Kosovo–Serbia Dialogue: Windows of Opportunity or a House of Cards? 27 pages, pdf  Download Back

KOSOVO–SERBIA DIALOGUE:
Windows of Opportunity or a House of Cards?
 Policy Analysis Number 03/2013

Publisher: Group for Legal and Political Studies (GLPS), Kosovo

Date: March 2013

Volume: 27 pages, pdf


Description

Initially, the EU-mediated Kosovo–Serbia dialogue was labelled as ‘technical’ because of insistence on the part of the Kosovo government that there are to be no political discussions with Serbia, and that ‘political dialogue is not on the table’ in Prishtina, Brussels and Washington. This position has changed with time, reflecting the content of the dialogue, which, in reality, was entirely political since its inception. From the outset of the EU-facilitated dialogue, the Kosovo government has also insisted that ‘internal state issues’ will not be negotiated and discussed with Serbia; this was especially underlined in relation to the Northern part of Kosovo. This also was proven to be untrue. Declared aims of ‘technical’ dialogue were ‘to remove obstacles that have a negative impact on people’s daily lives, to improve cooperation, and to achieve progress on the path to Europe’. The first ‘technical’ dialogue meeting took place in March, 2011, with a meeting between Deputy Prime Minister of Kosovo Edita Tahiri and the then-Director of Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Serbia, Borko Stefanovic. Tahiri and Stefanovic continued to meet as leaders of respective delegations in the talks, which, thus far, has produced several agreements: on the return of civil registries and cadastre records, on the freedom of movement of persons and cars, on the mutual recognition of diplomas, on customs stamps, and on the integrated management of the ‘border/boundary’ crossings, as well as on Regional Cooperation. Some agreements were severely criticised by the opposition and civil society in Kosovo, and even caused public unrest. This was especially the case with the agreement on Regional Cooperation, under which Kosovo was to be represented in regional forums with an asterisk and a footnote reading, ‘This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSC 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence’.