Todorovic: There were no indications that any EU country that does not recognize Kosovo will change its position

The statement by Marta Kos about encouraging signs regarding the five EU member states that have not yet recognized Kosovo was quite vague and reserved, says Marko Todorovic, a researcher at the Center for European Policy in Belgrade.

Todorovic told Kosovo Online that so far there has been no signal that any of those five non-recognizers within the European Union intends to change its position, which is very firm on this issue.

“I would say that Marta Kos’s statement was quite vague and rather reserved. She was responding to a question from a Member of the European Parliament, that is, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Kosovo. Essentially, when an official of the European Commission says that the situation is being monitored and that there are encouraging signs, it usually means one of two things,” Todorovic said, adding:

“The first is that there is no significant progress and that this is merely a diplomatic formulation, and the second is that something may be discussed through diplomatic channels, but it has simply not matured enough to be discussed publicly.”

Todorovic considers the first scenario far more realistic, given that there has been no signal that any of the five non-recognizers within the European Union intends to change its position.

“All of these countries have deep internal reasons for not recognizing Kosovo’s independence, and it would be very difficult to imagine, for example, Cyprus or Spain recognizing Kosovo. Therefore, I assume this is just a diplomatic formulation. We can also interpret what those so-called encouraging signs might be, as Marta Kos put it. From the perspective of the European Commission, it is certainly encouraging that none of the five non-recognizers has so far, and likely will not in the future, in any way block the possible dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, nor any initiatives aimed at cooperation between the European Union and Kosovo, such as the new Growth Plan for the Western Balkans and so on. So it is certainly encouraging that there is potential for cooperation between the European Union and Kosovo, even though there are five EU member states that do not recognize Kosovo,” he said.

Regarding whether there may be pressure on the five EU countries that do not recognize Kosovo to do so, Todorovic says that all of these states hold very firm positions on the matter.

“A few years ago, there was talk of mutual recognition between Serbia and Kosovo, which is a rather unusual formulation. Now that wording has been abandoned and the focus is on normalization of relations. It seems that the European Union has accepted that certain states, including Serbia and EU member states, simply do not recognize Kosovo, and that there is no longer any discussion of de jure recognition, but rather of normalization and the establishment of good neighborly relations between Belgrade and Pristina.”