The long awaited technical negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina about the Association /Community of Serbian municipalities (ZSO) in Kosovo and Metohija should begin in Brussels today, with the discussions on the draft of the ZSO.
In Belgrade’s negotiating team, led by head of the Serbian government’s Office for Kosovo and Metohija Marko Djuric will be, among others, the mayor of Gracanica, Vladeta Kostic, while Pristina’s negotiators should be led by a minister without portfolio Edita Tahiri. Kosovo Minister of Local Government Administration Ljubomir Maric is going to Brussels at the invitation of the EU, as the head of the management team for the establishment of the ZSO.
Almost nothing is known about the draft of ZSO, as well as about the platform for Kosovo of Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic. The speculations are that actually they don’t exist. Belgrade claim that according to the Agreement on the implementation of the Brussels treaty, only management team for the establishment of the ZSO is competent for it, adding that document is kept secret due to strategic reasons.
Diplomatic circles speculate that the Brussels could suggest its version of the draft ZSO, but do not exclude the possibility that Pristina could also appear with its proposal, although draft was ‘blessed’ by the Kosovo Ministry of Local Government Administration in 2013. Belgrade hopes that there will be no surprises with Pristina, which already postponed negotiations on the ZSO statute planned for May 12.
Opening a technical dialogue on ZSO coincided not only with the delicate political discussion on the Special Court, but also with the tensions on the ground after the recent killing of ANA members from Kosovo, in the conflict with the Macedonian police in Kumanovo.
