What does the region expect from Kosovo at the helm of CEFTA?

From being threatened with expulsion from the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) three months ago due to the ban on importing goods from Serbia, Kosovo is now, as the chair of CEFTA for 2025, expected by the region to work on eliminating barriers among the member countries, creating prerequisites for a unified market in the Western Balkans, and achieving consensus among members regarding the appointment of a new CEFTA Secretary-General.

Written by: Dusica Radeka Djordjevic

Kosovo took over the annual chairmanship of the CEFTA agreement on January 1, a membership that also includes Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Moldova, and Montenegro.

This is not the first time Kosovo has led CEFTA, as the chairmanship is rotational, but it is the first time independently, as it had previously been represented through UNMIK, which signed the CEFTA agreement on behalf of Kosovo in 2006. According to interlocutors at Kosovo Online, this novelty should motivate Pristina to demonstrate its capability to manage such regional initiatives.

Throughout 2025, as announced by the acting director of the CEFTA Secretariat Danijela Gacevic, the focus will be on implementing a new action plan to form a Common Regional Market.

This plan, part of the European Union's Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, was signed by the leaders of the Balkan Six at the Berlin Process summit in October 2024.

According to the advisor to the president of the Chamber of Commerce of Serbia, Nenad Djurdjevic, several things are expected from Kosovo as chair, among them improving the flow of goods across borders.

He reminds us that until the agreement in Berlin last October, there was a violation of the CEFTA agreement due to the complete embargo on the placement of products from Serbia in Kosovo, and now the transit of goods between Serbia and Kosovo is conducted through one crossing, Merdare, which creates congestion and long queues. "We believe this to be a political decision to further complicate the placement of goods from Serbia in Kosovo, and from Kosovo as the chairing party, it is expected to remove these issues because the action plan for the Common Regional Market implies creating prerequisites for a functional and unified market in the Western Balkans," says Djurdjevic.

He explains that this specifically involves improving the flow of goods across crossings and introducing control by a risk system, which means not every shipment is checked, a capability that both Serbian and Kosovar customs, as well as regional ones, have.

Our interlocutor notes that in recent years many barriers have accumulated, one of which concerns the labeling of products from Kosovo on Serbian territory, and such issues are intended to be resolved within CEFTA. "Finished products from Kosovo, whether from Serbian or Albanian communities, cannot be placed on the Serbian market because there is no agreement on product declaration. Part of the action plan is the recognition of certificates, mutual laboratory reports, recognition of laboratories, i.e., mutual inspection and control. The Chamber of Commerce of Serbia has participated in bringing the two sides closer and harmonizing certificates in the fields of veterinary and phytosanitary protection, and in the last ten years, more than 40 certificates have been harmonized, however, certificates for meat and meat products, milk and dairy products were never adopted by the parties even though they were harmonized. This means that the milk and dairy products you see in Kosovo or have seen earlier were imported illegally, which essentially affected producers from all over Serbia," he emphasizes.

Although, as he says, there are many things that are "stored," given that CEFTA was dysfunctional and blocked by the parties, not all expectations are solely on Kosovo as the chair.

"It would be very good if, in the spirit of good relations and understanding the severity of the problems and their importance for the economies, a small action plan of steps among the parties could be drafted on how to unblock things that are blocked and how to start implementing the action plan for the Common Regional Market which is a prerequisite for drawing funds from the new EU Growth Plan," Djurdjevic advises.

He also points out that CEFTA has not had a Secretary-General for a long time due to political reasons, or someone to manage the agreement, although there were procedural attempts to get to a candidate, and he believes it is up to Kosovo as chair to try to achieve consensus of all member countries and interested parties around appointing a new Secretary-General, so that CEFTA can operate at full capacity.

According to the president of the Institute for Democracy in Skopje, Marko Trosanovski, the priorities of Kosovo as chair of CEFTA during 2025 will focus on the Common Regional Market, which, he says, should enable the free flow of goods and services and is expected to begin effective implementation this year.

"I believe that Kosovo will focus on three of the six pillars of the Common Regional Market, the free flow of goods and services, and horizontal trade measures that need to be encouraged. Besides, there are nine agreements that CEFTA member countries have negotiated and signed, which need to be implemented in connection with the Growth Plan. I think that Kosovo also has a political motivation to show itself for the first time in an independent capacity as a country that can manage and successfully manage such regional initiatives, and of course the economic aspect here is very important, namely to create an action plan for the Common Regional Market that will bring greater economic benefits to Kosovo as well as other countries," says Trosanovski for Kosovo Online.

Kosovo’s responsibility is great as it chairs CEFTA independently for the first time, not under UN supervision as before.

Discussing the 16-month ban on the import of Serbian products that Kosovo maintained and partially lifted last fall, Trosanovski points out that the Kosovar side agreed to functionally reopen the Merdare crossing for the flow of goods with additional security guarantees, including metal detectors, due to allegations that Serbia was supposedly transferring weapons to Kosovo. Kosovo's Prime Minister Albin Kurti has also promised that other crossings will be opened in phases when equipped with this scanning technology.

Bardhi Sejdarashi, Chief Economic Editor at ABC News in Tirana, is convinced that the Government of Kosovo cannot reinstate restrictions on the entry of goods from Serbia and that during its 2025 presidency of CEFTA, its main, and perhaps only, goal will be to increase economic exchange as much as possible.

"Kosovo aims to increase the quantity of its products that can be competitive and sold in the region. Kosovo has a significant problem because it exports little to regional countries within CEFTA, yet it has a high import rate, so it is obligated to stimulate the growth of domestic production, but also not to prevent the entry of products necessary for the domestic market," says Sejdarashi. Pristina, he adds, wants to export as much goods as possible to regional countries while on the other hand, it wants to minimize imports to stimulate domestic production.

"Kosovo has growing trade, especially with Albania, and there has been an increase in imports from North Macedonia. Also, the export and import indicators with Serbia are very good," our interlocutor notes.

Agim Shahini, President of the Kosovo Business Association, believes that Kosovo will be successful in its role as the chair of CEFTA, but he also points out that it needs to take its current role seriously.

"Kosovo needs to remove all the barriers that exist among CEFTA members, to look at how to advance the import or export of goods in all member states, and to maintain good relations with all CEFTA members," Shahini stated for Kosovo Online.