Surlic: A return to negotiations with delegations would be a performance with the same outcome

Assistant professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, Stefan Surlic, believes that if the Belgrade–Pristina dialogue were to return to the format of the Vienna negotiations, in which both sides were represented at the table by delegations rather than only by chief negotiators, it would be a performance involving more people, but with essentially the same outcome, that is, the failure of normalization.

"Any kind of delegation is essentially more of a theatre for the domestic political audience. What is much more important is that the results of the dialogue, if there are any, are presented to the parliament and the public, and that we move in the direction where citizens, both Serbs and Albanians, feel that the dialogue is something that is in the national interest and something in which they participate. In the current setup, when you distance it and present it merely as a meeting between two leaders who do not even shake hands, where the mediator is the one setting the agenda, then none of the citizens see it as something that concerns them and their better life, understanding, and reconciliation. So I would focus more on whether the parliament and the public are actually more involved, at least when it comes to reporting on the dialogue process," Surlic says.

He adds that delegations generally meet only when there is a basic consensus on the framework within which an agreement can exist, and that the Vienna negotiations failed precisely because it was clear that the Pristina side could speak only about Kosovo's independence, while the Belgrade side could speak only about some form of autonomy for Kosovo, and that under such circumstances there is no dialogue.

"I assume that if delegations were to meet now, Pristina's demand would be membership in the United Nations, while for Belgrade that would be out of the question, and that discussions could be held only about some other international organizations, but not about the United Nations. And we would again have only a performance involving more people, with essentially the same outcome, which is the failure of the normalization of relations," Surlic concludes.