“Verbal agreement in Brussels, signing in Paris by March 15”: What is expected from the meeting between Kurti and Vučić?

The French-German proposal for resolving the Kosovo issue occupied the domestic media for months, and today it will be discussed in Brussels by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti together with EU envoys Josef Borelj and Miroslav Lajčak. Expectations from this meeting are different.

And while numerous analysts and politicians express hopes, but also fears, that this agreement will be signed today, the director of the Pristina “Institute for the Affirmation of Inter-Ethnic Relations” Fatmir Seholi tells Danas that only a “verbal acceptance” of the proposal will occur in Brussels.

• The annex to the document containing the time period and the implementation of international obligations, which also includes the ZSO, will most likely need some more time for the development of guidelines, mainly related to the ZSO. According to the information we have at the Institute for the Affirmation of Inter-Ethnic Relations, it is to be expected that the ceremony of signing the European document should be under the auspices of French President Macron, German Chancellor Scholz and US Secretary of State Blinken, most likely in Paris by March 15, says Seholi.

Milica Andrić Rakić from the “New Social Initiative”, an organization from Kosovska Mitrovica, believes that even the international representatives themselves are not sure what the outcome of today’s meeting will be.

Our interlocutor, when asked if the Serbian List is preparing Kosovo Serbs for what will happen in Brussels, says that apart from a few statements of unconditional support for President Vučić, there were no other visible activities of the Serbian List in the community.

• I think that even the mediators themselves are not sure of the outcome of today’s negotiations, and when it comes to familiarity with the process, the Serbian community in Kosovo and even the Serbian List are at the bottom of the information chain, so I doubt that they have a clear idea of ​​what will happen. happen today in Brussels, says Andrić Rakić.

Senad Šabović from the “European Institute for Peace” says that the general expectation in the international community is that today the parties will declare about the international proposal, that it may be signed, and that, he adds, start the implementation.

He evaluates the agreement as good, and adds that this kind of attention from the international community should not be missed, as well as that “if this train is missed, the door to instability and various forms of negative consequences in international circles will open”.

• As far as we can see from the media and the statements of international officials, today there is a framework agreement on the table and probably its implementation annex, and as far as we can see, it is quite clear that the ZSO is a very important part of that package. It is not about signing an agreement on the ZSO, it is about something much broader, but it is also clear that there is no agreement without the ZSO according to the existing Constitution of Kosovo. This is clearly and loudly emphasized in all international statements. The international community will not accept that someone’s attitude is positive if the ZSO is excluded from it, says Šabović when asked about allegations from the Kosovo opposition that Kurti will sign guarantees in Brussels about fulfilling this obligation from the Brussels Agreement.

In the past months, the public has been speculating what the “carrot and stick” would be, that is, the positive and negative consequences for both parties if they reject or accept the European proposal. Naim Leo Beširi from the “Institute for European Affairs” says that Kurti and Vučić are going to Brussels “to get a stick, not a carrot as the media in the region are speculating”, but that he hopes that the signing will take place.

• Vučić does not get recognition from ZSO or Kurti, but pressure to slowly bring the decade-long negotiations to an end. There is no more patience for leaders who keep their societies imprisoned in nationalist rhetoric bordered by corruption and organized crime. The signing of this, and then legally binding, agreement puts an end to what has been under negotiation for ten years. There is no negotiation for one second in which form Kosovo will be an integral part of Serbia, and their politicians part of the parliament in Belgrade, but only about a modality that is acceptable to Serbia to implicitly, rather than explicitly, recognize Kosovo’s de facto independence, says Beširi.

He adds that if the EU convinces the leaders that there is a solution that will not lead the ZSO to a slightly larger non-governmental organization, as well as, as he says, a blocking factor similar to Republika Srpska, the signing will be easier than it was at the beginning of the year.

• Nevertheless, history has shown that leaders in the region put their signature lightly, but when it comes to implementation, they invest a lot of energy to enforce it. Let’s just hope that the impatience to solve the relations between Belgrade and Pristina is at least as great as among the citizens of the once common country, says Beširi.

Slobodan Samardžić, full professor of the Faculty of Political Sciences and member of the presidency of the Movement for the Defense of Kosovo and Metohija, has a different point of view from Beširi, who stated in an interview for our newspaper that he is “afraid” that Aleksandar Vučić will sign the Franco-German proposal in Brussels. He himself considers the signing of the proposal “de iure” as the signing of the agreement, and when asked whether Pristina will suffer pressure to form the ZSO or Belgrade to accept the ZSO according to the Kosovo Constitution and not the Brussels Agreement, he says that “the ZSO is a concept of the Brussels Agreement and is already based on the Constitution and laws of Kosovo”. As for the specific elaboration of that, it was taken from Ahtisaari’s plan, says Samardžić.

For him, the ZSO itself is unacceptable because it represents, says Samardžić, local self-government in independent Kosovo.

Until now, both Serbian and Kosovo media have published different alleged versions of what will be presented to the officials of Belgrade and Pristina today in Brussels, and both sides have shown their red lines. For Belgrade, it is the recognition and seat of Kosovo in the UN, but also the formation of the ZSO before the signing of the new agreement, while on the other hand, the Prime Minister of Kosovo presented six conditions for the formation of the Union of Serbian Municipalities, which Belgrade and the West insist on, considering that it represents an unfulfilled obligation of Pristina. from the Brussels Agreement signed in 2013. Both Belgrade and Pristina officials accepted this proposal in principle, which enjoys the support of the United States of America.

The formation of the ZSO is also a condition for the return of Serbs from northern Kosovo to the Kosovo institutions, after they left them on November 5 last year.