"Serbia will not recognize Kosovo in order to join EU" (Tanjug, B92)
"We want to reach agreement, we want a just and lasting solution, but to have to recognize unilateral acts - never, not even at the cost of failing to join the European Union.
"We want to reach agreement, we want a just and lasting solution, but to have to recognize unilateral acts - never, not even at the cost of failing to join the European Union.
We are working very closely with the United States in the Western Balkans, Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for the European Union, told b92.net on Tuesday.
According to her, this also applies to "the question of (Belgrade-Pristina) dialogue on the normalization of relations."
Minister of EU Integration Jadranka Joksimovic says Serbia "will not be conditioned by recognizing Kosovo in order to become a member of the EU."
Reacting to President Aleksandar Vucic's statement that the EU will ask Serbia to sign a legally binding document on normalization of relations between Belgrade and Pristina, Joksimovic said that this does not mean recognizing Kosovo.
The EU "will not allow Serbia to become a full member without a legally binding document at the end of the process of normalizing relations with Pristina," Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told Tanjug.
Stalemate in the Brussels dialogue lasts for four and a half months now, TV N1 reported last night. There are no official information neither from Brussels nor from Belgrade or Pristina when the next meeting could take place.
World power centers have overplayed their hand when they thought it was possible to redraw borders in the Balkans since it is not a part of the EU.
During the today’s meeting of the government, Kosovo’s Minister for European Integration, Dhurata Hoxha spoke about the European agenda for 2018.
“As far as the future steps are concerned, the government will open next week in Brussels a new discourse on reforms, where we will request Kosovo’s advancement on integration process,” Hoxha said.
The announcement of the government that demarcation of the border with Montenegro might end up at the Permanent Court of Arbitration, has not shaken the position of the European Commission. Officials of the EU institutions who assesses fulfillment of the criteria for visa liberalization, mentioned the two remaining criteria as inseparable.
Recent statements made by US State Department official Brian Hoyt Yee are "his views, that have not been not harmonized with the EU".
This is what EU sources in Brussels told Beta on Tuesday.
Yee was in Belgrade in late October when he said that that Serbia will not progress on its path toward the EU unless it gives up its ties with Russia.