josep Borelj, the high European representative for foreign policy and security, who will host the Brussels meeting.
As usual, announced is that Lajčak will first have separate meetings with Vučić and Kurti, and then they will all sit down together at the negotiating table.
The last time the two leaders negotiated was in September 2023, just a few days before the conflict in the village of Banjska, in the north of Kosovo.
Then a Kosovo policeman and three armed Serbs whom, according to his own admission, he led were killed Milan Radoičić from the Serbian list, close to the authorities in Belgrade.
To date, no one has been held accountable for the conflicts in Banjska.
In the meantime, only delegations met at the technical level.
"The dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina is in a coma," said the head of Serbian diplomacy, Marko Đurić.
Kosovo analyst Avni Arifi says that it is a strange moment in which this meeting is taking place, because it is happening, as he says, "after two diplomatic losses of Kosovo": EU punitive measures are still in force, and Kosovo's demand that Lajčak leave that position has not been met. .
In June 2023, Brussels introduced certain sanctions on Pristina for refusing to form Community of Serbian municipalities, provided for by a series of agreements, starting with Brussels, and reduce tensions in the north of Kosovo.
Work in working bodies within the Stabilization and Association Agreement between Kosovo and the EU was temporarily suspended, access to funds from European funds was blocked, and a symbolic embargo was introduced on invitations to Pristina officials for high-level participation, which has since disappeared.
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'There is no normalization with conflict on the ground'
Before the meeting, Miroslav Lajčak was more moderate in an interview with Pristina media, stating that the dialogue is "at a crossroads" and that a compromise is needed.
Along with the positive development and agreement reached in Ohrid, tensions, escalation of violence and conflict are happening in parallel, he pointed out for Sbunker.
Although there were several proposals for the normalization of relations, the first one that was officially adopted last year - the so-called Franco-German proposal - instead of Belgrade and Pristina, the foreigners wrote, he added.
During that time, protests by the Serbian population followed on the ground in May, in which there were also clashes with members of the NATO peacekeeping mission for Kosovo (KFOR).
"And instead of having instruments that will promote peace, cooperation and European integration, we have to manage crises."
"One thing is clear, there can be no normalization of relations if we have a conflict on the field," said Lajcak.
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How was the mandate?
Lajčak took the post of EU envoy for dialogue in April 2020, and since then there has been a lot of tension on the ground.
When Pristina announced in 2021 and 2022 that license plates issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia would have to be replaced by Kosovo ones, local Serbs in the north of Kosovo also set up barricades on the roads, which delayed the implementation.
Dissatisfaction escalated in November 2022, when the Serbs announced that they were withdrawing from all institutions of the Pristina authorities.
Irrevocable resignations were submitted by the mayors of four majority-Serb municipalities in the north of Kosovo, councilors, members of the Assembly of Kosovo, judges, prosecutors, administrative staff in the prosecution and judiciary, as well as members of the Kosovo Police in the northern region.
Serbs employed in the Kosovo police then demonstratively tore off their uniforms in front of television cameras.
Miroslav Lajčak was then called for calming the tension, but the Serbs did not return to their workplaces.
This was followed by a diplomatic offensive by the most important EU countries, France and Germany.
According to their proposal, Belgrade and Pristina reached an agreement in February 2023 under the watchful eye of Brussels, and then a month later in Ohrid, they also agreed on clear guidelines on how to apply them.
According to the agreement, Serbia will not prevent the membership of Kosovo in any international organization, and Serbia and Kosovo will not block each other on the way to membership in the European Union.
The Agreement and the Annex have become an integral part of the negotiation process on accession to membership in the European Union (EU) for Kosovo and Serbia.
One of the points that was soon implemented is Declaration of the missing during the conflict in Kosovo in the late 1990s.
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New tensions
However, the agreement on the normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, which was sponsored by Lajčak, did not change the situation on the ground.
A month after the acceptance of the agreement, elections were held in four municipalities in the north of Kosovo, where the majority of Serbs live, which were boycotted by the Serbs.
The Serbs were dissatisfied with the overall position and the failure to establish the ZSO.
A total of just over 1.500 people out of about 45.000 registered voters voted in the elections in those four municipalities.
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This resulted in the victory of the Albanian candidates, whose entry into the municipal premises caused new demonstrations at the end of May.
