EU: Preventing Escalation, Tensions on the Ground Focus of Urgent Vucic-Kurti Meeting

Negotiations between Aleksandar Vucic and Albin Kurti in Brussels (BetaPhoto/European Council)

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Premier Albin Kurti will take part in an urgent high-level meeting within the EU-mediated Belgrade-Pristina dialogue in Brussels on Nov. 21.

The focus of the urgent meeting will be finding a way out of the current crisis and avoiding any further escalation or tensions on the ground in relation to the issue of license plates and the return of Kosovo Serbs to Kosovo’s institutions, the European External Action Service said in a press release on Nov. 20.

The host of the meeting is EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy Josep Borrell, with support from EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak. The series of meetings will begin at 8 a.m. Borrell and Lajcak will first have separate talks with Vucic and Kurti, followed by a joint meeting, the press release from Brussels noted.

Vucic said ahead of the meeting that he was not optimistic and did not think anything could be done, but that he would go "so as not to give sufficient cause for Serbia to be accused of not wanting to do anything." He reiterated that Serbia's conditions were the founding of the Community of Serb Municipalities and the reversal of the decision on license plates. Pristina has announced that the owners of vehicles from northern Kosovo towns who still have Serbian-issued plates instead of the RKS (Republic of Kosovo) would be fined EUR150 from Nov. 21.