Serbia's Prime Minister has given a cool response to leaks of the President's platform on Kosovo, which has not been revealed in entirety but, according to the daily newspaper Politika, TV B92 and some other media, offers Kosovo only the status of a province within Serbia.

The offer is clearly unacceptable to Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008, as well as to the many Western countries, including the US, which recognised it as an independent country years ago.

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Thursday was restrained about the initiative but queried how realistic it was.

“It is very extensive and serious text. When we see how realistic it is and can it be put into practice, we will go out with it in public,” he said in Belgrade.

“We’ll talk about it in the state leadership. Everyone needs first to become acquainted with the text, prominent intellectuals, public figures, lawyers...”, Vucic added.

Milan Nikolic, a political analyst, said the goal of the platform was mainly to strengthen the profile of the President ahead of elections for a new term in 2017.

When he took up office as President of Serbia in 2012, Nikolic stepped down from his post as head of Serbian Progressive Party and handed the position Vucic. “The president would like his role to be empowered in future,” Nikolic said.

Possible changes to the constitutional that have been mentioned in the media recently include reducing the number of members of parliament, changing the law on referendums, a new electoral system and, most controversially of all, removing the article from the constitution that names Kosovo as part of Serbia and so prevents recognition by Serbia of Kosovo as an independent state.

Dusan Janjic, from the Forum for Ethnic Relations, a think tank, said the President’s Kosovo platform would complicate Serbia’s path to eventual European Union membership because the offer of provincial status is irreconcilable with EU demands for a continuation of the dialogue on normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

As an EU candidate country, to start the EU accession negotiations, Serbia is obliged to implement all deals already reached with Pristina during the EU-mediated talks.

Janjic said the government and the Prime Minister needed to immediately form a broader coalition if they want reforms to continue.

“Once we read the platform, everyone will see clearly that Nikolic offers no alternative… he does not want to solve the problem of Kosovo but wants only to overturn the Vucic government, meet the needs of Russia and stop Serbia’s Euro-Atlantic integration,” Janjic claimed.

The dialogue in Brussels between Kosovo and Serbia began in March 2011. In April 2013 the two sides signed the Agreement for the Normalisation of Relations, known as the Brussels Agreement. However, just a few of the deals reached have so far been implemented.