Stiplija: It is early to send the European Commission questionnaire for Kosovo's EU membership

Director of the Center for Contemporary Politics and editor of the European Western Balkans portal, Nemanja Todorovic Stiplija, tells Kosovo Online that under the current circumstances, he does not see the possibility of the European Union Council granting Kosovo candidate status for EU membership.

Kosovo submitted its application for EU membership two years ago, on December 15, 2022, and representatives of the Kosovo government believe it is time for the request to be considered. However, Stiplija says that although there were earlier expectations that Kosovo might already be an EU membership candidate by now, there is no clear outlook on the next steps the EU Council will take in this case.

"This is because there are EU restrictive measures against Kosovo, and there is a stalemate in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, where Kosovo is clearly not fulfilling all the agreements from the dialogue. No one expected the dialogue process to last this long, and that a legally binding agreement would still not be reached. On the other hand, we don't know what position individual EU member states that have not recognized Kosovo will take when this decision is made. They may oppose Kosovo's membership. In any case, the next step is for the Council to provide formal or informal instructions to Kosovo to make its membership application credible," Stiplija pointed out.

Later, when the EU Council gives the green light, as he added, the European Commission will begin the process of assessing whether Kosovo can become a candidate for membership.

"The first step in that process is certainly the Questionnaire with more than 3,000 questions that Kosovo would need to receive from the European Commission. However, from today's perspective, it seems that it is too early for all of this," Stiplija said.

Stiplija also says that since the beginning of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, enthusiasm for admitting new members into the EU has grown significantly, which has led to some countries, some of which had been in the process longer and others shorter, gaining candidate status, and that it is realistic to expect this could happen for Kosovo as well, but he notes that there are also problems.

"The Kosovo Government mentions some successes in the past period that might lead to Kosovo receiving the European Commission Questionnaire, but there are issues, such as with the reform agenda. Kosovo was among the first countries to submit the reform agenda to the European Commission, but the core of the reform agenda, which is access to the common market through the common regional market, is currently a stumbling block for Kosovo. We know Germany's position that Kosovo is not meeting all the conditions, or rather, that it does not want to meet all the conditions for access to the common market through CEFTA. Therefore, I don't see Kosovo being given any leeway in further steps toward European integration or candidate status," Stiplija concluded.