In a move aimed at kick-starting the stalled Belgrade-Pristina dialogue, the US’ Special Presidential Envoy, Ambassador Richard Grenell, wound up his impromptu visit to Pristina and Belgrade with a simple message from President Donald J. Trump: “The people of Serbia and Kosovo want peace, economic development, jobs, and a better life for their children.”
See at: https://bit.ly/32ioo4U
A generation after the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia and weeks following President Trump‘s withdrawal from nation-building ambitions, a Californian Congressman apparently plans to single-handily introduce border changes in the Balkans.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/californian-senator-plans-redraw-balkan-borders/
By Hashim Thaci,
President of Kosovo
Kosovo has been in a visa liberalisation dialogue with the EU for nearly five years now, and has been working towards this goal for much longer than that. Its neighbours in the region have all but forgotten what they went through over six years ago, by now so used to this basic freedom. Is Kosovo so different from its neighbours? High-level European Commission officials said a year and a half ago that Kosovo is to ‘walk the last mile’ toward visa-free status. One is left to wonder, how long is that last mile?
Kosovo’s parliament voted last Friday to nationalize a huge mining complex, Trepca, and save it from bankruptcy; bankruptcy proceedings would have otherwise begun on November 1st.
Economic crisis turns political
Creditors have claims against Trepca to the tune of €1,4bn. That is more than 20% of Kosovo’s GDP. However, the mining complex is one of the biggest employers in Kosovo, which suffers from 32% unemployment.
The European Parliament urged the lifting of visas restrictions for three EU neighbouring countries, Ukraine, Georgia and Kosovo. There were three separate votes, one for each country, and the Foreign Affairs MEP voted in favour of visas liberalisation in all the three cases. This will be a great step to foster cooperation and exchange between countries in the Western Balkan and Eastern Europe.
The Dutch government announced on Friday that a special tribunal in The Hague will try crimes allegedly committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) against the Serbian minority. The tribunal will be known as the Kosovo Relocated Specialist Judicial Institution, in which international judges will apply Kosovo law. Proceedings will be funded by the EU. Cooperation with the tribunal will be a condition for Kosovo’s negotiations for any further EU integration talks and those convicted will be jailed in Kosovo.
A Court in Göttingen decided that two Roma families must return to Kosovo, as they failed to integrate into the German society
-Read more at: http://neurope.eu/article/roma-families-living-in-germany-for-many-years-may-return-to-kosovo/
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.