A joint meeting as part of the dialogue between the two chief negotiators of Kosovo and Serbia, Besnik Bisljimi and Petar Petković, and the European Union (EU) envoy for dialogue, Miroslav Lajčak, was completed in Brussels, Radio Free Europe (RSE) reported tonight, and Lajčak himself announced that the talks lasted a total of seven hours and that “next steps were agreed upon”.
Bilateral talks between the European and Serbian sides lasted more than two hours, twice as long as planned, and that is the reason why the start of the joint meeting was postponed.
After the talks with the Serbian side, Lajčak had a bilateral meeting with the Kosovo delegation.
After that, around 19:00, a trilateral meeting began with the participation of both parties and the host of the negotiations, Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) reported, and that meeting apparently lasted more than three hours.
Any other details have not been released.
Lajcak wrote on the X network: “More than seven hours of meetings at the level of chief negotiators have just ended. We discussed a wide range of issues and agreed on numerous next steps.”
After the meetings, Petković said that the most important issue for Belgrade is the formation of a community of municipalities with a Serbian majority in Kosovo.
He accused official Pristina of not wanting and not wanting to form this community.
“One of the key issues is the issue of accepting the draft status on the community drawn up by the European Union. Belgrade is ready to accept that draft. The draft status is crucial and it is the main step towards the formation of that community,” said Petković.
Bisljimi told journalists at the end of the meeting that this was again a meeting where the Serbian side confirmed that they will not implement all the elements of the agreement on the path to normalization of relations, which the leaders reached last year in Brussels and Ohrid.
“They made it clear that for them there are parts of the agreement that they can implement and that there are some points that they cannot implement. They (the Serbian delegation) admitted to Lajčak that they will not fully implement the agreement,” Bisljimi said at the end meeting.
Kosovo’s chief negotiator said that there will be no more dialogue meetings during the summer period. He announced that by July 18, the two sides will send their positions regarding the implementation plan of the agreement.
After that, according to Bisljimi, the European side would make a new proposal on the implementation of the agreement.
The meeting of the main negotiators was announced last Sunday by Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, after separate talks with EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security Josep Borrell.
