BRUSSELS – In a joint statement released today, President of France Emmanuel Macron, Chancellor of Germany Olaf Scholz, and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, called Kosovo to launch the procedure to establish the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities as prescribed in the new draft European Statute, and on Serbia to deliver on de-facto recognition.
The statement was released today, following the separate meetings three leaders held with President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and Prime Minister of Kosovo Albin Kurti, on the sidelines of the European Council summit in Brussels.
“We welcome the engagement of the two Parties in the discussions yesterday in Brussels. We take good note of the comments made by the two leaders of Kosovo and Serbia to the European Statute for the establishment of the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo and their expressed readiness to implement. The draft statute we presented and fully endorse encompasses a modern European way to address the sensitive issue of minority protection in line with best European practices and standards, within the parameters defined by Parties”, the statement reads.
The Statute was presented to Kurti and Vučić by envoys of the United States, EU, Germany, France and Itlay on 21 October.
The leaders, therefore, once again underlined their expectation for the Parties to deliver on their commitments to implement the Agreement on the Path to Normalisation.
“The implementation phase should progress with both Parties delivering on their respective obligations in parallel in a step-by-step manner based on the principle that both Parties need to do something to get something. The focus should now be on advancing on the full implementation of the Agreement without preconditions or delays”, the leaders stated.
“In order to make quick progress in the implementation, we call on Kosovo to launch the procedure to establish the Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities in Kosovo as prescribed in the draft Statute, and on Serbia to deliver on de-facto recognition. Formalities, including related to adoption, should not stand in the way of progress on this issue”, they added.
The leaders concluded that they now expected Kosovo and Serbia to swiftly agree on the details in the EU-facilitated Dialogue and that, in the absence of progress on normalisation of relations, both parties risk losing important opportunities.