Stanic: Politics to blame for the economic normalization agreement not being fully implemented

Bojan Stanic, Assistant Director of the Sector for Strategic Analyses, Services, and Internationalization at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce, told Kosovo Online that it can be concluded that politics was the “culprit” for the Washington Agreement on the economic normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina—signed five years ago—not being implemented as originally intended.

Given that the agreement envisaged both sides joining the “Mini-Schengen Zone,” later renamed the Open Balkan initiative, Stanic explained that the idea was to establish a common market based on the free movement of goods, services, people, and capital.

“But from 2020 until today, there have been blockades on the placement of goods from Serbia to the market of Kosovo and Metohija, and this was absolutely a unilateral decision by the Pristina authorities. It was not only a violation of the CEFTA agreement, but also a disruption of the needs of the population in Kosovo, which was unnecessarily exposed to rising prices simply because they had to import goods from other markets that were less competitive than the Serbian market,” Stanic noted.

He stressed that the idea of the Washington Agreement was that political disagreements between Belgrade and Pristina would be resolved through economic cooperation.

“However, after the pandemic, a geopolitical crisis emerged, most visibly in the war in Ukraine, which led to the priorities of all the so-called sponsors of economic cooperation initiatives—and their focus on this region—dropping to fifth or sixth place. Consequently, local politicians once again reemerged as the more influential actors, simply stopping the process,” he emphasized.

According to him, the war in Ukraine was probably one of the main reasons why there was no more effective implementation of the regional integration initiative known as Open Balkan.

He also recalled that the Washington Agreement foresaw U.S. investments to support the region.

“We see that in Serbia, for example, American investments in the past year and a half have been greater than those from Germany. But from the talk of establishing a center here that would deal with investments, practically nothing—or very little—has materialized in reality,” Stanic said.

Commenting on the parts of the agreement related to infrastructure, such as the planned highway and railway meant to connect Belgrade and Pristina, he said their realization would primarily be of significance for Pristina.

“The territory of Kosovo cannot develop sustainably without cooperation with Serbia, Albania, or other regional countries, because it has no access to the sea and is geographically positioned so that practically none of the Pan-European corridors pass through it—it can simply be bypassed,” our interlocutor pointed out.