Former EU envoy for Kosovo and one-time international high representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina Wolfgang Petritsch warned in Tirana Wednesday that missing the present opportunity to solve the Kosovo issue could lead to a frozen conflict in Europe.

Talk of "border correction" by Serbia's president Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo's Hashim Thaci is a distraction from what is really going on behind the scenes - blackmail of the EU for political and personal reasons.

The border idea - for Pristina to give north Kosovo (an ethnic Serb enclave) to Belgrade, in return for the Presevo Valley (an Albanian enclave in Serbia) - was first floated by Vucic (although in different terms) last year.

See at: https://euobserver.com/foreign/143000

Serbian Minister without portfolio Nenad Popovic said on Tuesday that the time is right to take the Kosovo issue back to the United Nations after the European Union failed in its moderation efforts, Serbian media reported.

“The EU has failed as moderator in the negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina and now is the right moment to return the Kosovo issue back where it belongs – the UN,” Popovic said in Moscow. He is part of the delegation that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has brought with him to the Russian capital.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has commented from Moscow on the outcome of the referendum in Macedonia, and stressed that Europe must act more responsibly.

"It's not my place to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign country... I'm afraid and it seems to me that some people from abroad underestimate us Balkan nations and think that they can do anything," Vucic said, adding:

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic assessed the event on the Gazivode lake as a provocation that represents continuation of everything that took place over the last couple of months, Serbian media reported on Sunday.

Commenting on Kosovo President Hashim Thaci visit to Gazivode lake, escorted by Kosovo special police members, Dacic told Prva TV, “he does not believe that Thaci had tourism desire.”

Dacic added “that such situation destroys hardly achieved stability.”

The solution to the Kosovo issue, which implies change of borders, is possible only if the EU and the UNSC agree on it, beside Belgrade and Pristina.

This has been stated by David McAllister, the rapporteur for Serbia in the European Parliament.

When asked by Tanjug about the position regarding a possible border correction as part of the solution to the Kosovo issue, he said that the EU was "aware of the possibility of exchanging territories and moving borders."

Members of the Serbian List held a meeting with representatives of the Council of Europe in charge of the Western Balkans region (COWEB), TV Most reported.

At the meeting, they discussed problems Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija face, relating primarily to the recent attacks on their properties throughout Kosovo, as well as disrespect of the right to property and return of displaced persons.

European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini and the Western Balkans leaders discussed the situation in the region and its European integrations, in New York yesterday, TV N1 reports.

In an informal meeting, on the sidelines of the 73rd UN General Assembly session, they talked about the situation in the region, regional cooperation and the EU integration of the Western Balkan countries, Mogherini's spokesperson, Maja Kocijancic wrote on Twitter.

Thomas Schieb, German ambassador to Serbia, said that the future of the Western Balkans is in the European Union, reiterating the bloc's general stand that the entry would be based on merits, TV N1 reported.

Schieb was addressing a two-day regional conference “Western Balkans 2030 - visions, wishes, reality,” opened in Belgrade on Wednesday.

"Change of borders" in Kosovo "cannot be free of violence," states a confidential report prepared by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

Pristina-based Koha Ditore is reporting this, noting that it had seen the three-page report authored by Chairman of Bundestag Foreign Affairs Committee Norbert Roettegen, and Robert Cooper, former supervisor in the technical level dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade.

According to this, the document was prepared based on "discussions with several European ambassadors in Pristina."