Serbia, Kosovo leaders to meet as EU-backed talks resume
BRUSSELS (AP) — The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo will hold talks in Brussels on July 12, the first meeting between the two in long-stalled European Union-supervised negotiations aimed at normalizing relations, European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said Monday.
Sunday’s meeting between Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, which will be the first in this format since November 2018, will be hosted by EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will also hold virtual preparatory talks with the three on Friday.
It “will resume the discussions and the work on reaching a comprehensive and legally binding agreement on the normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo, dealing with all outstanding issues,” Stano told reporters.
Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a move Serbia has not recognized. The United States and the European Union have been working to help normalize ties between the two countries.
The EU and the U.S. officially have the same goal — resolving one of the last major standoffs in the Balkans after the 1998-1999 war and a NATO intervention to stop a bloody Serb crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists.
Still, Sunday’s meeting comes after a U.S. effort to get the sides talking, which was not coordinated with the Europeans and raised eyebrows in Brussels. That effort appeared to founder when Hoti canceled his trip to Washington after Kosovo’s president, Hashim Thaci, was indicted for alleged war crimes.
Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia remain high. The EU-facilitated negotiations started in March 2011 and have produced some 30 agreements, but most of them have not been observed. Some EU member states themselves have not recognized Kosovo’s independence.
Hoti and Vucic will also hold separate talks with Macron in France on Tuesday and Thursday respectively.
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John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.