• Western Balkans Leaders Voice Frustration over EU Summit Failure (BIRN)
• Borrell: There might be a high-level meeting in late June (Zeri)
• Palokaj: Visa liberalization in autumn or by the end of the year (Koha)
• Bajrami: Long but eventful and ultimately very good day (media)
• “Kosovo should apply for EU candidate status this year” (Koha)
• Bislimi: Next week we’ll decide how to address issue of license plates (media)
• Explosive device thrown at “Elektrokosmet” facility in the north (Kosovapress)
• Serbia’s Lone Albanian MP Fights Fourth Time for Seat (BIRN)

Western Balkans Leaders Voice Frustration over EU Summit Failure (BIRN)

Three Western Balkans leaders expressed displease over the poor outcome of the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday.

The three stressed the lack of a breakthrough in the Bulgarian blockade of North Macedonia’s and Albania’s accession bids, while EU countries gave purely verbal support to Kosovo on visa liberalisation and show apparent disunity on granting Bosnia and Herzegovina candidate status.

At a joint press conference, North Macedonia’s PM Dimitar Kovacevski, Albania’s PM Edi Rama and Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, expressed their joint frustration with the blocked state of EU enlargement.

Thanking the French presidency and French President Macron for their efforts, North Macedonia’s Kovacevski said the so-called French proposal for a breakthrough in the Bulgarian blockade of his country was unacceptable as it stands.

“All … 27 countries that joined the Union, [did so] proudly, with all the differences they brought, and with full respect for their own and others cultural, ethnic, linguistic and historic differences,” he said.

“None of this was problematized on their EU path. That is what we also wish for. Nothing more and nothing less; respect for the linguistic, ethnic, cultural and historic identity of my people.”

Kovacevski added that for the French proposal to work, among other things, North Macedonia must get guarantees about the Macedonian identity and language, and that Bulgaria will not set even more conditions during the EU negotiations.

“North Macedonia has been a candidate member for almost 18 years. We signed the Stabilisation and Association Agreement exactly 21 years ago. In March 2020, the European Council made a decision for unconditional start of negotiations. But here we are today and the [membership] negotiations have not started yet,” he said.

“I will be straightforward. What has happened now is a serious problem and serious blow to the credibility of the EU. We are wasting precious time, which we do not have at our disposal,” Kovacevski added.

Slating the EU’s failure to deliver on its promise to integrate the region, Albanian PM Edi Rama said that he felt deeply sorry for the EU’s divisions.

“I told them that it is both good and bad to be here. It is good because we are here among Europeans, but it is bad because we are still not heard here as Europeans, but as guests in a divided house,” Rama told a joint press conference after the summit.

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Borrell: There might be a high-level meeting in late June (Zeri)

EU High Representative for Foreign Policy and Security, Josep Borrell, said on Thursday that an important step was made by Kosovo and Serbia when they agreed on the implementation of the roadmap for the energy agreement. Borrell told reporters in Brussels that a meeting between Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic could take place in late June.

Palokaj: Visa liberalization in autumn or by the end of the year (Koha)

Brussels-based correspondent, Augustin Palokaj, said on Thursday that the EU Summit in Brussels is the most positive meeting he has seen so far in terms of visa liberalization for Kosovo and that Kosovo is expected to get visa liberalization during the presidency of the Czech Republic in the second half of this year. “This is probably the first time that we are hearing so many voices in favor of visa liberalization and no voices against it … Both Netherlands and France have expressed readiness to move forward, and these have been the most skeptical states in the past,” Palokaj said.

Bajrami: Long but eventful and ultimately very good day (media)

Kosovo’s Ambassador to Belgium, Agron Bajrami, said on Thursday that Kosovo has provided all arguments necessary for the visa liberalization. “Thursday with @VjosaOsmaniPRKS at #EU - #WB leaders meeting, at @EUCouncil. It was a long, but eventful and ultimately very good day:  #Kosovo has provided all arguments necessary. We now rest our case. And wait for EU verdict. #VisaLiberalisation,” Bajrami wrote on a Twitter post.

“Kosovo should apply for EU candidate status this year” (Koha)

Florian Bieber, expert on Balkans issues, told KTV on Thursday that Kosovo should apply for the candidate status for the European Union this year and that each country should be given the status so that they can start the membership negotiations as soon as possible. According to Bieber, “there is no political will for this in the EU, but we must look for other solutions. The EU needs to reform itself and have less fear from the enlargement process. The veto powers during the process of enlargement must also be eliminated,” he said.

Bieber also said that the failure to give visa liberalization to Kosovo “is one of the shames of the European Union”. “The blockade to visa liberalization does not come from Brussels or EU, but from individual member states and from the Interior Ministries of these states … I don’t think this is related to the dialogue with Serbia. It is based on stereotypes about an alleged threat of migration by Kosovo Albanians and stereotypes about organized crime, and these are keeping the process pending,” he added.

Bislimi: Next week we’ll decide how to address issue of license plates (media)

Kosovo’s Principal Deputy Prime Minister, Besnik Bislimi, said on Thursday that the government will issue a decision next week on Serbian license plates and KM license plates. “We introduced reciprocity on the license plates in 2021, and as a result there were great tensions, and this then led to the agreement on September 30. This agreement gave us 180 days to reach a permanent agreement. Serbia has failed to move toward a permanent agreement, and this paves the way for us to come out with our own plan,” Bislimi said in a debate on TV Dukagjini.

Bislimi said he does not see room to establish the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities. “We are for the maximal protection and promotion of minority rights,” he argued, adding that he cannot say that the Association cannot be formed “because we are then seen as a blocking party in the dialogue”.

Explosive device thrown at “Elektrokosmet” facility in the north (Kosovapress)

An explosive device was thrown at the “Elektrokosmet” facility in north Mitrovica on Thursday evening causing material damage, the news website reports citing unnamed sources. “It is believed that the explosive device was thrown by one or more persons and is related to the energy agreement that Prishtina and Belgrade reached recently in Brussels. As a result of the explosion, most of the city was left without electricity until early this morning,” the source said.

Serbia’s Lone Albanian MP Fights Fourth Time for Seat (BIRN)

On Thursday, Shaip Kamberi will find out whether he can finally reclaim his seat in parliament after a fourth election repeat vote in the village of Veliki Trnovac.

Mustafa Salihi’s hopes of finding a job faded away long time ago. The 55-year-old from Veliki Trnovac, an ethnic Albanian village in southern Serbia, says none of his eight family members has a job.

People’s hopes of work lie abroad, where they try to find ways to emigrate.

“Everyone likes to stay in his own place, his home, but here people do not see any prospects,” Salihi says.

Sitting in the village café in front of the community office, Salihi says the large ethnic Albanian diaspora keeps life in the village ticking, thanks to their remittances.

In the village, he says only cafés and other small businesses concentrated alongside the long narrow main street offer jobs – for the lucky few. The luckiest of all have family ties with the owners. “Here, we barely survive,” he says.

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