"Changing format would disturb Belgrade-Pristina dialogue"
EU officials feel that a move to change the format of the Belgrade-Pristina talks wouldn't expedite a deal to normalize relations between Serbia and Kosovo.
Tuesday, 03.07.2018.
09:16
"Changing format would disturb Belgrade-Pristina dialogue"
Instead of the substance of the talks, the negotiators will have to deal with who should be involved, at least for a while, they have cautioned.Beta has learned this from European Commission sources privy to the talks, who underlined that it was precisely at the latest meeting in Brussels between the Serbian and Kosovo presidents, Aleksandar Vucic and Hashim Thaci, that an agreement had been reached to step up the effort to make a legally binding comprehensive agreement to arrange the Belgrade-Pristina relationship.
The officials in Brussels said that it's also necessary to implement the agreements that were reached earlier, about the Community of Serbian Municipalities, as well as other matters, including energy.
They underlined that only if the pace at which those open issues were resolved was quickened, the principle of "communicating vessels" would apply, and the talks to produce a comprehensive agreement would move forward.
Both sides are working on it, as well as the European External Action Service (EEAS) mediating team, including Angelina Eichhorst, traveling and maintaining contacts with the authorities in Belgrade and Pristina. She did it before, and her trips are not part of "circular diplomacy," but rather regular, now a little quicker, contacts with the negotiators.
The EU sources say it's not impossible to have another round of talks by the end of the month.
Answering a remark that Washington is visibly in favour of a speedier dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina and a quicker final solution, whereas the authorities in Pristina insist that the US should have a direct role in the dialogue, the EEAS sources say that the Americans have been directly involved all the time.
The EU diplomats have said to Beta that it's useless to change the format of the talks now, because the momentum will be lost.
If the Americans get involved directly, Belgrade will insist that the Russians join in, too, and "the permanent direct involvement, and even an impact by the Americans on the talks have been useful and necessary before, because Washington has a much stronger power of persuasion on the authorities in Pristina than the EU."
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