The demonstrators did not want mayors of Albanian nationality in four municipalities with a majority Serb population (Zvečan, Leposavić, Zubin Potok and the northern part of Kosovska Mitrovica), and they also demanded the withdrawal of all members of the special forces of the Kosovo Police.
Serbs in the north of Kosovo clashed with members of KFOR, the international peacekeeping mission, and the Kosovo Police, and dozens were injured.
Watch the video of the conflict in Kosovo:
Although the situation relatively calmed down over the summer, at the end of September there was a conflict in the village of Banjska in which four people were killed, which is the worst violence in recent years.
Pristina accused Serbia of the attacks, but Belgrade denied it.
The conflict broke out just ten days after the last meeting between Vučić and Kurti in Brussels, which did not bring any progress.
In the following period, Lajčak visited Belgrade and Priština on several occasions, but there were no three-way meetings.
Video: What happened in Banjska
Registration plate
Only the new year brought some relief.
As of January 2024, the issue of license plates, which has burdened relations for years, has been resolved, by making it possible for cars with license plates issued by the Kosovo authorities to move around the territory of Serbia.
Vehicle owners no longer paste over the Kosovo markings on their license plates, and the same applies to vehicles with Serbian plates in Kosovo, which was a temporary solution.
Thus, the agreement on free movement reached in 2011 finally entered into force.
From the fall of 2023, vehicles with the markings PR Priština, KM Kosovska Mitrovica, GL Gnjilane, PZ Prizren, UR Uroševac issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia were re-registered.
Instead of Serbian, they received Kosovo RKS plates, on which cities are marked with numbers.
With the entry into 2024, visas for the European Union were canceled for Kosovo citizens, so some of the Serbs who previously had a special type of passport issued by Serbia to people living in Kosovo, took out Pristina documents.
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Abolition of the dinar
However, not long after, a new wave of controversy was caused by the decision of the Central Bank of Kosovo that from February 1, 2024, the euro will be the only means of payment.
This meant that Serbs who receive dinars should exchange them for euros, which many of them have been doing for years.
The euro is the official currency in Kosovo, but in municipalities with a majority Serbian population, it was possible to pay in dinars - at least unofficially.
The decisions of the Kosovo institutions first prohibited the entry of new dinar banknotes into Kosovo, but due to numerous criticisms from foreign officials who demanded that the decision be postponed, a three-month adjustment period was introduced.
The former Serbian and now Slovenian Komercijalna bank has withdrawn from the Kosovo market, and on several occasions employees of the Post of Serbia have been detained and pension money has been confiscated.
For the umpteenth time, Lajčak called for compromise and flexibility on both sides.
In the meantime, the Pristina authorities have closed several temporary organs of Serbia.
The presidents of those structures were elected by the Government of Serbia, and through them, projects financed from Belgrade, such as the construction of kindergartens, schools or the granting of subsidies to farmers, are implemented.
Kosovo police seized money in several municipalities in central and southern Kosovo.
These changes somewhat overshadowed the news that in the north of Kosovo, where the majority Serbian population lives, electricity bills have been arriving since this spring, for the first time after decades of non-payment.
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What could have been better?
Since the European elections for the new composition of the parliament and the European Commission were recently held, the future European head of diplomacy, for which the main candidate is the Estonian politician Kaja Kalas, could choose a new special envoy for the Balkans.
It's good that Lajčak stayed until all this is over, to avoid a "vacuum" in the negotiations, Medjak says.
"He has an important role, but he is not indispensable and he is not the one who makes the decisions."
Lajčak could not even persuade one of the parties to do something, he adds.
"It is first on the fifth countries (America, France, Germany, Italy and Great Britain), then on other EU members, but that pressure was absent or had no effect," adds the analyst.
As an example of the shortcomings of Brussels, he cites the agreement from last year, which has not been signed, although it is binding for both parties.
"They allowed that agreement not to be signed, which is a shortcoming, because they allowed the waters in Serbia to be muddied for a year as to whether Serbia is even obliged to do so, and Lajčak could have done that," Međak concludes.
Sixten years after the declaration of independence, Kosovo was recognized by about 100 countries. However, the exact number is not known.
Pristina cites a figure of 117 countries, and in Belgrade they say that there are far fewer.
Among the countries of the European Union that have not recognized Kosovo are Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania, and when it comes to world powers, they are Russia, China, Brazil and India.
Since 2008, Kosovo has become a member of several international organizations, such as the IMF, the World Bank and FIFA, but not the United Nations.
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Bonus video:
