The European Union’s attempt to breathe new life into stalled negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo has collapsed after the Serbian president and Kosovo prime minister failed to meet as planned.
The meeting, which was due to take place almost a year after the two leaders last met, came after repeated failed negotiations.
Both Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti met separately with EU representatives, but according to EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell, there was no progress in implementing the agreement and no trilateral meeting.
Talks between Serbia and Kosovo aimed at reaching a major agreement that would pave the way for the normalisation of relations broke down last year.
During a summit in North Macedonia in March, Vucic refused to sign the EU- and US-backed Ohrid Agreement, citing pain in his right hand that would “probably last for years”.
Diplomats continued to call for its implementation, but the unsigned agreement was not implemented by either side.
Borrell said the EU “will continue to put all its efforts and capacities behind the normalisation of relations between Kosovo and Serbia”.
Borrell said those efforts would continue next week when he hosts the two negotiators in Brussels.
Vucic blamed Kurti for the lack of talks, saying his Kosovar counterpart “did not dare to meet”.
Kurti countered that he had set conditions for talks with Vucic, including the surrender of Milan Radoicic, the former vice-president of Kosovo’s leading Serb party, who confessed to leading a commando team that ambushed a Kosovo police patrol in September last year.
As last year’s talks collapsed, riots broke out in Serb-majority areas of northern Kosovo.
Tensions escalated further after Pristina made the euro the only legal currency in its territory in February, effectively banning the use of the Serbian dinar.
This put pressure on Serbia’s ability to continue funding a parallel health, education and social security system for Kosovo Serbs.
Kurti defended the move as a means of stemming the flow of large sums of money from Serbia into Kosovo and bringing organised crime groups to heel.
