EU to mediate Kosovo – Serbia peace talks
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TIRANA, July 6 - The European Union will mediate the first high-level meeting between Kosovo and Serbia on Sunday, July 12, since November 2018.
On Monday, European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said that Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbia President Aleksandar Vucic will hold a meeting brokered by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and the EU special envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Miroslav Lajcak.
"This meeting will resume discussions and work to reach a comprehensive and legally binding agreement on the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo that will address all outstanding issues," he said.
The meeting on Sunday will be preceded by a virtual meeting on Friday under the auspices of French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, which was scheduled to be a high-level meeting in Paris.
The plan to resume talks mediated by the European Union was revealed over a week after the Special Prosecutor Office announced a ten-count indictment against Kosovo President Hashim Thaci and Democratic Party leader Kadri Veseli, on the charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The allegations were made on the eve of the Kosovo-Serbia White House meeting scheduled for June 27 to be brokered by Ambassador Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump's special envoy for the Kosovo-Serbia peace talks. However, as a result of the indictment, the meeting was cancelled although Ambassador Grenell announced that a new date for the meeting would be set soon.
EU-mediated Kosovo-Serbia talks began in 2011 and provided a range of agreements but did not meet the goal of normalizing relations between the two countries. Since then, the EU-mediated dialogue has been on hold since late 2018 partly due to Kosovo's government imposing a 100% trade tariff on all Serbian goods at the time. With former PM Kurti's government in power, the tax was replaced with reciprocity measures which was not well-received by the U.S.