Ahead of a new round of dialogue in Brussels: Confusion in defining priorities

Writing for Kosovo Online: Dragan Bisenic, journalist

After the summer vacation, which interrupted the intensive action to rehabilitate the situation that arose in May in the north of Kosovo, several meetings concerning the region were held in a relatively positive and encouraging atmosphere. The first such gathering was in Athens, although it connected the Ukrainian and Western Balkan European perspectives.

The meeting of the Brdo-Brijoni Forum, which was held in a soothing tone, was special. After these introductory meetings, it seemed that a new round of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina in Brussels could move forward, by going back very quickly - to the situation that preceded the police and violent escalation in the north of Kosovo and in relation to the Serbs in Kosovo in whole. Ahead of today's meeting in Brussels, it seems that such expectations are not founded and that the established practice of escalation remains in place.

The US Special Envoy Gabriel Escobar helped a lot to understand what was really happening. He said that, ahead of the new round of dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, he had not received assurances from Albin Kurti that he was committed to implementing the agreement on the normalization of relations and its annex. This means that the Prime Minister of Kosovo did not accept the obligation to present the Draft of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities.

"And that, when it comes to the Kosovo side, means presenting the draft of the Statute of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities. Kurti did not commit to doing that. In essence, what he committed to was attending the meetings in Brussels and nothing more," Escobar said.
Escobar himself immediately defined that sanctions, that is, as the Americans call them in this case, "consequences", were already in sight. They were already announced in the first steps back in May, and some of them were also demonstrated, but soon it started to give in, so that one side, in this case, Pristina, would not be discouraged from being constructive in the negotiations.

Escobar's undisguised dissatisfaction shows that there is little reason to count on an optimistic outcome of the Brussels meeting. Escobar has repeatedly said that the CSM needs to be formed "immediately", "urgently", but his haste to fulfill something that was agreed upon 10 years ago, in order to move forward in the progress of the dialogue - has gone to waste.

In addition, the European and the US conclusions on the normalization of relations in the north of Kosovo, which followed the violent incursion of the special police into the municipal buildings in the north of Kosovo, demand a return to the "status quo ante", but there is no such thing now. The European Union introduced punitive measures to Kosovo and threatened to introduce the same to Serbia until three conditions were met: the withdrawal of Special Forces from municipal buildings, the withdrawal of mayors and municipal administrations to alternative locations, and the announcement of inclusive elections. The US diplomat also wonders why this is being avoided. He proposed the resignation of the mayors, which would be a faster and better way to hold new elections in which the Serbs would participate.

"The solution that includes the petition has never been implemented until now. Numerous regulations and laws that would refer to it are not in force. However, we support every way, harmonized with the Constitution, in order to hold elections. We ask the Serbian community to participate in the voting, when the elections are called," Escobar said and added that they were monitoring the situation.
What differences exist regarding the application of the Brussels and Ohrid agreements, that is, regarding the creation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, could be seen based on the differences in the statements of German and US officials. The German Ambassador in Kosovo made it a priority that the Ohrid Agreement had to be implemented immediately and that it was time to "act for the benefit of all".

"The Ohrid Agreement must be implemented immediately. No more blame games. Remove obstacles to progress. It's time to act for the benefit of all," the German Ambassador said. He stated that full commitment from both sides to de-escalation, EU dialogue, and participatory democracy was necessary.

Unlike him, the United States of America took a different position the next day, that is, yesterday. It doesn't seem to be about the nuances. The Embassy in Pristina confirmed that the US "continues to strongly support the dialogue mediated by the European Union as a way to achieve peaceful and productive relations between Kosovo and Serbia". Partially, the US position is identical to the German one, where it is emphasized that "both sides should take seriously the obligations arising from the Ohrid Agreement", but then added an essential amendment.

"We ask Kosovo and Serbia to take seriously their obligations under the normalization agreement they reached earlier this year and begin to make progress in fulfilling their existing and previous obligations under the Ohrid Dialogue and Agreement, including the establishment of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities," the US Embassy spokesperson said in Pristina.

On the same day, the German Embassy in Pristina also responded, issuing a different statement from its Ambassador. Now it has supplemented its position with the previously missing Community of Serb-majority Municipalities.

"It is urgent that both sides fully engage and commit to the de-escalation and full implementation of the Ohrid Agreement, including the creation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities," the German Embassy stated. Although the German Ambassador on other occasions, in interviews, also mentioned the creation of the CSM, this addition is a more detailed and essentially encouraging clarification; the question is how much of this is really the right position, and how much it is "damage control" that arose after quite different statements by US officials.

The statements of the President of the Bundestag's Foreign Policy Committee, Michael Roth, cast doubt on that. Roth is on the platform of a recent public letter to which he is a co-signatory, together with his British counterpart, other British MPs, and a group of Baltic parliamentarians, who are looking for "balance" by punishing Serbia as well. Although Roth expressed himself very delicately and carefully, in some formulations, especially mentioning the "federal structure", he went even further in favor of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities than even the Serbian side expected, Roth remained reserved towards the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities and gave a clear priority to the Ohrid Agreement. Michael Roth stated that it was necessary to form the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, but that he was against the creation of another "Republika Srpska" in Kosovo, but that the option could be a federal structure that did not violate the unitary character of Kosovo.

"It is very difficult to speculate about new initiatives and new concepts, new ideas. It was my message to the Government to remain committed to the documents that are on the table, which is the implementation of the Ohrid Agreement, which is crucial," Roth said in Pristina.

"The most delicate issue is the implementation of the Community. To be quite clear, I am very much against Republika Srpska in Kosovo, but a federal structure, a fair division of power that is not a threat or danger to the unity of Kosovo can be an option to overcome the disputes of the past and lead to the fulfillment of the obligations on the table for 10 years," Roth said, adding that he didn't want to "overshadow high-level discussions with speculation."

Now we have reached a point where it was already clear before the start of the talks on the Franco-German proposal that it would be reached: that the new agreement will seek to cancel the previous Brussels agreement and that it will essentially lead to confusion in the definition of priorities, which should remove or minimizes obligations from the Brussels Agreement. In the foreign media and among European foreign policy officials, the question arises, what is more important: the Brussels or Ohrid agreement?

For the Serbian side, all those approaches in which great importance will be attached to minor issues while leaving out the central and most important of them - the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, do not represent any convincing platform in which one would really feel that the dialogue makes sense because it respects what was agreed upon. The boycott of the elections in the north of Kosovo and Metohija followed precisely because a step forward was not taken in the creation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities. Since nothing has changed so far, it is hard to expect that unfulfilled agreements will motivate anyone to participate in new elections and new agreements.

Thus, the opportunity for progress in achieving strategic goals - European integration - will be missed. What is happening there will be clarified very quickly by the head of European foreign policy, Josep Borrell, who will first meet separately with the President of Serbia Aleksandar Vucic, and Albin Kurti, and a joint meeting is also planned. After that, the press conference will present what happened and whether it was something more than "attending a meeting", as Gabriel Escobar formulated it.