Lavrov: Instead of forming the CSM, Germany, and France are proposing a new initiative

The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, pointed out that instead of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities, official Berlin and Paris were now proposing a new initiative that did not give any rights to Serbs in Kosovo, Politika reports.

Lavrov said that the agreement on the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities and the Minsk Agreements stipulated the same rights for Serbs in Kosovo and Russians in Donbas.

The Russian minister recalled the words of the High EU Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell that the Russians had nothing to look for in the Balkans and that all contacts between Moscow, Serbia, and other Balkan countries should be completely cut off, Sputnik reports.

He said that in 2013, in Brussels, with the mediation of the EU, the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo had signed a document on the formation of the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities.

"Still, no one wants to make it happen." The EU has already realized that the Albanians in Pristina, which they have already publicly announced, will not do that. The EU has already shown a lack of power. France and Germany overlooked the insult and they propose a new initiative that does not give any rights to the Serbs in Kosovo but demanded from Belgrade: “If you do not want to recognize the independence of Kosovo, you do not have to, just accept that Kosovo, which you did not recognize, enters international organizations, including the UN, Council of Europe, etc.," he said.

Lavrov emphasized that the rights of Serbs in Kosovo were determined by the agreement on the CSM.

In that document, the same is said about the Community of Serb-majority Municipalities as in the Minsk Agreements, except that in the Kosovo case it was about the rights of Serbs, and in the Minsk Agreements about the rights of Russians in Donbas. The same rights were determined for both: the right to the language, Russian education, the right to form one's police force, the right to vote in the appointment of judges, the right to preferential economic ties with neighboring regions," Lavrov concluded.