“Kosovo Accepts EU’s 11-Point Proposal for Normalizing Relations with Serbia”

By Fatos Bytyci

PRISTINA (Reuters) – Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti said on Monday he accepts a proposed European Union plan aimed at normalizing relations with Serbia, despite concerns over Western demands for more rights for local Serbs grant that have hitherto impeded a peace agreement.

Last month, Western envoys told Kosovo and Serbia to explain whether they will accept an 11-point plan designed to defuse tensions that have persisted since the 1998-99 war, or face backlash from the EU and the United States have to calculate.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a guerrilla insurgency against Belgrade rule. Over the past decade, the two have held EU-brokered normalization talks, the success of which has been key to Pristina’s and Belgrade’s aspirations to join the prosperous bloc.

The 11-point plan calls for the implementation of previous agreements, including the establishment of a federation of semi-autonomous Serb-majority municipalities, which Kurti has opposed on the grounds that it would effectively carve up the country along ethnic lines, a criticism echoed by Western mediators is rejected.

“We accept the EU proposal to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia and consider it a good basis for further discussions and a solid platform to move forward,” Kurti said after meeting EU envoy Miroslav Lajcak in Pristina.

“Certain issues related to international guarantees, implementation mechanisms and timing will be addressed shortly in the forthcoming talks in Brussels.”

Last week, Kurti said he might be willing to consider establishing the association, but only if it conforms to Kosovo’s constitution and isn’t based solely on ethnic grounds.

Kosovo pledged in 2013 to grant greater autonomy to local Serbs who refuse to recognize its 2008 independence through such unification as part of a peace deal. However, Kosovo’s highest court said some parts of the deal were unconstitutional and should be amended before it comes into force.

The proposed 11-point deal would not oblige Serbia to recognize the independence of its former province, but Belgrade would have to stop campaigning against Kosovo’s membership in international bodies.

The two countries would also need to open representative offices in each other’s capitals and work to resolve outstanding issues.

Ethnic Serbs make up about 100,000 of Kosovo’s 1.8 million population, about half of whom live in the north of the country and most refuse to recognize Pristina’s authority.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told parliament last week that Western envoys had warned Belgrade that if Serbia does not accept the proposal, EU membership talks will be halted and access to pre-accession funds and investments will be denied.

(Reporting by Fatos Bytyci; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

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