Lajcak on Visit to Belgrade

Miroslav Lajcak (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC/MO)

In preparation for the upcoming meeting between the leaders of Serbia proper and Kosovo, set to take place in Ohrid on March 18, EU special envoy Miroslav Lajcak will be visiting Belgrade on March 13 and 14.

Lajcak, whom the Union has tasked with mediating the Belgrade-Pristina dialogue and other Western Balkan regional issues, is scheduled for a sit-down with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. Last week, the EU special representative paid a two-day visit to Pristina, where he held talks with Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and other local political actors.

The focus of these meetings is the road map for implementing the Agreement on the path to normalization between Kosovo and Serbia, which – according to EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borell – Vucic and Kurti accepted in Brussels on Feb. 27.

On March 9, Lajcak told a Pristina press conference that he had a constructive and very important discussion with Kurti regarding the implementation of the Agreement, adding that the meeting fulfilled his expectations and left him with “a clear understanding” of Kosovo’s expectations in turn.

That same day, Vucic announced that Lajcak would next be visiting Belgrade, where the two would spend “two days. . . attempting to find a path toward progress in normalizing relations” between the two sides.

According to the Nova media house, while in Belgrade, Lajcak will also confer with representatives of the opposition, as he did in Pristina, so as to hear their opinions on the normalization agreement. Invited to participate are the leaders of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Democratic Party, the Movement of Free Citizens, the People’s Party, the Don’t Let Belgrade D(r)own Movement and the Together party.

The upcoming Ohrid negotiations will be hosted and mediated by Borell, with the talk centred on finalizing the Implementation Annex of the normalization proposal. The report on the Ohrid meeting will be discussed at the March 23-24 session of the Council of Europe.