U.S. Official: Establishing Community of Serb Municipalities Should Have Been Insisted on More

Gabriel Escobar, Miroslav Lajcak, Aleksandar Vucic, Belgrade, Dec.14 2022 (BETAPHOTO/AMIR HAMZAGIC)

The outgoing U.S. envoy for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, said that the absence of Kosovo’s support for the European proposal for the Community of Serb Municipalities made it impossible for the United States to lobby for Kosovo’s integration processes, the Voice of America reported on May 17.

In an interview with the Washington-based non-governmental Atlantic Council, Escobar said that more insistence was needed on establishing the Community than efforts to bring the two sides closer together, criticizing Kosovo and Serbia for the absence of political will.

“It is necessary for Kosovo to understand and implement the Community of Serb Municipalities, which is the most difficult issue. It was therefore important for Kosovo to show that it was ready to deal with the problems of the Serb minority community. This is very important, and very difficult,” he said.

Escobar, who is leaving the post of deputy assistant secretary for overseeing policy towards the Western Balkans, added that Kosovo’s path toward the European Union was closely related to that.