Leaders of Kosovo and Serbia resume talks in Brussels to normalize ties

After more than a decade of negotiations, the EU wants the Balkan neighbors to come up with a plan and end hostilities.

The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo returned to Brussels for talks to normalize ties and implement an 11-point European Union normalization plan.

Tuesday’s meeting follows February’s, when both leaders endorsed the I plan after 12 years of talks. They also met in March in North Macedonia, where Belgrade and Pristina tentatively agreed on how to implement it.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell will convene the meeting between Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti.

The leaders are expected to discuss creating an association of Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo, once part of Serbia and whose total population is more than 90 percent ethnic Albanian.

They are also expected to address the more than 1,600 people officially missing since the 1998-1999 Kosovo War, which broke out when ethnic Albanian separatists rebelled against the Serbian government and Belgrade responded with a brutal crackdown.

Some 13,000 people died, mostly ethnic Albanians. In 1999, a NATO military intervention forced Serbia to withdraw from the territory.

He EU proposal covers the normalization of relations between the two countries and their future path towards peace and EU membership.

Miroslav Lajcak, Borrell’s envoy for the Belgrade-Pristina negotiations, said the meeting is “a crucial step forward, and it is important to avoid any action that could worsen the atmosphere.”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Brussels and the United States have increasingly intervened to defuse tensions between Belgrade and Pristina.

Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in 2008, which Serbia does not recognize. Serbia still considers Kosovo a breakaway province, and poor relations between the two Balkan neighbors have raised fears of a return to war.

One sticking point has been Belgrade’s insistence that Pristina implement a 2013 agreement to establish an association of northern Kosovo municipalities with majority Serb populations. The Kosovo Constitutional Court has declared that plan unconstitutional.

Serbia said that progress in the talks is only possible after this issue is addressed.

Referring to the association agreement, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said: “Everyone was delighted that it was a historic act. Ten years passed and the association of Serbian municipalities did not happen”.

Local elections were held last month in Serb-dominated communes in northern Kosovo after Serb representatives stepped down last year, but the vote was boycotted by an overwhelming majority of ethnic Serbs.

Vucic praised the boycott and criticized Western officials, calling them liars and frauds. He said that the Serb minority would no longer tolerate foreign “occupation”.