Subotic: The election of Estonian officials in the EU will complicate the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue

Strahinja Subotic, Program Manager at the European Policy Centre, assesses that the election of Estonian politicians to some of the top positions in the EU will complicate the progress of the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina because this country unequivocally supports Kosovo's independence. However, he says that EU officials could compensate for this by appointing a chief mediator who will respect the EU's neutral stance on this issue.

"We from the European Policy Centre were recently in Estonia, across the entire Baltic region, and I can say that they are very informed when it comes to Kosovo, given that they strongly support its independence, which is good for Kosovo but bad for Serbia. Given that Estonia is subjective in this regard, it is expected that Estonia will insist on satisfying the interests of Kosovo, or Pristina, to a greater extent, and less so those of Belgrade, which will complicate the dialogue," Subotic told Kosovo Online.

According to him, there is hope that Kaja Kallas, in the role of the EU foreign affairs chief, would primarily focus on Russia and delegate a representative to lead the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.

Subotic says that this would continue the practice initiated by the current EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, who appointed Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak as the chief mediator.

"We do not know if that will happen. First, we need to wait for Kaja Kallas's nomination to pass in the European Parliament. After that, we need to see if the European Council approves her candidate who would succeed Lajcak," Subotic says.

He expects that the new mediator in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina will not come from Estonia, which would allow for the objectivity of the EU's foreign policy service.

"Hopefully, they will find someone more moderate, probably from Central Europe, who knows Serbia a bit better, not just Kosovo. In this way, a signal will be sent to both Belgrade and Pristina that the EU is a creation that is status-neutral regarding Kosovo, given that five states still do not recognize Kosovo. In this regard, I believe that the European Council, where high officials of all member states sit, will actually insist on this. Therefore, Kaja Kallas will hopefully be a bit more objective than she would like when it comes to the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina," Subotic concludes.