Kallas: Belgrade-Pristina Meeting Waits for New Government
The EU's top diplomat says both leaders promised a joint meeting mediated by Brussels, but it must wait for a new Serbian government after the October 25 election.
European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas said on Wednesday that a joint meeting of the Belgrade and Pristina leaders, mediated by the EU, will not take place until Serbia has a new government. She says both sides promised her the meeting, but circumstances in Kosovo got in the way, followed by the parliamentary election in Serbia on October 25.
Kallas spoke at a European Commission press conference on November 4, where the annual enlargement report package was presented. She appeared alongside Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos. Reporters asked Kallas when a high-level meeting between Belgrade and Pristina could be expected.
What did Kallas say about the promised meeting?
She began by recalling what has already been done. “I have had many high-level meetings, both with Kosovo and with Serbia,” Kallas said, according to a translation by the portal KoSSev. She says the leaders of both sides promised to sit down at the same table with her. Preparations for the meeting were already under way, because the EU has a special representative for the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, who by her account is working hard on it.
She then named two obstacles. The first is Kosovo. “For a year we actually did not have a functioning government and established institutions,” Kallas explained, and that, she says, made it harder to organize a trilateral meeting. The second obstacle is the election in Serbia.
“Now we have had elections in Serbia. We have to wait and see the formation of the government.”
That gives a condition but no date. None of the statements carried by the sources mentions a time for the meeting. Kallas added that she remains ready to work with both sides. “I can assure you that I am ready to engage and that I will do so,” she said, and she described progress in the dialogue this way: “It is necessary for both sides to move forward on the path of enlargement.”
Is Vucic’s defeat the reason for the wait?
Two sources report this slightly differently from KoSSev. Anadolu and Radio Kosovska Mitrovica Sever, which cites the Pristina daily Koha, report that the wait for a new government in Belgrade is also explained by President Aleksandar Vucic having suffered a defeat in the election. That is not a verbatim quote from Kallas but those outlets’ own account. KoSSev, which also carried her answer from the same press conference, does not offer that assessment.
What did Marta Kos say about Kosovo?
Commissioner Kos was answering a question about Kosovo’s application for EU membership, submitted in December 2022. Kosovo, according to Anadolu, is the only Western Balkan country without candidate status. The next step is the agreement of all 27 member states for the Commission to prepare an opinion on the application.
“We are ready for that. But to convince the member states, Kosovo needs stable institutions, which it currently has, as well as progress in reforms,” Kos said, according to Anadolu.
She also warned about the law on the Specialist Chambers, which Anadolu calls the Law on the Special Court. “Amendments to the Law on the Special Court could jeopardize the progress made so far,” Kos said, adding that the changes are already being discussed with the authorities in Pristina.
The background to that warning is the first-instance verdict of the Specialist Chambers in The Hague on September 16: Hashim Thaci and Jakup Krasniqi were sentenced to 25 years in prison each, Kadri Veseli to 18, and Rexhep Selimi to 13. On October 6, the Kosovo Assembly adopted amendments to the law with 88 votes in favor and none against, which among other things cap the maximum sentence at 15 years. President Justina Siroka-Pulja sent the law back to lawmakers for reconsideration on October 22. The deadline for notices of appeal against the verdict was extended to November 27.
In the enlargement package presented the same day, the Commission assesses, according to KoSSev, that Kosovo’s European reform process has stagnated because of a prolonged institutional crisis.
