Surlic: Potential elections in Kosovo will be another excuse for the dialogue to produce no solutions

If snap parliamentary elections are called in Kosovo, according to Stefan Surlic, assistant professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade, this will be yet another excuse to postpone the dialogue with Belgrade on normalization of relations and for there to be no concrete solutions.

Surlic assumes that in the event of elections there would still be dialogue at a technical level in the form of meetings between teams, so that Brussels could at least formally preserve the image that the process is ongoing and has continuity.

“But in reality, for years, we have had nothing substantial as a product of the dialogue. Above all, there has been no concrete progress in implementing the Community of Serb Municipalities on the territory of Kosovo, because we see that all other issues in the dialogue depend exclusively on whether the framework for those topics will be the Community of Serb Municipalities,” Surlic told Kosovo Online.

Commenting on assessments heard in Pristina that Prime Minister Albin Kurti is leading Kosovo toward new elections in order to avoid the obligation to implement the agreement on the Community of Serb Municipalities, Surlic says several factors are at play.

“The first factor is certainly to push the dialogue aside and continue with unilateral and excessive moves in northern Kosovo. The second goal was to sideline Vjosa Osmani, who has nevertheless gained a certain additional leadership credibility, and the third is to consolidate an absolutist government so that neither the Serbs nor the Albanian opposition in Kosovo stand in his way,” he said.

However, Surlic does not believe that if elections are held the outcome will be positive for Kurti in the sense that he would repeat the result he achieved in the previous elections.

“I think he is aware of that, and most analysts closely following the situation say that at this moment he has overplayed his hand because he has put many cards on the table very openly, and that includes the dialogue with Belgrade and the continued persecution of Serbs in Kosovo,” Surlic said.