The outgoing EU envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, Miroslav Lajčák, said that the EU intends to restart talks at the leadership level after the elections in Kosovo and assessed that the dialogue is in a better state than when his mandate began in spring 2020, but that the normalization of relations has not progressed.
In a farewell interview for Radio Television of Serbia yesterday, Lajčák said that the EU is preparing to "start talks at the highest level after the elections in Kosovo."
"The new EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kalas, has clearly said that she will be directly involved and that she wants to lead the process. An EU position is being prepared, a proposal for both sides," Lajčák said.
He added that his successor, Peter Sorensen, who, he added, is an experienced diplomat and knows the Balkans well, will be there to assist Kaja Kalas in this work.
Sorensen takes office on February 1st, and his term will last 13 months.
Lajčák said that enlargement has returned to the EU's agenda, and that it is one of its priorities today.
"This commission is an enlargement commission. It is actively preparing for it, we have some new instruments such as phased integration, a growth plan for the Western Balkans," Lajčák said, adding that it took two years to convince partners in the Western Balkans that enlargement this time was really the EU's serious intention.
Lajčák also said that it is important that the perspective of EU entry is visible, and that although it has been lost in recent years, it is back.
The reason is geopolitical, the war in Ukraine and the EU's willingness to open the door to Ukraine, which in turn opens the door to the Balkan countries.
He said that geopolitics "created the current moment, but geopolitics will not bring individual countries into the EU," but the question now is which country will use that moment to finish the job and enter the EU "while the door is open," because, as he added, the door "will not be open forever."
He believes that Serbia is a serious country with great potential, that it was close to opening Cluster 3 in December and that this process is continuing, and that it is important that the conditions from the negotiating framework are met.
He assessed that the dialogue is in a better state than when his mandate began in the spring of 2020, but that the normalization of relations has not progressed. "The most important result (of the dialogue) is the so-called Ohrid Agreement on the path to normalization that we reached in February and March 2023. It is a roadmap towards normalization that is in the interest of everyone. Unfortunately, although the dialogue is in a much better state than before the start of my mandate, normalization is not," Lajčák said.
As reasons for the failure to implement the Brussels and Ohrid agreements, Lajčak cites "enormous distrust between the two sides", violence in Zvečan and a "terrorist act" in Banjska during 2023, as well as a series of unilateral moves by Pristina to the detriment of the Serbian population in Kosovo and Metohija.
He said that instead of dealing with normalization, the EU was dealing with numerous crises and de-escalation.
He said that they have not essentially succeeded in entering the process of implementing the agreement, and that the main reason is the lack of trust between the two sides in the dialogue, and the lack of confidence that, if one does what is required of them, they will get what was promised.
Lajčák admitted that in 2024 the dialogue lost momentum and was not the top priority of the leaders in an election year in both Europe and America.
He did not want to speculate on what attitude the administration of the new US President Donald Trump will have towards the dialogue, but he said that both Democrats and Republicans know that the European perspective is the only positive perspective for the Balkans and that they have never denied that their role is to help in that, and that he expects that to be the case in the coming months.
"It is important to establish contacts at the EU and US levels as quickly as possible and to reach an agreement on a joint approach towards the Western Balkans, where the EU should lead, for objective reasons, but be able to rely on the support and understanding of America," Lajčák said.
He believes that the current political crisis in Serbia should be resolved through dialogue between domestic actors, showing goodwill and respecting democratic principles of the rule of law. He expressed his belief that Serbia has the potential to solve problems on its own and move forward.
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