Subotic: Hungary's role in Belgrade-Pristina Dialogue limited, EU enlargement a priority

Hungary's presidency of the Council of the European Union can be good news for the citizens of Serbia in terms of EU enlargement, but Budapest's role in the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina will be limited, almost non-existent, says Strahinja Subotic from the Center for European Policy for Kosovo Online.

"What Hungary can bring to Serbia is that a neighboring EU member state will strongly prioritize the enlargement policy. If you look at their presidency program, out of seven priorities, enlargement policy is in third place. This is not often the case. With Hungary, a country in our region that knows us well and with which Serbs have good relations, this is certainly good news for our citizens," says Subotic.

He recalls that the current European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement is Hungarian diplomat Oliver Várhelyi.

"Now we have a situation where we have Enlargement Commissioner Várhelyi from Hungary and Hungary presiding over the Council while discussing new functions and the new balance of power after the European Parliament elections. In this regard, Hungary's key priority will be, on the one hand, to convince other member states to prioritize enlargement and, on the other hand, to ensure that the transition of power from the old to the new institutional cycle of the European Union is effective," Subotic says.

Regarding the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, Subotic notes that this issue is important to Hungary, which has a significant number of its forces as part of KFOR in Kosovo. However, he reminds that Miroslav Lajcak’s mandate was recently extended.

Hungary's role will be limited or almost non-existent in this regard, considering that we recently learned that Miroslav Lajcak’s mandate as Borrell's envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue has been extended until the end of the year. This was not initially planned, but now we have a signal that he will be the main one to bring Kurti and Vučic to the table and continue negotiations until the EU completes this new redistribution of power," Subotic concludes.