Brussels, 2 July 2024
In today’s meetings at the level of chief negotiators, where the delegation of Kosovo was headed by the first Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Development and Dialogue, Besnik Bislimi, the formalization of the Basic Agreement was discussed, as the main and first element for the sequential implementation of the agreement together with the Ohrid annex, on the Sequencing Plan, the implementation of the Energy Agreement, about the lack of progress in the implementation of the Declaration on forcibly disappeared persons, as well as the implementation of a number of other agreements, including the IBM, as well as the one on visits of officials.
From the discussions, especially in the first two points, the fact already confirmed several times and publicly that Serbia refuses to accept the Basic Agreement as a whole and refuses to implement parts of it was again exposed.
The Serbian side refused to be involved in the discussion on agreeing the sequencing plan as well as reaching the formalization of the agreement, based on the guarantees requested at the leaders’ meeting last week. The discussion about the issue of missing persons exposed again that the Serbian side is sabotaging the process, constantly issuing new demands in order to block the process.
Meanwhile, delays in implementation by Serbia have been noted by Kosovo’s chief negotiator in the Energy Agreement.
Today’s meeting, which lasted more than 6 hours, started with bilateral meetings, while it ended with the trilateral one. The continuation of the process remains in the effort to find the way forward in reaching agreement on the formalization and sequencing plan for the full implementation of the Basic Agreement which the EU has declared as legally binding in its entirety and the implementation annex, which the starting point should be the formalization of the agreement between the parties.
Last modified: July 3, 2024