BELGRADE – Former MEPs Eduard Kukan and Knut Fleckenstein are coming to Serbia on Thursday, according to the announcement of European Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs’s (AFET) Chairman David McAllister, to provide their experience and expertise on resolving political crises in the Western Balkans at the disposal to Serbian government and opposition.
As European Western Balkans finds out, meetings with Serbian politicians will be held on Thursday and Friday behind closed doors, after which there will be no official press statements.
Eduard Kukan (EPP, Slovakia) and Knut Fleckenstein (S&D, Germany), together with Ivo Vajgl (ALDE, Slovenia), made up the “troika” of the European Parliament, which played a key role four years ago in concluding the Pržino Agreement between the biggest parties in Macedonia.
This led to the 2016 parliamentary elections in which all the actors participated.
Initially, a member of this team was MEP Richard Howitt from the United Kingdom, who was replaced by Fleckenstein after the Brexit referendum. This German MEP also played a significant role in mediating between the government and the opposition in Albania, where he was the Rapporteur of the European Parliament.
This was the troika who was referred by Sergej Trifunović, President of the Free Citizens Movement (PSG), in an open letter sent to McAllister two days ago, who asked that similar practice be implemented in Serbia.