BELGRADE – Belgrade and Pristina will discuss integrated border management on Thursday, and head of the Serbian government office for Kosovo Marko Djuric will hold on Friday informal consultations with EU officials about the future of the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, that is about the issues that are not significant to Chapter 35 of Serbia’s accession talks with the EU.
The talks on Thursday will focus on things from the Brussels agreement that have not been implemented, but can be addressed before Kosovo forms a new government, Djuric told Tanjug.
Serbia will try to do everything that is left for it to do according to the Brussels agreement before Kosovo forms the next government, he pointed out.
That means it is necessary to reach the final agreement on energy and telecommunications, which would make the Serbian community in Kosovo self-sustainable, he explained, adding that it also inculded lasting guarantees that phone traffic between Serbia and Kosovo would be conducted according to internal prices, and that Telekom Srbija would be able to operate again in areas where it had been lacking coverage for a long time.
“There are many things we can do to help bring relations back to normal while not being dependent on the top-level political talks,” Djuric stated.
In accordance with this decision, the Serbian government has encouraged the national Chamber of Commerce to contact business organisations and chambers of commerce in Kosovo, and there is also the desire to bring railroad traffic back to normal.
The talks between the chambers of commerce should help make Serbia’s economic results in its relations with Kosovo far better than they currently are, he remarked.
„Serbia sells about EUR 400 million worth of merchandise in Kosovo every year, and most of those goods are bought by the Kosovo Albanians. We want that percentage to be even higher. We want trade to be unimpeded in both directions,” Djuric said.
