Negotiations between Pristina and Belgrade were concluded on Monday. The EU’s High Representative, Federica Mogherini, failed to lead the parties to an agreement on most key issues.
There were four main items on the negotiating agenda. The Serbian minority self-rule, which Serbia envisages through enhanced autonomy in a local government framework; cooperation in telecommunications, mainly the consent of Belgrade in Kosovo being granted an international phone code; electricity, mainly the future of the artificial lake Gazivode that is now under Serbia’s control and supplies most of the water and – through hydroelectric generators – base electricity for Pristina; and the “peace park” that the Serbian minority has placed in the middle of the bridge dividing the town of Mitrovica in two sectors – Serbian and Albanian – making the passage of vehicles from one side to the other impossible.
Mogherini said “progress” had been made on the Serbian minority’s self-rule in Kosovo and on telecommunications. This is not confirmed by the engaged parties. Serbia’s Prime Minister, Aleksandar Vucic, said the two delegations said that Pristina would not consent to local Serbian authorities having “even the powers that municipalities already have in Kosovo, which are the powers over urban planning, health and economic development.” Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Isa Mustafa, said he was unable to accept Serbian demands for “executive powers.”
The Serbian and Kosovo Prime Ministers concurred that some progress had been made in the field of telecommunications, which entails that calling codes toward central Serbia will not be billed as international by Telecom Serbia. Still, no agreement was pronounced because the EU was to bundle the four issues into a single package.
Serbia was hoping that the first chapters in its negotiations with the EU would open by the end of 2015, which Brussels insists is a process that goes hand-in-hand with negotiations for the Kosovo status. In a press conference in Berlin, on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel affirmed that “it’s time to achieve compromise,” and warned that “only if here is progress, there will be also be progress in their moving (Belgrade, Pristina) closer to the European Union.”
Meanwhile, according to a USAID sponsored poll conducted 10-20 June, 50% of Serbians down from 66% in 2013 and 62% in 2011. 73% are against NATO membership.
