Baraliu: The EU’s approach to dialogue must change, the current one has brought no results

Political analyst Mazllum Baraliu, commenting on yesterday’s meeting between the chief negotiators from Belgrade and Pristina in Brussels, says that the dialogue has stalled and that the EU must change its approach, as the current one has yielded no results.

Baraliu tells Kosovo Online that while it is good that meetings are being held and discussions are taking place, he believes the dialogue has come to a standstill.

“The dialogue has currently stalled, there is no real dialogue, and there cannot be any with the EU's current policy. That means there can be no continuation of the policy led by Josep Borrell and Miroslav Lajcak, because it hasn’t worked. Everything they did during their four-year mandate has reached a dead end, even the agreements and negotiations. The Franco-German initiative, carried out even outside the EU institutions, which is unusual, has also not proven to be a successful initiative, not even the Brussels Agreement nor the annex in Ohrid,” Baraliu said.

He added that there has been no progress, especially in terms of improving relations between the citizens of Kosovo and Serbia, particularly on the issue of missing persons.

“There was an agreement four years ago, at the highest level, between the President of Serbia and the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Aleksandar Vucic and Albin Kurti, to prioritize that issue. However, nothing was done. That is why I believe the dialogue in its current form, led by Peter Sorensen, won’t work. I think the dialogue should be prepared by Ms. Kaja Kallas with top-level negotiators, and that it should be restructured in order to create an agenda for how to start and what the next steps should be,” Baraliu added.

He emphasized that the new EU institutions have merely continued where the previous ones left off.

“Dialogue is certainly needed, but first and foremost, the way it is conducted and the model itself must be changed. Because the way the new EU institutions have started will not work, they have simply continued where their predecessors left off, and that approach did not work over the past four years either. As a result, neither side has accepted to move forward. I believe both the approach and the core structure and order of the dialogue need to change,” Baraliu concluded.