Ten years since the signing of the Brussels Agreement: Map for staying in power, Serbs in the north still without ZSO

Now it can be seen that, after ten years, the Brussels process has returned to the beginning in a political sense. Once again, the Serbs are outside the institutions and are boycotting the elections, and they were returned to that again in 2013. The government in Belgrade got ten years, and although we essentially got a decade of real peace, the Serbs from the north did not get the Union of Serbian Municipalities and they were sent back to the beginning, he tells Danas journalist Milivoje Mihajlović, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the signing of the First Agreement on Principles Governing the Normalization of Relations between Belgrade and Pristina, better known as the Brussels Agreement.

The 15-point Brussels agreement was signed on April 19, 2013, after six months of talks and ten rounds of negotiations, by the then Prime Ministers of Serbia, Ivica Dacic, and Kosovo and Metohija, Hashim Thaci, as well as the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security, Catherine Ashton.

During the negotiations, Dacic was accompanied by the then First Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić.

In ten years, several sets of authorities were changed in Pristina, but the ZSO was not formed and it is still being discussed, while the power in Serbia remained firmly in the hands of the Vučić-Dacić duo, with Dacić being and remaining the weaker partner, whom Vučić, when answers, reminding that he signed the Agreement, while for a while it seems he took credit for it.

Asked what Dačić and Vučić got by accepting the agreement, Mihajlović replied that they strengthened the positions of their government in so-called Western circles and the international community.

• The Brussels agreement was a surprise, first of all, because it achieved the goals in an unusual way, which Pristina and the previous authorities had no sleep in achieving. It was essentially adopted in order to include the Serbian population from the north in the political life of the Republic of Kosovo according to the laws and the Constitution of the Republic of Kosovo – he points out.

As he reminds, the first six points of the Agreement refer to the ZSO, which was a pledge for the participation of Serbs in the elections at that time.

• We had a situation where those first elections were boycotted, but somehow with the help of the authorities in Serbia, i.e. several tens or hundreds of members of the Gendarmerie, the Serbs “participated” in the so-called elections. There were also scandals, ballot boxes were broken so that the elections would not be regular. At that time, the presence of the Gendarmerie in the north did not bother the authorities in Pristina either, because it was primarily a concession – describes Mihajlović.

As he adds, in that agreement there were points that provided for the inclusion of the police forces of the MUP of Serbia in Kosovo, in the Kosovo system.

• It was estimated that there were 1,200 members of the MUP in Kosovo and the police became involved in the Kosovo system, after that the judiciary became involved and in some way the north was incorporated into the Kosovo system under the company of obtaining the ZSO. The authorities in Pristina interpreted it as the expansion of the sovereignty of independent Kosovo in the north as well – he says.

According to him, in ten years we did not get ZSO, and the government in Belgrade had a decade of power before it.

• The Brussels agreement is the coin with which the government in Pristina got the police, judiciary, telephone number, energy sector and Gazivode. And ZSO was sold to Belgrade at least five or six times, and they never received it. That’s the problem at the moment. It is a serious policy in which political groups in both Pristina and Belgrade used the Brussels dialogue and the Agreement to stay in power, without much concern for the situation on the ground. The government in Pristina was changed for other reasons, and Hashim Thaci is in The Hague. While the government in Belgrade still has that coin called ZSO in hand – says Milivojević.

He indicates that it is not the same to form ZSO in 2013 and 2023.

• If it had been formed in 2013, ZSO could have grown into a serious political entity in Kosovo. Now it is completely different because the Serbs from the north have been forced into a corner and they do not have many institutions that can pull these people back – Mihajlović points out.

Asked whether the ZSO will still be formed, he says that the authorities in Belgrade insist on the ZSO, just as the authorities in Pristina insist that it not be formed.

• Or to be a surrogate that might resemble the Council of Serbian Municipalities in Croatia, which does not even have a symbolic role. This is a trivialization of the agreement and an attempt to achieve the full influence of the Kosovo authorities through the back door – he states.

Our interlocutor reminds that there has been a change on the field.

• After the last crises, we have six or seven police bases in the north, 16 cut roads between Serbian villages under the pretext of preventing smuggling in the north. And we have, in some parts quiet, in others aggressive repression by the Kosovo police forces against the Serbs living in the north. So, in addition to the political one, the problem of the Brussels Agreement also had a legal dimension, and now we also have a security dimension. On the other hand, we now also have the story that BS led to a Franco-German proposal that somehow suppressed it, even though it has some positions that remind BS and ZSO and which should again serve for some new concessions by the authorities in Belgrade – says Mihajlovic.

In his judgment, both agreements are vague and leave much room for improvisation and different interpretations.

When asked if the authorities in Belgrade are right to continue insisting on the ZSO according to the Brussels Agreement or if they had to look for a new form that would suit the moment, he says that there are several levels involved.

• First of all, about what kind of powers the ZSO will have. Then its composition, disposal of funds and whether Serbia will be able to finance Serbian communities, which could, if done cleanly, contribute to a significant improvement of the economic life and security of Serbs. This would keep the Serbian population in the north, because every incident causes people to migrate, and in areas where there are a lot of incidents, it is possible to start from a low point – Mihajlović believes.

As he adds, Prishtina will try to suspend any executive competences of the ZSO.

He predicts that we have a long period of negotiations ahead of us, which will end uncertainly, and the question is whether the ZSO will be formed and in what format.

• First of all, I think that the negotiating parties think about their own position and the government, and much less about the people on the ground – concludes Mihajlović.