Brussels, 25 April 2024
During today, the next meetings were held within the dialogue process, at the level of chief negotiators, where the Republic of Kosovo was represented by the first deputy prime minister for European Integration, Development and Dialogue, Besnik Bislimi. After the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Bislimi gave a statement to the media.
Below, the complete statement:
Today’s meeting, unlike other meetings, has been much more concrete, where the parties have discussed item by item about the ideas presented by Mr. Lajçak two weeks earlier. We have hoped that this concrete discussion will be useful as it will help us to bring our positions closer. Unfortunately, we have heard some pretty worrying statements from the side of Serbia, which have actually caused the positions to move away instead of getting closer.
For example, today for the first time we have seen openly documented by Serbia how they see the process of creating the association, while for the international community and Kosovo, the association is understood as a mechanism that helps municipalities with a Serbian majority to coordinate the exercise of certain actions of them, Serbia today showed that it sees it as a mechanism for legitimizing the presence of Serbia’s illegal structures in Kosovo. Also, the old game continued with tendencies to provide methods through which they would receive guarantees for the licensing of illegal institutions such as “Postanska Banka” in Kosovo. Seeing that the positions are not getting closer, after several hours of talks, Lajçak, respecting the red lines of the parties, has come up with a new proposal, which more or less should be the last proposal that comes out from Mr. Lajçak and in which we have to give our comments during the following days.
I can say that the proposal of Mr. Lajçak is an alignment or a tendency to align positions, it goes in the right direction, but it requires time from both parties to analyze the elements within it, whether it is legal implications or similar.
You mentioned the association, has it been discussed in general or just this issue related to payments?
No, but one of the problems that has been discussed in the past weeks is how to enable further financing of schools and ambulances that operate in the four municipalities in the north and in other municipalities, but today the Serbian side has requested that any structure be financed parallel of Serbia, but without wanting to show what these parallel structures are that they want to finance, and their idea was that these should be financed until the association is established and then they pass to the powers of the association. Of course, his proposal did not meet the understanding of Mr. Lajçak and not even ours.
Lajçak’s last proposal before this one for the Kosovar side was acceptable, you called it consolidated…
No, not acceptable, we have said it is a constructive proposal that goes in the right direction.
Now, if Lajçak aligns the red lines of both sides, does it matter that he is more modified and aligns the positions?
Let’s just say that today’s proposal is more detailed than last week’s proposal and better clarifies some of the points and observations we have in his initial ideas.
Is this also a constructive proposal?
I think it is a good effort of Mr. Lajçak to find a solution. Like the Kosovar side, Lajçak’s main concern is how the individuals who have been affected by the CBK’s decision or the CBK’s regulation can continue to receive financial support, while Serbia, even today, has been concerned about how parallel institutions of Serbia in Kosovo should be licensed.
Should you meet again to discuss the same topic?
We have taken the commitment that in a period of one week we will send our suggestions or concerns for the last proposal and then Mr. Lajçak will try to arrange a meeting, let’s say at the end of the second week of May.
Last modified: April 26, 2024