The European Union has urged the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo to travel to Brussels for a high-level face-to-face meeting to hammer out a solution to the tuition crisis, after lamenting the lack of progress in resolving the dispute as the November 21 deadline approaches for Pristina to begin implementing the standard.
At a press conference in Brussels, EU Foreign Affairs spokesman Peter Stano announced that EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell has asked Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti to come to the EU capital to discuss the situation in northern Kosovo face to face.
«We have invited Vucic and Kurti to come to Brussels for a high-level meeting and we hope it will take place soon,» said Stano, who insisted on the need to find a «European solution» to the controversy that threatens to exacerbate tensions and that, according to Borrell, is the most dangerous crisis in a decade in Kosovo.
«The objective is to discuss with them a way out and we hope that they can come soon to Brussels to deal with the existing problems before the 21st and not after,» said the foreign affairs spokesman of the bloc.
The EU puts the focus on reaching an agreement between Belgrade and Pristina before November 21, the deadline given by the Kosovar authorities to start fining those who violate the controversial rule to impose Kosovar license plates on Serbian communities. «We cannot reach this date without an agreement or we will be on the brink of a dangerous situation,» the High Representative warned just a few days ago.
Meanwhile, the Serbian and Kosovo negotiating teams have held meetings in the last few days in the EU capital together with the EU special envoy for the negotiations, Miroslav Lajcak, although European sources indicate that no significant progress has been made.
The European diplomacy asks Pristina to show flexibility and inclusion with the norm and to commit itself to the creation of a community of Kosovo Serb municipalities, agreed in the Brussels Dialogue, while Belgrade demands from Belgrade the return of the Kosovo Serbs to the institutions after their resignation en bloc from positions as deputies, mayors and civil servants of all fields, which for Borrell means a «vacuum» that makes Kosovo face the abyss.
