EU Wants Agreements Signed in Brussels, Ohrid to Be Included in Negotiating Framework for Serbia

Serbia, Eu flags (BETAPHOTO/European Commission/Etienne Ansotte/MO)

The European Union (EU) will lodge a formal request to the European Commission (EC) that the commitments in the Agreement on the path to normalization between Kosovo and Serbia and the Implementation Annex to the Agreement be included in Serbia’s accession negotiations with the Union, as prescribed by these documents.

“The Council requests the Commission and the High Representative urgently propose to the Council, by the end of January 2024, the standards for Chapter 35 of the accession negotiations with Serbia,” says a draft version of the conclusions for the European Council’s summit in December, which Radio Free Europe had access to.

The conclusions will be adopted by the ministers of  European affairs at the next session of the General Affairs Council on Dec. 12, and will be confirmed by the European Council at the Summit which will take place on Dec. 14 and Dec. 15. Serbia and Kosovo reached the Agreement on the path to normalization in Brussels on Feb. 27. The Implementation Annex to the Agreement was prepared in Ohrid, on March 18, and specifies that the Agreement and the Annex should become an integral part of the Negotiating Framework for Serbia in the country’s EU accession process, and that failure to meet the commitments stemming from these two documents might have direct negative consequences for both parties’ accession to the EU.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said during a Dec. 1 visit to Dubai that he did not think that fully integrating the Ohrid agreement in negotiating Chapter 35 was possible, because the Union would thereby be closing its doors to Serbia. “I do not think it is possible for the Ohrid agreement to be fully integrated in negotiating Chapter 35, because it would close the doors to Serbia. If you say that Kosovo having a seat in the United Nations was part of Chapter 35, then you don’t want Serbia. I don’t believe it is possible, and I do not think that they will make such a decision,” Vucic said after participating in the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai.