No high expectations for tomorrow's meeting in Brussels

Ahead of the continuation of the highest-level dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, following the elections in northern Kosovo, which saw only 3.47% of voters turn out, of which 0.029% were Serbs, and the adoption of Pristina's application to initiate the procedure for membership in the Council of Europe, Kosovo Online interlocutors emphasize that there should not be high expectations for tomorrow's meeting in Brussels, but they add that negotiations should take place regardless of the events that have preceded it.

According to the announcement of the EU Special Representative for the Kosovo-Serbia Dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak, the main points of discussion between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti will be the Declaration on Missing Persons and the presentation of the Draft Statute of the Community of Serb Municipalities.

However, it seems that the more dominant topic will be the elections in northern Kosovo, which were boycotted by almost all Serbs except for the 13 who voted. Nevertheless, Western countries consider these elections acceptable, although, as our interlocutors note, they bring an absurd situation – that Albanians govern in areas with an overwhelming Serbian majority. Additionally, Kosovo has officially started its path to the Council of Europe.

Vice President of the European Movement in Serbia, Dusko Lopandic, says for Kosovo Online that at the moment, it is only clear that the Brussels Agreement has been reset to zero" after the elections in northern Kosovo.

"With these elections, Serbs are nowhere – neither in local government, nor in courts, nor in the police, nor do they have the CSM, so none of the agreement points exist and work. But whether something will be returned with new meetings is difficult to predict. All the moves that have been made are like in a game of chess and condition each other," Lopandic said.

Lopandic says that negotiations make sense and that talks should take place, but adds that the real question is who will achieve what and who has achieved how much, and that it is not easy to talk about that.

"I think Kurti is under great pressure to do something, and as far as I have seen, it has been announced that the key thing at the meeting will be the presentation of the Draft for the formation of the CSM. What will really happen is difficult to predict at this moment," Lopandic concluded.

Journalist Bosko Jaksic believes that there should not be high expectations and adds that at this moment, there should be no expectation of anything concrete, regardless of the fact that, as he said, Europeans have formed a group for the implementation of the plan.

"The very fact that the group has been formed confirms that both Europeans and Americans do not want to allow time to pass by, as it has in the last decades. If the meeting has no purpose regarding Vucic and Kurti, which it doesn't, it has a great purpose for the hosts, who will tell both of them that things cannot continue as they have been and that they will not tolerate it. I think that is something that can be expected from the meeting, and whether we will hear it or not remains to be seen," Jaksic said.

He believes that both sides are waiting for strong messages from Brussels.

"After those messages, we will not have to wait long to see their result. They will be seen either through the implementation of the agreement or through punishment for non-implementation," Jaksic is convinced.

He believes that Kosovo's acceptance of the application for membership in the Council of Europe is "punishing Vucic" because the West is showing him that if he doesn't want to bring Serbs back to the institutions of Pristina, they will urgently admit Kosovo to the Council of Europe.
"I think that, along with the ignoring of the elections, when everything is summed up, Belgrade shot itself in the foot. Vucic has been indirectly punished by this, but it has nothing to do with the implementation of the agreement," Jaksic notes.

He adds that it remains to be seen what will happen when the implementation of the agreement begins.

"It is clearly stated there that one of the first things is the request for the formation of the CSM, and if Kurti refuses to do that when the implementation starts, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes. His political future becomes uncertain from that moment on. The West will not have much mercy not to punish him, as there are much more important things than Kurti and Vucic in this," Jaksic concludes.