Milivojevic: There are sticks and carrots, but they are not on the agenda

Diplomat Zoran Milivojevic assessed, regarding the Franco-German proposal on Kosovo, that there are both sticks and carrots for Belgrade and Pristina, but that they are not on the agenda, while regarding insisting of the West on the CSM formation, he says that they have accepted as a fact that they cannot continue negotiations without it, N1 reports.

Milivojevic told N1 about the draft proposal for the CSM presented by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation that if it does not have a serious political background, then it should be treated as good services and help to do something, because it should be borne in mind that they do not have the authority to do so.

According to the agreement on principles from 2015, which elaborated the basic Brussels consensus, it was clearly defined who should do what, what the Community should look like. It is clearly stated there that the management team is responsible for drafting the Statute, it was drafted in 2018, it was supposed to be submitted for consideration by the parties, but due to the fact that Pristina obstructed the talks on the CSM, it was not even presented," says Milivojevic.

He adds that compared to what was foreseen in 2015 for the CSM, in the "Friedrich Ebert" draft, it is fundamentally different that "the starting point of the management team that worked on the Statute was the fact that the status of Kosovo was not resolved, that Kosovo should be discussed as an entity under the UN protectorate, that is, the CSM in Kosovo, which is a UN protectorate".

"What Ebert offered, and what Chollet and Escobar tell us, implies the CSM within Kosovo as an independent state," Milivojevic says.

He also says that he is glad that the Americans insist that the Brussels Agreement is an international agreement, that it is older than any internal act, so that Kosovo cannot refer to the Constitutional Court or to laws as predominant.

"It was foreseen according to the agreement on principles of 2015 that the Brussels agreement must be incorporated into the system of Kosovo as an entity, which means that the constitution should be changed and that by order of the new constitution in which the CSM will be incorporated, all other laws should be assigned to the appropriate law application of the Brussels Agreement. This was never done, on the contrary, the Pristina side submitted the Brussels Agreement to the Constitutional Court for review, and then we have had a vacuum for 10 years," he recalls.

He adds that the CSM is a "preliminary issue" and that the Americans agree with that.

He states that this issue is separate from the discussion on the European plan, and a new phase of negotiations will be entered there, because the Serbian side insists on the application of the original Brussels Agreement, including the rules on principles, and this means that the CSM represents, in a way, the third level authorities, is directly linked to the central government, has legislative activity and can veto anything that is not in the interests of the Serbian community.

"There are quite a few elements that will be the subject of a dispute. The whole project on which the US position is now based is to discuss the CSM within Kosovo as an independent state and under the direct jurisdiction of the Constitutional Court and the political system of Kosovo, so not as a third level of government and without powers that call into question the sovereignty of official authorities. That will be the last round of negotiations," Milivojevic believes.

Regarding the West's insisting on the formation of the CSM, he says that they have accepted it as a fact that negotiations cannot continue without it.

"This concession to Serbia should mean a concession to Serbia according to the European plan and the realization of the basic ones from the European plan," says Milivojevic.

On the occasion of the upcoming parliamentary session on Kosovo, he says that Serbia is faced with the most serious issue that directly concerns its state and national interest, and it is to be expected that political parties and MPs will be serious, and not discuss Vucic's rule and some inter-party issues.

He also adds that he is glad that there are parties in the opposition that understand the importance of this, such as SAA.

"We have a problem that we will not have that document in the assembly, but specific negotiations are conducted outside the public domain, and only when the position and the agreement are defined will it be made public. But there is a central issue and all parties have the opportunity to present their position on it," Milivojevic points out.

He also says that so far nothing has been agreed, but the new proposal is only a platform for negotiations.

When asked what will happen to us if we do not accept that proposal, he says that we should understand the threats as serious, but not as a finished story, "because we can only talk about it if there is no negotiation process".

"We are still on the ground of the previous issue, which is CSM", added Milivojevic.

He also says that he thinks there are sticks and carrots, but they are not on the agenda.

"I don't see a carrot, but the way it looks now, it should be in order to avoid these sanctions", the diplomat believes and adds that if once the carrot was the EU's approach, it is not on the agenda now.

"What is available to us in perspective is much more realistic than the approach to the EU - the European political community or the approach to the economic European community would make sense, because the EU is 80-90 percent economic community," Milivojevic concluded.